Improving online communication
June 7, 2010
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Our answer to the question “Better websites or social media: a false dilemma?“, recently raised by Tony Lockett, is: better websites should be our first objective.
Social media are sometimes seen as a new panacea to improve the communication of the EU institutions. But, taking into account our current audience, what is the effective return on investment of using social media for us? Can we effectively reach our target audiences (beyond our current one) through social media? Are there other effective alternatives?
What is our current online audience?
Back to basics. Assessing your current audience is the baseline of your communication planning. In the online world, web analytics make this task really easy.
We (DG Information Society) tried to figure out what was our online audience and what was the degree of “stakeholderness” of our network of websites. We crossed different variables such as:
- from the point of view of the visitor: loyalty, country of origin, language spoken and network locations;
- from the point of view of the content: specific visited sections such as regulations, calls for tenders, etc.
We particularly focused on the criteria of loyalty, meaning the “returning visitors”. Statistically, it translates into regular traffic of returning visitors coming from easily identified traffic sources. We deduced that English-speaking Brussels-based returning visitors correspond more or less to stakeholders monitoring the publications of our institutions. We also discovered that the vast majority of our visitors are stakeholders. This might only apply to our DG and it is therefore not possible to generalize.
In order to increase our online visibility to our current audience, does it really make sense to invest in social media? Aren’t social media better fit for engaging on general subjects?
In any case, it seems that if our web content is not adapted to the general public, the general public is not interested in our policy and activities. And in both cases, the solution seems to focus on improving our web writing and search engine optimization skills. The use of social media would rather come as a “pierre de touche” when we have reached an effective online presence adapted to the general public. A product fit for purpose is certainly easier to sell.
Exploring tools to improve online communication
We tend to distinguish three core tools for improving online communication:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which can be defined as the process of increasing the number of qualified visits to the website via organic traffic over time.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which can be defined as the process of increasing the visibility of the website on search engine result pages immediately through the launch of a search marketing campaign.
- Social Media Optimization (SMO), which can be defined as the process of increasing the visibility of a website through the use of social media, namely Facebook and Twitter in our case.
Based on our experience, we can tell you that SEO and SEM provide cost-effective benefits.
- SEO, because an important number of our websites suffer from certain issues blocking their indexation in search engines. (The origin of this problem seems to lie with the lack of understanding of SEO by those who publish texts).
- SEM, because if timely implemented, a search marketing campaign can drive a qualified number of visitors to our websites.
More important, efforts put in SEO and SEM are measurable thanks to web analytics. In other words, it is really easy to measure their return on investment while the benefit of social media seems less quantifiable. A few examples:
- Regarding Facebook, can you really deduce that you have managed to raise awareness on a certain issue because you have reached 1,000 fans?
- Regarding Twitter, is the number of your followers a real indicator of your influence? In the context of our activities Twitter may be more useful for dissemination of short updates on specific issues (e.g. an event or emerging news in their field of interest) to an interested community of users.
Theorizing online communication priorities
If we had to define online communication priorities, we would suggest better understanding of our current audience to better respond to their needs through enhancing our web copywriting and SEO skills (as illustrated below).
This would mean a comprehensive training of communication officers and content publishers in order to improve the current web content. A valuable source on writing for the web is available online on Europa.
This article was written by Pierre-Antoine Rousseau and reviewed by José Pato.
European Commission, DG Information Society, S3 – Web TeamDG INFSO’s roaming presence on Facebook (Sea, Sun and SMS Fan Page)
DG INFSO’s presence on Twitter to promote the event ICT 2010
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June 7th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
One related problem that is not easy to solve is: how to prepare info so that it is usable for first time visitors AND regular visitors?
This is especially interesting as from tools like Google Analytics we see that many web pages today are visited by first-time, one-time visitors. They normally make 50% of all visits.
June 8th, 2010 at 11:19 am
Thanks Stefan for your comment.
