A presentation that looks over some of the recent crop of social engagement sites . It asks the question - do you really need a standard site anyway and what purpose does it serve?

1. What’s your website
good for again?

2. The increasingly social nature of the
web: The growth in ‘member communities’ and From Nielsen (Apr 2009)
online video outstrips that of web search, email

3. "They (web site owners) still feel that their site is
interesting and special and people will be happy
about what they are throwing at them."
From the other Nielsen (that’s usability ‘expert’ Jakob,
not the metrics company)

4. “Participatory behavior
leads to better interactions
between people, brands,
businesses etc. So the real
question is—are you
designing for participation?
Your answer should be, yes.
If your Website doesn't do
that, kill it. Then bring it
back to life into something
that does.”
“Kill your website”? (David Armano)

5. What happened when
our website was
replaced with a
holding page Nov 08 -
Jan 09? Not much
1 - New business leads carried on
at the same pace
2 - Traffic defaulted to the blog
‘News from the Herd’ and other
social sites
3 - We’ve since replaced the
previous flash based site with
something more no frills and built on
wordpress

6. Here’s some they prepared earlier - most social
brand sites so far are agency sites, but not exclusively so

7. The top left hand box, often
the default for this type of site
to serve up the normal brand
info
The ‘pioneer’ - from Ad Agency, Modernista, the site rotates
between Google search and several platforms

8. The barbarian group is probably my favorite agency
Website to date. They recently overhauled their
overproduced, low value site to something that is
accessible, easy to navigate, filled with value added
content and displays the thoughts of their people
front and center. On the spectrum of Website to
blog, it leans more heavily to the latter
David Armano, Logic & Emotion
The Barbarian Group

9. “Rather than controlling what appears on the
website there is an openness associated with
the site. It doesn’t matter whether the
information is good or bad, it appears. Nice
focus for a company to be honest, particularly
in this economic environment.”
Dominique Hind
Recently - Crispin, Porter & Bogusky

10. “It's got a great storytelling video, but then
relies on the community for content.
“So, the site maps in comments from the
Facebook page; pulls in Tweets with a certain
hashtag; grabs photos from Flickr, etc. Super
simple show and tell with a whole campus of
feedback.”
Leigh Householder (Advergirl)
Capital University - US ‘Will You’

11. The best non agency example - Skittles

12. Skittles: Hit or miss?
• In the 24 hours after launch Skittles had 389 Google News mentions,
including A-List media such as the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal
• 4000+ bloggers talked about it. When would bloggers normally talk about
sugary snacks?
• We can argue about the exact execution, but the fact is Skittles did
something 99% of brands would run a mile from and understood - people by
and large don’t care about your carefully crafted brand info

13. And a completely different approach, interactive YouTube video from Boone Oakley
Did it work? It’s got 410k views, how many agency websites manage that?

14. Or you could take your site completely offline
(Happy Soldiers, Sydney)

15. The common
thread?
• A willingness to try something different
• An understanding that there is plenty to
occupy people online socially: When was the
last time you visited a brand website for fun?
• An appreciation that increasingly you are, a
mirror of what people are saying about you
• A commitment to openness, recognising that
not everything said about you will be
completely positive
• Throwing the brand bible out the window
(partially!) and being willing to lose more
control over your brand offline than online

16. "I'm looking at the work of a potential non-profit client now. They have a
fine website: recently redesigned, it has intuitive navigation, good e-
commerce and a design that projects elegance.
"Yet despite all this, the website itself feels oddly static.
"With the rise of the real-time update streams being popularized by
Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed, users are becoming accustomed to a
constantly-changing flow of pictures, videos and new snippets."
Martin Kelley, Writing on O’Reilly
Finally - all a bit of a publicity Partially yes, but that doesn’t make it any less
relevant
seeking gimmick?

17. Thank you!
• Twitter - @dirkthecow
• Blog - http://
www.thisisherd.com
• Delicious - dirkthecow
• Netvibes - dirkthecow
• FriendFeed - thisiscow
• Agency site - thisiscow.com

18. Photo credits
• Quinn Anya - http://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/
• Hirsute Ursus - http://www.flickr.com/photos/hirsuteursus/
• Cronfeld - http://www.flickr.com/photos/haurum/
• Wallyg - http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/
• Laura Bell - http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurabell/
• Eay - http://www.flickr.com/photos/eay/