I saw this two page ad in The Province on the weekend explaining their new look.

If it takes you TWO full pages complete with boxes, diagrams and pointers to explain your website redesign to people, it’s TOO complicated.

Google’s website has 28 words. 

I’m not saying your site needs to be that brief, but using Google’s site design and approach as a starting point is a good place to begin your planning.

Laying out a double page gatefold to explain your website redesign is perhaps the last place you’d like to find yourself.

catch the buzz … pass it on.

But at the same time, you need to realize your audience is smart, sophisticated and capable of some pretty cool stuff.

Are you a part of the momversation?

catch the buzz .. pass it on

This is vital for not only old media, but any company trying to succeed in the modern era.  No longer are people talking about you behind your back, whispering about their negative experiences at cocktail parties.  Bouquets and bombs when it comes to customer service and brand opinion are now aired publicly with Facebook groups, blogs, message boards and live flow conversations on Twitter.

This past weekend Motrin had a major brandjack when the conversation about their new ad exploded into a huge negative backlash.  The conversation was left unchecked for the entire weekend and nothing but hate, anger and vitriol spread amongst the active online community.

Motrin tried to reach into new media to spread a message, but instead of monitoring and nurturing it – they just planted the seed and left.  Weeds grew and nobody knew, until Monday.

Starbucks goes about things a little differently.

They monitor the conversation, they participate in the community, they diffuse situations before they erupt.

This morning I tweeted about a negative experience at my local Starbucks.  Double cupping was the default practice.

Within 2 hours I had received a tweet back from @MyStarbucksIdea responding to the situation.

If your radio station doesn’t have a twitter account, fine.  If your radio station doesn’t have a facebook page, fine.  If you’re not active in the social media conversation, that’s fine, but you’ve got to monitor the conversation others are having about your brand.

Go to Google, set up a Google Alert for keywords associated with your brand.

Go to Twitter Search and set up an RSS feed associated with your brand.

Not participating in the online conversation is a problem, not listening to the online conversation is a fatal flaw.

catch the buzz … pass it on.

If you’re a newspaper, you move to the web.  If you’re a radio station, you add video.  If you’re a television station, you had blogs.  You become multi-dimensional and engage your audience in participatory media.

Gary Vaynerchuk nails it.

Comme toujours.

catch the buzz … pass it on

Do you recognize how vastly different those two sentences are? Those two simple sentences hold all the answers to all the problems old media, and old companies, have when it comes to new media.  You can’t preach to your consumers, you have to inspire them.

Radio station websites need to not only have the recent chart and concert listings, it needs to have a two way dialogue between host and listener.

Blogs are VITAL for the survival of the radio station brand, but they need to be a two way street.  Just shouting out content at the listeners, without a way for them to interact is like a radio station without a request line.

Whether or not you actually take requests is not the point, the listener needs to feel like they’re engaged in the process and have ownership of the station.  Blogs and the ability to interact with the audience using new media works the same way.

catch the buzz… pass it on.

Jeff Jarvis is a big proponent of the link economy.

All content must be transparent: open on the web with permanent links so it can receive links. It’s not content until it’s linked.

[BuzzMachine]

He’s campaigning for old media to tear down it’s walled garden of content, and participate in the global market of crediting sources, linking to deeper coverage and providing some sort of path for readers to follow a story.

The problem is, old media is very protective of it’s content.  They spend the resources to dig the stories and they don’t want to provide any means for people to leave.

Okay, I “kind of” understand why they would be protective of their content. I think it’s silly, but I “get” why they might think it is prudent behaviour.

The thing I can’t understand, however, is why an old media site wouldn’t want to link within itself.

I subscribe to a few feeds from The Vancouver Sun.  One of them lists news stories they will be following throughout the day and points to links within their site where more information can be found.  I say “points to links” but it doesnt actually activate those links.  Here’s an entry from earlier this week.

See the trailer for one day only at vancouversun.com under Editor’s Picks

[Vancouver Sun]

That is on the VancouverSun.com webpage, but it is merely a word-for-word transcription of what appears in the print edition, complete with lack of active linking.

Kirk Lapointe, Managing Editor of the Vancouver Sun acknowledges they have challenges in moving to the link economy.

“Part of our challenge is the automated nature of our own feeds from our services,” he said in a Twitter message. “We’re asserting more local control in a few weeks.”

Babies roll over before they crawl.  Crawl before they walk.  Walk before they run.

Old media is online.  I guess that would be the equivalent of rolling over.  They still have a long way to go before they’re running with the rest of the pack.

catch the buzz… pass it on.

They build a fortress around their content. The only links allowed keep visitors within the garden through the nav bar, or take them off to buy soap and shampoo through sponsors. This is no way to build loyalty, trust or respect from your audience.

For more on this concept, check out the post Getting Credit for Word of Mouth.

catch the buzz … pass it on.

Instead of taking your content creation budget from programming, and trying to recoup it by monetizing the content, take the money from marketing.

Your results will be then measured by the amount of goodwill and brand loyalty and awareness you create, as opposed to the number of clicks you get.

catch the buzz … pass it on.

In other words, 1/3 of Canadian internet users are easily found in one place.

Facebook is more than just a social network, a place to find old school friends.  For many it has become the internet.  There is no need to go to any other page than Facebook.

On Facebook they can share photos.  They can instant message.  They can interact and comment on each other’s posts and status.  They can join groups and manage calendars for events.  They check email. They can read news and posted links from friends.

Think about it.

Facebook = Flickr = AIM = Twitter = Blogs = Forums = iCal = Email = RSS.

In other words, Facebook = Internet.

It’s great to be on the cutting edge, finding out about Twitter and blogs and vlogs and all sorts of social media tools, as Stephen Jagger discusses with the Vancouver Sun, but if you don’t stop and realize that the critical mass of internet users are just discovering Facebook and all that it can do, you’re missing the biggest piece of the pie.

People want the internet (and computers) to be like a toaster.  They want it to be easy to understand and they want it to “just work.”

That’s the angle Apple is taking with marketing their computers.  They just work. They’re easy. Not complicated.  In other words, Mac = Toaster.

Facebook works the same way.  Once you’re in that world, there is a huge community surrounding you with everything you need.  Why go to Flickr to share photos, when you can get them in your Facebook Feed?  Why go to Twitter to update your status, when the status is right there on Facebook?

Those deeply involved in social media will understand why Flickr is better than Facebook and why Twitter is better than Facebook, but the mass audience doesn’t have the time, energy or desire to seek that information out.

They want things to be easy, they want them to work.

For those in broadcasting, we can’t afford to get niche.  We need to find where the broad spectrum of users live, and hit them there.

For 8.5 Million Canadians, that’s Facebook.

catch the buzz … pass it on.

The radio station I work at, 95 Crave, is doing the same thing today. 

We are live at a mall doing a Madonnathon dance contest for Madonna tickets.  Radio stations do live, on site events all the time.  Usually to a small crowd. However, this event is being streamed online with a camera hooked in to a laptop over Ustream.

Your radio station probably already has a video camera. It already has a laptop.  Ustream is free.

A one dimensional event can become multimedia, and experienced by virtually your entire audience.

catch the buzz … pass it on.