I had a telephone conversation with a fellow professional this morning about their new website (which I won’t share with you here for reasons which will become apparent).

The person concerned has invested in an attractive new site which has some very useful features, is approachable and demonstrates their experience well. The firm have also set up a facebook page and a twitter account which is engaging and shares useful information.

‘Is it working?’ I asked. ‘Well I think so,’ she replied.
‘Do you have google analytics on the site?’ I asked. No. No analytics at all to speak of. It has been a rush and the web guy is busy all the time.

The problem with this is that this person doesn’t know if her social media activities are working, and she won’t until she makes her website perform the job it should be doing. That job is to generate more business for her.

So I thought I would post here 5 steps to make sure you have your website working for you as part of your social media strategy.

1. Be in the right places

Make sure you are in the online places that your customers and advocates use. Just as with choosing the right places to network, you don’t want to waste time in the wrong breakfast meeting. Do some research and make sure you can find out where they are, and make sure you’re there too. For professional people, Linkedin is an obvious place, but Twitter also has a growing user base in construction, for example. Go and have a look for your customers. Where do they hang out?

2. Be googlable for your terms as well as your name

The obvious online place everyone uses is Google. Make sure that people who do search for you can find you via google. You’d be surprised how many people can’t quite remember the name of that architect but they know they have an office in Ipswich. And ensure that your website is optimised so that people searching find you, when you are the answer to their question.

3. Be useful on your site as well as when tweeting

Make sure that you use twitter, forums, linkedin, facebook etc to link back to useful content on your website. This means that you need to provide useful content on your website. A blog is a very good, low cost way of doing this without incurring significant ongoing charges from webdesigners. Set up a pdf download plugin and image handling tools and you can do it all yourself. Next time someone asks you a question, you can blog about it too. This will attract more people to your website where they will look around.

4. Encourage measurable actions

Even if you have your own business, you must justify the use of your time using social tools, so make sure you measure the results. When I joined twitter the traffic to our company website increased dramatically, including search clickthroughs by 79%. If you have items that can be downloaded, track them. If you can create a newsletter or blog monitor the signups – these are people who want to hear more from you. Find ways to measure the intangibles like people calling direct from your website. Create actions which can be measured, to show you how your strategy is working, or not.

5. Measure and Test

Choose a range of actions to monitor and begin to measure them. Install google analytics on your website and blog (it is free) and learn how to use it. Create goals for the pdf downloads and for completions of your ‘request a ringback’ form. Then, try out different types of activity and see what works. Be ruthless with your time and measure the results. Then if things don’t work, you can analyse why and remove the glitches. And if things do work, you can do them again and more of the same!

There are my five steps to make sure you have the your website working properly as part of your social media strategy. Did I miss something out? Please do share it below.

Don’t know how to do these things? Why not ask me to help you?

I’ve been asked to speak to the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Industry Group (deep breath) CIMCIG Marketing Conference in November about getting social in your marketing, and so I’m looking for recommendations of companies in the construction industry using social tools well.

Construction has been slow to take up on social tools, particularly when it comes to Pull Marketing rather than paid advertising and old fashioned email marketing campaigns. But things are changing and in the last six months there have definitely been some new players coming on board and plenty of new examples out there to be found. I’m looking, but I wonder if you’ve seen some good work?

Here are some examples of what I’m looking for:

• A construction products company who are engaging with specifiers online;
• Professional consultants (architects, engineers, QS etc) who have created a community around their area of expertise;
• Social media campaigns in the construction sector that have been particularly effective.

If you specify products, do you go online to get advice? Which companies use the internet well to help you get the answers you need?

If you work in construction, who do you know who helps you do your job better, using social media and interactive tools?

Who do you think are the influencers online in the construction industry at the moment, and what are they doing?

Any suggestions for firms and individuals I should look at would be most gratefully received, and of course I’ll credit everyone who helps as usual, and share the slides from my talk.

Please share your examples of best practice by leaving a comment below or by contacting me via email. Looking forward to seeing your favourites!

