Social media marketing | Liz Hover's Diary of a Web Gal

I was thinking that Diary of a Web Gal could have been done like Bridget Jones’ Diary.

Should Miss Gal be like Miss Jones?

Emails sent: Zillions
Emails received: Enough
Websites surfed: Too many
Hours spent in front of the computer: More than I will ever admit to
Butt size increase as a result: Not telling

I’ve come to realise that this blog is essentially my confessions and lifestyle. So, shush, don’t tell anyone what I’ve been up to. Ok?

Yesterday I spent pretty much the entire day going through the new website using the content management system. I’m not done yet.

Spotted lots more things which need fixing – wrote 10 pages of notes for our web folks. Gee, bet they’ll be chuffed about that!

There are some silly things like not being able to create a new blog post yet I can create a new blog category. Click to comment on a post or post a new comment and the screen goes blank…

We have a member area which right now doesn’t allow people to view all members. This features is supposed to be a networking tool. No point if you can’t see the other members.

Then there’s style stuff like use of capitalisation and titles.

The list goes on. I’ll continue to test today and Friday and probably over the weekend before typing up my list of lovely observations for the web folks.

Today I got my paws on the much-talked-about content management system.

This week I’m testing it out. This is the second time I’ve tested it. “Hmmm… what is this ‘testing’ you talk of Web Gal?”

A content management system does as its name implies: it helps to manage the content on your website. If you have a blog, it’s a bit like a glorified version of blog posting. The content management system (or CMS as it’s often referred to) allows me to organise words and images and make them look good on my website. I can use the CMS to create a new menu item or delete one. I can move things around. It cuts out the need for someone who knows code. (What is code? It’s the crazy algebraic-like stuff that tech people use to make websites. By some freak of technology the code translates into glorious design and wonderment on a website. It’s normally called HTML code.) I don’t know much about code – a little, but not enough.

CMS is great for me and companies like the one I work for because it means lots of people – under guidance – can update web pages. I stress under guidance because you don’t want a bunch of people within your company getting their dirty mits on the website and chucking the style guide out the window and… well… messing things up. Which is why you have people like me who can oversee and guide people through this process.

Anyway, I got my own dirty mits on the CMS today and found all manner of things that need fixing.

For example, our website offers users a profile page. Users can upload a photo of themselves (like Facebook, but not like Facebook). Armed with my own photo I was ready to click a button that said ‘Upload photo’ alas no such button could be found. Apparently it was enough to just click ‘Save,’ and then my photo appeared. Not good enough for sometimes stupid people like moi. I need to action something to know it’s working.

There are many more small things like this that need fixing before I turn over the testing to the wider staff team. (WARNING: moan approaching. I spent half an hour formatting a blog posting for our new website only to save it and have it disappear into the blogosphere). So I hope you understand why I need things fixed before letting others use this system.

Before becoming a web gal, I was a publicist. As I read more and more great stuff about marketing and the internet, I come across stuff that still appeals to the publicist in me.

In particular, I like straight talking. I try to keep things clear and simple. As far as I’m concerned it’s no different in the world of work. Yes, you might be Mr or Mrs Big and Clever Boss Person who gobbles up and spews out jargon like there’s no tomorrow but really what everyone likes is straight talking. Reading something that makes sense.

Over at David Meerman Scott’s blog Web Ink Now, I just found a beautiful post about news release goobledygook.

I appeal to all publicists when I say, ‘Please pay attention to this stuff.’ Publicists: help ban these useless phrases. Don’t perpetuate them.

The same thing applies to website copy.

Sometimes we’re fighting an uphill battle with management who argue that we have to use certain phrases because our industry will understand them. I argue the opposite. Steven Krug says in his brilliant book Don’t Make Me Think that even your grandma should be able to understand what you put on your website. While it’s hard to do, we should all try to work towards making this a reality. No one wants to read jargon.

If you’re launching a new website that has tight timelines, make sure you manage users’ expectations. One way to do this is to launch your site in beta. Lots of people do this including Google, CNN and Microsoft.

There’s a great article on One Degree. The author (who I think is Clay Mitchell) says, “The beta theme is a potentially powerful tool for online marketers because it acts as a cue to website visitors. Basically it indicates that, while a website is designed to provide a certain type of experience, its present version may not be able to satisfy visitors’ expectations. As with many websites in development, visitors may encounter functionality problems, navigational issues, missing tools, and a whole range of possibilities.”

Today in one of our website meetings we agreed to a longer ’soft launch’ period and a ‘hard launch’ in beta. (For those that don’t know, a soft launch is limited and may include a small group. A hard launch includes the masses.)

It was important that my work folks understand we cannot launch a site and expect that site to work perfectly when we’ve only tested on, say, 300 people. We will never know if it works perfectly until we have a large number (meaning: the regular visitors to our current site).

There is a vast difference. A small number of users on your site in its early incarnation may unearth some problems. A large group of users will allow you to see the site being used on a routine basis.

Take Oprah Winfrey. She’s a chick with a lot of cash. She did a webcast and her site, struggling with the strain of 800,000+ users, crashed. This article from the Huffington Post says that the media empire queen had employed the best dudes in the business to put together and execute her webcast. Importantly the article also says how was Oprah to know the site would crash? Until she had 800,000 hungry fans rushing to hear the word of Winfrey (i.e. putting the site to use under routine conditions) it’s hard to predict what will go wrong.

I just found a website made for me: One Degree.

They offer the inside scoop on digital marketing and social media for, get this, Canadian marketers. I am in website heaven.

[Update: May 14, 2009 - I now tweet for One Degree on Twitter.]