Corporate Web site Irrelevance

There are a lot of conversations about the relevance of corporate Web sites today. Companies are constantly struggling to keep content current and relevant to their audiences. And they're right to do so. Content must be relevant if it is to be engaging to the visitor.

But while corporations have been focusing on making their Web sites more relevant, an entire movement has taken place on the Web that, in effect, has surrounded traditional Web sites and, quite unintentionally, made traditional sites significantly less relevant. What movement is this, you ask? Social media and networking sites.

Today, a corporate Web site, no matter how relevant and engaging, is still a corporate Web site. It is the Company speaking to the Customer. And just like advertising, customers tend to be a little suspicious of something published and edited by the Company.

But in the Social Media world, consumers are creating content. Consumers are blogging about their experiences with your company. Want to find out what they're saying? Then go to Google, click on More, scroll down to Blogs and click on it. Then enter your company name (within quotation marks, preferably) and see how many blog posts have been made about your company. I bet you'll be surprised.

To accompany the millions of blogs receiving posts each day, there is the ever-growing group of social networking sites, with Facebook leading the way on the consumer side of the business and Linked In taking top honors on the professional side. These sites are being frequented by more and more people looking to gain information about your company and products. And they'll find it — because it's out there to be found.

Consumers now have the power to tell the story they want to tell about your company, your products, your people, your competitors — your brand. And they're telling it every day.

Does it mean your well-honed Web site is irrelevant? No. It still plays an important role in your business and likely will for some time. But the truly engaging stories about your brand are being told in a hundred different types of sites on the Web that have nothing to do with your Web site. And once these stories arrive on the Web, they're there forever.

Which is why you should be focusing on your brand more than ever. You should be leading the social media charge for your company versus letting it simply grow organically without an intentional strategy. While it's impossible to control what millions of people may write about you and your brand, you can give them some guidance.

But most importantly, each and every day you must live up to your brand. If you do, then you'll survive and thrive in the world of social media. If you don't, then at some point, you will likely suffer at the hands of your customers. And it won't be pretty.