The Tendo View

If social media channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and others are can’t-miss parties for marketers, then what to make of the dishes piling up in the kitchen sink and the thick coating of dust on the counters back home? Venturing off to schmooze and mingle is all well and good, marketers, but not if it comes at the cost of neglecting home. And by home, we mean your company’s website.

Think of bees returning to the hive for the important business of, well, doing whatever bees do, or the notion that all roads lead to Rome. The point is that any good social media deployment strategy will be based on a hub-and-spokes model, and those spokes all lead back to a central hub: your Web page.

After all, it is on your corporate Web page that you’ll be able to best see results in the form of conversions (downloads of and sign-ups for newsletters, white papers, and product data sheets) and other forms of behavior that support continuing an enduring relationship.

Everyone enjoys getting a tweet or a “like” on Facebook, but nothing says “let’s do business” like clicking, “I want to learn more about your products and services.” 

So, if your pad is a sty and the cleaning lady hasn’t been around for a while, here are some pointers:

• Keep it current. Check for outdated blog posts, old events, and past-the-sell-by dates on product and service offerings. If content on your site is out of date, fix it stat.
• Enable visitor tracking. Whether you use cookies, tracking pixels, or simple Google analytics, make sure your data tracking is up and working.
• Start a dialogue. If you haven’t already built a sandbox for peer-to-peer exchanges on your home turf, consider adding this in the form of a forum or message board and seeding it with relevant points of discussion.

Once you’ve spruced the place up a bit, by all means make your rounds on the social media circuit. Just remember, the after party is always at your place.