So many businesses find themselves hopelessly behind in establishing and developing their web-based and overall digital presences. Given the countless web template apps, like Squarespace, Wix and Wordpress, that promise site development in the scope of hours, not months, it might be assumed that every business would be updating its site content, moment by moment. Instead, most businesses are months, if not years behind in the build-out of their digital presence.
When asked, business heads will blame this on cost, or on the time investment, on the fear of distraction, or on the question of the costs and benefits derived from building a digital strategy. In a rare few instances, the decision to ignore the modern world may be the right one, but for the vast majority of businesses, this stance is deeply wrong. So, why are most businesses so far behind in this important part of their overall strategy?
To understand the answer, it is first necessary to understand what a website actually represents. It is not just a storefront, a marketing tool, or, worst of all, a placeholder on the Web. In reality, a website is essentially a giant, public business org chart. It reveals to the world how the company is structured, how it operates, how deep its bench is, how extensive its products and services are.
Conventionally, the internal structure of a business was only exposed to the people who went to work there each day. Potential customers had a very hard time looking deeper, before committing to a company's products or services. A website throws back the curtain. As a company is asked (usually by some well-intentioned website developer) to provide its policies in clear language, as it is challenged to describe its services as a value proposition, as it publicly acknowledges its ability (or inability) to service customer needs, and as it reveals its organizational philosophy through a seemingly simple menu bar, many business heads come to realize they are much less comfortable with the skeletons in their corporate closet than previously considered.
It becomes quickly apparent that building a website is actually the construction of a giant, globally-distributed mirror on the enterprise. When website developers fail to build the sites that companies imagine themselves worthy of, the developer is usually faulted. It is much more often the case that the mirror built by the developer is simply revealing the less attractive truths about the business.
Thus, it requires courage to build a digital presence. It requires a shifting of stance, from guardedness, to openness; from rigidity, to adaptability; from telling, to listening. This makes it fairly easy to understand why so many businesses find themselves so far behind. Building a website is not building a website; it is taking a hard look at one's business, taking ownership of its weaknesses and shortcomings, and committing to improving products, service and operations to meet the high-minded pronouncements that a public-facing website demands. It takes nothing less than the willingness to look in the mirror.
So, how to achieve and apply this transition in thinking? The short answer: follow the youth. Our youth have lived their entire lives in the screen-glow of social media. They have posted, tweeted, memed, shared and liked every meal consumed, outfit worn, heart broken, and awkward moment experienced, from the moment of consciousness. There are many reasons to worry about the possible safety risks inherent in this activity, and about the possible psychological consequences of such transparency, but there are also genuinely positive lessons to be learned here.
This is a transparent generation; there exists no room for skeletons or closets, no space for racism, sexism, bigotry, favoritism, or lies. The youth may be applying photo filters in the hope of covering self-perceived flaws, but this hasn't slowed the pace of their posts, or the stark forthrightness of their stances and positions. It must also be acknowledged that social media is a genie unlikely to return to the bottle. We will need to find solutions to address the dangers inherent in young people posting to social media, but we will not soon be turning away from the positive effects of openness.
Study the posts of young influencers, artisans, boutique sellers, and other micro-businesses, and you will find genuine philosophical, social and political connection between influencers and their audiences, and between buyers and sellers. These are relationships founded on genuine appreciation, respect and commitment. These are ongoing, multi-transaction relationships.
What will this look like for your business? It will mean listening to your customers' evolving wants and needs. It will mean partnering in their business goals. It will mean publicly fessing up to errors and accidents, and publicly fixing mistakes. Sometimes, this will mean accepting losses; more often, though, it will mean forging a more honest and committed relationship with your customers.
There are countless other ways that your new business philosophy can take form. You could provide micro-loans to customers, as an investment in their businesses; you might feature their work to your other customers through your social media platforms; you might expand your products or services to meet their unique needs, even when it isn't in your business' immediate interest; you might reciprocally send business to your customers; you might involve your business in local events, organizations, volunteerism or philanthropy. Regardless, you will also unabashedly share these activities with your customers, as the reward for genuine engagement is not solely personal satisfaction, but the business and economic commitments that form between members in like-minded community, as well.
It also follows that development and maintenance of a web or digital media presence should be led by a person with much broader skills than graphic design and programming expertise, but by someone who is, as well, a talented project manager, product manager, operations manager, customer service coordinator, media strategist, financial analyst, and contract lawyer. Beyond these specialized roles, the right developer must also hold deep, relevant expertise in the client's field of activity.
Clearly, this is an impossible role to fill, thus demonstrating that the entire organization must be actively engaged in support of the company's web presence, providing timely content, expertise, review, comment, correction and consistent updates for the business' website to be successfully launched and maintained.
A website is essentially a giant, public business org chart. It reveals to the world how the company is structured, how it operates, how deep its bench is, how extensive its products and services are.