Indeed, that’s an interesting question. I guess we need fresh and up-to-date quality content to retain both new and regular visitors. As a general, as Matt Cutts says, what you need to rank higher in search engines and retain the visitors is a great content that can serve as reference.
PS: By the way, I applied to be an Editor of the Blogging Portal. Any news about that?
June 8th, 2010 at 5:01 pm
It’s good to see a serious debate about social media’s place in the mix of EU communication starting here.
The institutions need great websites, of course. They must continue to serve their core audiences and at the same time develop to cater much better than they currently do for the general public. But is there really a danger that DGs will focus on social media at the expense of their websites? It seems much more likely that they will ignore social media altogether ‘until we’ve fixed the site’. And that would be just as much of a mistake, I believe. In practice, the two need to be developed in parallel as part of an integrated online communication strategy – exactly as DG INFSO itself has been doing.
Let’s consider the ways in which a simple social media presence can contribute to an existing web strategy:
Depending on the subject matter, announcing new web content on Facebook or Twitter offers an additional service to your existing audience. It gives them another way (alongside e-alerts and RSS feeds) to get immediate access to your new content.
It also gives them an easy way to act as multipliers, forwarding or reposting links to your content to their own online circles when they judge it to be relevant. This selective advocacy is a great way to attract new visitors. (The number of your Twitter followers is of course a very poor proxy for ROI, but click-throughs to the Bit.ly URLs in your tweets is a real measure.)
Third, social media don’t just provide a new channel, they also provide a back-channel. Web analytics (sadly underused by most DGs) are a key way to achieve “better understanding of our current audience”. But direct feedback from interested stakeholders, which it is easy to attract via Facebook and Twitter, is another very rich source of insight to feed into the web development cycle.
And just this morning I learned (on Twitter) that the Commission has launched a closed, internal Twitter-like social platform. It’s something I have frequently suggested. Hooray!
June 8th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Simon, it wasn’t “The Commission”, I just started it because I saw Yammer and thought it could be useful!!
June 9th, 2010 at 10:14 am
The best way for a DG-style site to both address first-time visitors and keep the returning stakeholders satisfied is probably audience segmentation.
A few years back, for example, I suggested each site have both a clearly marked “Newcomers’ Guide” and a highly functional newsroom (for return visitors).
Newcomers’ guides, of course, can be easily promoted via social media whenever one sees a conversation in a relevant subject where the EU has a role to play which is not properly understood by those in the conversation.
It’s pretty much painless engagement. It also offers a way around Simon’s (well observed) issue, as one does not have to get ALL aspects of the site right before beginning with social media outreach, just the Newcomers’ Guide.
Having said that, I still think all parts of a site have to reach a minimum standard before resources are spent promoting them via social media, as explored in Tony’s post.
PS People in the EC are aware of Yammer’s business model, right?
June 9th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
It is free to use for employees, but if a company/organisation wants to claim their network and get administrative tools to remove messages and users, set password policies, or set IP ranges for who can use it[, they pay]. (http://techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/yammer-launches-at-tc50-twitter-for-companies/)
As Dick said, some of us (the Mavericks) are trying it out. I know that one of our colleagues has sent out a tweet about it, but it has not been centrally coordinated by “the EC”.
//Anne
June 9th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Yeah, I know how Yammer works. An ex-colleague explained it to me a year ago like this, and he was little less neutral than techcrunch:
1) individual employees start using it, and invite fellow employees in, using the free model
2) it gains traction – more and more people use it inside the firewall
3) eventually it becomes part of the furniture, without IT ever knowing about it
4) then Mordac, the Preventer of Information Services, notices it. He is not happy (Google Mordac+Dilbert
5) to make him and keep the users happy, the company has to take out a premium account. $3/user/month.
For a mid-sized company, it quickly added up. My ex-colleague was not happy. So it’s clever. But a bit immoral.