I first found out about Woobius, a startup company set up by architects and techies, at a be2camp event that, appropriately, I was attending via the internet. Now Woobius’ little multiplatform real-time-visual-chat application Woobius Eye has won the MEX 2010 award, just another step on a road to inevitable stardom.

So What’s a MEX Award?

Mex stands for Mobile User Experience, a conference held every year to showcase the best innovation in the field of helping users of mobile technologies. The MEX awards are a challenge to students, designers and companies to create the most cutting edge innovations. Winning a MEX award means that you have embraced the future of wireless connectivity and made it into a real opportunity for your users.

Woobius Eye won the Professional Category of the MEX awards, and the judges noted:

“We chose Woobius Eye because it represents a great multi-platform customer experience and focuses on the needs of a group of users – architects in the field – who can really benefit from new ways of combining visual and audible communication.”

Those of us who have been watching Woobius Eye for some time are aware that its usefulness will extend beyond architects into a much wider world, including other construction professionals, other professionals, in fact anyone who needs to explain something to someone some distance away, when an image speaks a thousand words. Paul Wilkinson commented recently that it would be an invaluable tool for the St Johns Ambulance Service, for example.

So what is Woobius Eye?

Woobius Eye takes a simple problem – explaining something to someone on the phone – and finds a simple solution – draw it for them on your iphone/laptop/computer. And because mobile technology is interactive, they can draw too.

Woobius doesn’t use any complex gimmicks, it simply lets you annotate a photograph that you can share in real time with someone else you’re talking to on the phone. ‘Look, this is what I mean, that thing over there’ – such a simple idea, solving a simple problem. Can you think of a way to use it?

You can see a demonstration of how Woobius Eye can work in this video – and visit the Woobian YouTube Channel for more.

If you’d like to meet the guys from Woobius, Bob Leung @bobleung (and maybe Daniel Tenner @swombat too) will be at #be2campEast – a half day event on Property and the Internet on 24 June at the Essex County Cricket Ground. Why not come along and see a great new application in use?

And in the meantime you can try out the Woobius Eye beta online now.

Cartooon by Bob Leung

Are you a property professional working in or near Essex? Do you want to know more about using the internet in your business? Would you like to do ‘proper’ face to face networking rather than brave the sharks? Then perhaps you should come along to Be2camp East.

Be2camp is an organisation dedicated to bringing together people who work in the built environment with ‘techy’ types who understand the internet. They’ve been organising events all over the UK for two years and Be2camp East is their first in the East of England.

But Be2camp has something extra to offer property people in essex. Its organised by Roberta Ward of MyPropertyMentor, a seasoned Essex property advisor with development experience. This means the event is going to have a particular ‘Property’ flavour. And its live streamed over the internet, and its free!

Confirmed speakers include:

• Lee Smallwood, an experienced marketer with specialist knowledge in the internet. He’s the best speaker I’ve heard on what social media is about;

http://lee.smallwood.ws/

• Paul Taylor from Radian6, a monitoring and engagement tool which allows companies to manage their brand engagement online, but also allows anyone to see what is being said about them all across the social web.
• Su Butcher (that’s me) of Barefoot & Gilles Architects – I’ll be speaking about getting started using Linkedin Properly. Linkedin is in my opinion the best place for professionals to get started networking online;
• John Keleher of Crittall Windows, speaking about the Importance of Personal Relationships in Effective Collaboration;
• Paul Weston, the estimator who recently found a new job using social media techniques, and whose journey has featured in the national press and on BBC Essex; and
• Bernie Mitchell of TagTribes, an events organizer and networker who will be explaining the difference between selling and creating community. Bernie organizes very successful networking events in the City and East London.

Be2campEast is to be held at the Pavilion, Essex County Cricket Ground on Thursday 29 April from 2-6pm.

Attendance at the event is free but you must register in advance.

Click here for more information and to register your attendance.

We have been able to make the event free through the support of sponsors Pa Group, Radian6 and Barefoot & Gilles Architects. We are also supporting the EACH Treehouse Appeal, raising funds to build a new children’s hospice, so why not bring your chequebook along and make a donation?

I look forward to meeting you there.