Welcome to the Kleber & Associates blog! Through A Customer’s Eyes: Change Your Online Strategy in 18 Minutes Here’s the latest.
Remember our discussion of the when-not-if mentality in social media? In case you missed it, the article talked about adapting your social media strategy at a moment’s notice based on current trends and your audience’s preferences. In that spirit, I believe that a social media strategy is not a static document… it is a dynamic mindset. It’s not a plan that you dust off once a year and tweak slightly. Your online action plan should be flexible, adaptable and responsive.
To avoid getting stuck in a rut and to keep your mind thinking dynamically about your (or your brand’s) online presence, here are 4 steps to help you continually adapt your online strategy in 18 minutes.
1. Be a customer.
Select a company that you regularly do business with as a customer. Spend one minute on its website. Why? That’s how long the average person will stay on one website. After the one minute, take another minute and make some notes for yourself. What do you remember? What caught your eye? Was it easy to navigate? At the end of one minute, did you want to keep surfing or were you ready to leave?
Total time: 2 minutes
2. Be a social customer.
Decide which two social networks you, personally, are most active on (not for business purposes, these should be your personal profiles where you share information about you). Pick a company that you regularly do business with as a customer; this should be a different company than used in step one. Search for the company on the two social networks. Spend one minute on each network and look at the search results. What do you find? Does the company have a profile? What are people saying about it? What kind of content is the company producing? Again, write notes on your observations for one minute.
Total time: 3 minutes
3. Be a searching customer.
Pick your favorite search engine. Type in the name of a third company that you do business with. Read the title and description of each of the top 10 search results. Take one minute and make notes on what these 10 search results tell you, as a customer, about the company.
Total time: 2 minutes
4. Be a mobile customer.
Take out the mobile device you use most often. Select yet another company that you frequently patronize and visit its website on your mobile device. Spend one minute browsing. Are you taken to a mobile site? Is the site designed responsively? Are you prompted to download an app? What kind of information is available? Does the site load quickly or is your minute spent waiting to view a single page? Again, write one minute worth of notes.
Total time: 2 minutes
Repeat these four steps, this time using four of your brand’s competitors.
Now review your notes. What did you see that wowed you? What made you cringe? Open your company’s website and social networking pages. How can you make your online presence better using your notes from this exercise? What would you, the customer, want to see changed?
Keeping up with changes in online communication is a daunting task. Remember: it’s a continual process. Try to go through this exercise often because constant monitoring of the landscape will help you stay relevant.
Did you find something unexpected in your 18 minute search of online communication? Share it with us below!