June 14th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Another issues
a) TV on mobile phones : in the EU you have an open standard system, but in the USA and Latin America , etc., there are none, and in the USA they are pushing a proprietary system from Qualcomm ( amazing when we consider this company has a lot of unanswered questions about their control of patents on CDMA while advising the USA Military in San Diego , Ca. USA in the mid -90’s and because the USA Military was left with no technology while Qualcomm ended up with everything under its name ! , you can figure the move ….) . One solution is T-Mobile ( from D.Telekom ) to offer free digital – analog over the air television in the USA and other markets and compatible with the EU so that we all can see them all everywhere , why are they not doing it ? is it because Blackstone controls 5 % of the stock and the Board ? why ? what will the EU do ?
The whole world should be able to get free digital -analog TV over their mobile phones, everyone !, A FREE MEDIA IS A FUNDAMENTAL COMPONENT OF DEMOCRACY AND THE RULE OF LAW , but where are the political leaders ? where ?
b) In my opinion, facebook and myspace are an abuse of private information, a scam for children and others.
c) why they closed down the EU Debates? who did it ?
June 15th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Dear Financialtools1,
We will pass on your question a to our colleagues of Information Society and hope to give you their reply at reasonably short notice.
With regard to question b, users have shown their concerns with regard to privacy. They voiced it clearly when, for example Facebook, didn’t respect privacy the way they should. And Facebook did change its privacy policy under this public pressure. Also, we cannot expect that only the regulator have to take action, people also have to inform themselves about the privacy policy of each social media tool and they’ll see that one can actually use them more privately.
With regard to Debate Europe. Debate Europe fulfilled its task as a platform for a general reflexion and discussion about the future of Europe.
However, we believe that interacting with citizens could be done more effectively with new tools and other platforms. We have not yet decided which tools and platforms we will use. This blog is one way to find that out.
June 16th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
Dear Financialtools1,
Regarding your question on mobile telecommunications in the EU, please find the answer from one of our specialists at DG INFSO:
Thank you very much for your comments. As you know the European Commission has been supporting the development of mobile TV technology by promoting international cooperation in research, development and standardization for digital television. Promoting a consensus around a common standard for Mobile TV is a key element to make mobile broadcasting a success and to set the conditions for the creation of a true internal market for Mobile TV. EU-funded research has been instrumental in developing and validating the digital video broadcasting (DVB) standards, which has led to the mobile broadcasting standard DVB-H.
Currently, DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds) is the strongest contender, with successful commercial launches and trials in 19 European countries, and increasingly worldwide. Its use for mobile TV services is officially being encouraged by the Commission in all 27 Member States. About 40 DVB-H pilot networks have been implemented for trials all over the world, including the US and Asia. If you want to read more about mobile TV policy, you can check out the following link :
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/ecomm/current/broadcasting/mobile_tv/index_en.htm
June 21st, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Thank you all very much for your answers and information.
1) In the issues about privacy , regulators and standards there is one fact that unites all these problems going forward : are consumers going to have options about video on the Internet ? for the upload of your own video , for your own products or services as well as the download of videos , are consumers going to get stuck with only Flash ? … which is proprietary from Adobe, or are consumers going to get the natural choice of the web : HTML5 video ? or any other ? I love many products from Adobe like Photoshop , Illustrator and others, but when it comes to video the idea that Flash will be the only choice and one day Adobe may say : ” Guess what customers, you need to pay a fee for the upgrade and tools for Adobe , pay-up or no video…” it’s scary to put it mildly , and after all the efforts since the early 90’s to keep HTML open and free, to see now a whole generation of young users that do not care about their own rights and give-up the World Wide Web to proprietary products like Flash is very sad, so will the EU leaders sell-out like others in Washington D.C. that have not say a word ? , or will they stand up for the consumers , taxpayers and choices ? will it be free markets or monopoly ?
2) Software programs that make sure private information or wrong information do not get around the web can be very important , let’s hope some kids will come up with smart solutions.
3) Internet safe stock trading for adults ( and easy ) can be a good way to put savings to buy sovereign bonds and secure local economies, will the EU help its own taxpayers and workers do it easily and safe ? is there a place to learn more about investing in the EU debt and bonds ?