Eggblogg

Interesting stuff I've read lately ...

Another great video from Common Craft, this time explaining all about phishing, in plain English. Fantastic.

Meanwhile, at e-consultancy the subject of what's the best screen resolution for your website has come up. I recently had this conversation with a client after we found that the old idea of designing for 800 x 600 was out of date, and that in fact very few people are still viewing at this resolution.

Over at the Search Engine Guide, Paul Jahn ponders how Twitter can be used for customer service. Funnily enough I've noticed how companies are tracking name checks in Twitter posts. When I recently moaned about how Lastminute.com had been a pain to deal with, suddenly @lastminute was following me. They haven't offered me a free weekend in Talinn yet though.

Part of the problem of brands using Twitter is having the 'broadcast' mentality. In a guest post on Chris Brogan's blog, Keith Burtis explores the alternatives to 'blurting' on Twitter, and if you're going to self-promote how to do it in an appropriate way.

And finally .... John Taylor spotted this example of the perfect ad where context is all. Simple but great, brimming with the 'I wish I'd thought of that!' factor.

What small businesses need to insist on when getting a website

Over two thirds of small businesses are dissatisfied with the performance of their website, according to recent research as reported in the Oct/Nov FSB magazine 'Business Network'.

61% have no actual web strategy.

45% believe the primary goal of their website is to generate leads, 22% think it's brand building, but only half of them actually measure the website's performance against those goals

I suppose this all makes a change from not long ago when we were hearing that a large chunk of the SME market didn't even have a web presence. But it illustrates how far there is still to go.

When I talk to fledgling businesses about making the most of the internet, I always remind them that a website is just a tool, not an end in itself. Getting its web presence right is often a big investment for a new business. Just like everything else you spend time & money on, it makes sense to have a rationale, even if you don't want to call it anything as high-falluting as a strategy.

Not only that, but you need to have control over your own site. For example, the site owner should be able to:

1. install Google Analytics so you can measure visitor activity (NB not just 'traffic')
2. update the content yourself – it shouldn't require any special technical skills
3. optimise the site so it can be found in searches: that means being able to edit the meta tags, especially the page Titles

These are the minimum criteria that will make a site easier to measure, modify and improve over time, without additional cost down the line. Businesses should insist on them.

Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty versus Privilege

Today is Blog Action Day, the idea being for bloggers the world over to think about and discuss this year's theme: poverty.

I admit to being a bit of a lightweight when it comes to charity. There are two or three causes I give small amounts to regularly, and now and then I've been involved in various sporadic fundraising events. Should I feel guilty? Is this Blog Action Day about spurring ourselves and others to do more to end poverty?

According to The Campaign to End Child Poverty, one in three children in the UK lives in poverty. Now the last thing I want to do is cause offence out of ignorance, but when I see these kind of statistics I can't help feeling that 'poverty' is a relative rather than an absolute term. For example, when I read  that '12% of lone parents cannot afford celebrations with presents at special occasions', of course that's a sad thing, but does it really compare to living in a country where children have no choice but to play by open sewers, as Sam McArthur describes in her blog post?

We have a long way to go before we see that level of poverty in the UK, and for that reason I'd like to turn this issue on its head and say why not also have a 'wealth & privilege awareness' day for those of us living in countries where washing machines, TVs, cars, shoes and clean drinking water are taken for granted, where the prevailing culture causes children to aspire to nothing more than making money or becoming famous, and where we seem to have lost the moral connection between our actions, their outcomes and our responsibilities to others. Then perhaps we'll really start to become aware of poverty, our role in its cause, and what we might do about it.

@stephenfry on Twitter

Yesterday afternoon something on Twitter caught my eye - a comment from someone that 'Stephen Fry is now following you' was an email that would be going on his Facebook wall. Stephen Fry on Twitter? Naturally I had a look, and there indeed he was, fresh on Twitter just a day or so previously, but with over 700 followers already. This morning there are now 2,700. Nick Broom (@nickbroom) wondered if this was a record.

It does appear to be the real SF, judging by the tweets and the link from his website. Although of course Twitter plays host to plenty of bots, scammers and wannabes purporting to be some prominent person or other. I've read some hilarious Tweets from someone claiming to be Bill Clinton, and whether it's him or not I'm not too bothered.

So ... the power of word of mouth, or is there some other cute phrase - word of tweet? Plus I got that same email when SF followed me back - result!

Online customer experience still far from ideal

A recent study by Harris Interactive/Tealeaf Technology of more than 2,000 online consumers found that 89% of people believed that online customer service should be better or at least as good as shopping in store. And 57% said they would be less likely to buy from a company if they'd had problems with them online.

It's clear that many firms have a long way to go in terms of a consistent multi-channel presence where online, in store, direct mail and call centre all achieve the same standards of customer service.

The study highlights the areas ripe for improvement when it comes to online: security & privacy, reliability & efficiency and a 'smooth fulfilment process'. To this I would add simple things like courtesy and the human touch ('care' in the real sense, woefully missing from much of what is termed 'customer care'.)

It might only be small things that make the difference. A change of wording, an added instruction, a prompt reply. For example, a well known business organisation famed for its friendliness and effective member support still sends out emails with the message 'Do not reply to this un-monitored email address' in the footer. It's unnecessary and a tad rude, not to mention old fashioned, rather like those annoying '404 - page not found' messages you sometimes see on sites, which try to make you feel like it's YOU who've made a mistake, not the website manager.

More details of the research is on the NMA site.