The acronyms? What are you talking about Chance? Well, lets see... UGC, UCC, CGM, SEO, SEM and it can goes on and on. Why so many acronyms and what could it all MEAN!!! Unless you are a HUGE brand that generates its own traffic and even still it could mean whether you get the traffic or optimal traffic to your site you need these. So you spent 6 months to a year on the site on a development server, you have ton of video and decided to go with a CDN ( another acronym...LOL) and now you think you will just launch?... and "IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME!". No, that unfortunately that is not how it works. Some of the coolest most creative and expensive sites I've produced and launched without the full support through the "acronyms", traffic was low even after "Site of The Day" awards on FWA and Communication Arts, the traffic went up and just right back down. You must utilize UGC methods and more to help to have constant flow of traffic, especially in a e comm situation.
Lets start slowly with this and begin with UGC... buzz acronym of the moment and its sidekicks, CGM and UCC...Its hard not to laugh because there are just so many its ridiculous. Ive seen so many weird looks on faces when I so quickly bust out with the "acronyms"... But they are important... So what do they stand for? Lets go to the mecca of UGC and see what they mean... Wikipedia. "User-generated content (UGC), also known as consumer-generated media (CGM) or user-created content (UCC), refers to various kinds of media content, publicly available, that are produced by end-users." Now you can go read the history and such out there later if you like, what does this have to do with my site? UGC is or can be integration with social networking like Blogs, Reviews i.e. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Blogspot, Wordpress etc... allowing content from those portals via API's, feeds, RSS, XML or the like and serve back to your site creating... User Generated Content. Another way to do this is integrate forum software into your site, (FYI this can be dangerous and can backfire, get knowledgable of this UGC thing... least you end having to turn it off, don't learn this the hard way!) UGC and forums can improve rankings and it's just fun for your users, it will take off quickly if set up and pushed correctly.
Another is to have users upload content like photos or video to your site (Dangerous as well must me monitored!!!). I mentioned CDN earlier, Content Delivery Network, you can stream your video or whole flash site if you want off of 1000's of servers each in the geographical location of the call of the content lets say video from a local server rather than a single server on site to which will possibly overload i.e. crash if too many request are requested. Let me put this into perspective, how many employee's will you have to hire to keep the users of the internet happy with content? What you are doing is reversing the method and letting the user make themselves happy on your site by allowing thm to engage with your brand. You use their content. Good example of how this works? In forums... realize every single topic is ranked by a search engine and then according to certain keywords the post and how many read that topic/post that are associated they are then ranked by the search engines behind that, ultimately leading users back to your forum and to your site. It's wonderful!
With the technical genius to which Google and some of the search engines are heading towards in ranking content, in search or the paid search options they offer UGC methods are a must due to the fact users love to converse with one another. The search engines utilizing new methods allows users to have more influence on websites and ad units more than ever. You must understand and be knowledgable on how to integrate your campaigns and sites into the Search Engines methods. Brands that have been ignoring their users or members have a slow leak... so to speak. You need to get into the mind of your users, allowing them to push UGC onto your site will allow this but you must engage and pay close attention to analytics. Think about what they might be saying about your brand or more importantly your "Clients" brand. Then decide how you want to engage, eventually someone will have to answer, be sure you engage in time to give an answer that allows for knowledge to be spread and not have to try to curve negativity towards the brand in any way. The Search Engines...they are changing... offering more tools and options, evolving as to how we work with the internet. Producer... you must engage, and have the knowledge to evolve as well so you can bring it to the table when needed and support those who surround you and to support the UGC = User= Content methodology this is your content bread and butter.
Just my two cents...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment