A website is not a flyer : learn to communicate online

Web strategy

Each medium to its own peculiarities and constraints. When you own your company, we often believe that creating one message and spreading it across all mediums in the same manner is the right answer, it saves time, right! Keeping the same message is usually a good idea, but you can’t expect to say it the same way every time. A TV ad can’t be the same as a radio ad, right? Well it is the same for your website and a flyer or poster. The site is a complete environment, while the brochure is static. Don’t think you can take the same text and copy / paste into your site!

Since a website is an interactive media, where the attention of the reader is often divided and where every word counts, you have to think your web strategy accordingly. You have to adapt your text or message for the web. Here are a few tips :

Use short paragraphs
Use bullet lists
Use action verbs
Keep sentences short and straightforward
Avoid words that are long or too complex

By using these few tips, you’ll get a website with a content that straight to the point. Texts that are too long are often not read at all by the users. In fact, it’s better that you keep those for your flyers or annual reports that are for people who know your business already. Think of your website as a way to introduce yourself… It usually take 25% longer to read online than on paper!

Note that communicationg on the internet, particularly on a website or a blog, is different from communicating anywhere else, The critical point : You can react! A flyer is not interactive. The usual process of online communication is :

Write ⟶ Broadcast ⟶ Listen ⟶ React

Where paper communication ends, usually after Broadcast, online communications thrive! Since it’s possible to comment and interact publicly on your content, directly in the same page, it’ll be important for you to keep your eyes open. When someone says something about your website or one of your articles, whether it be on your website of a public forum, it’s important that you react accordingly and answer fast. Reputations are built and destroyed online each day! If you never answer a negative comment, for exemple, you won’t get a chance to defend yourself. Just one comment can be enough to give you a bad image for a consummer. I suggest that you create a Google alert with the name of your business or website. Then, each time someone publish something about you and Google indexes it, you will be notified and able to react accordingly. Don’t forget to thank people that are speaking about you in a good way too… a little thank you can go a long way in showing people about your brand’s policies!