Federal Computer Week published an article encouraging government-related websites to quickly adopt six key features:

1. Transparency
2. Collaboration
3. Searchability
4. Engagement
5. Archiving
6. Better Services

Arguably, most websites out there — not just government focused sites — should demonstrate these characteristics. But I think that shift to meet these expectations will be slow, even with aggressive mandates from the Obama Administration.

I think engagement will require a particularly dramatic shift based on my experiences at a recent Open Government Innovations conference I attended. In one session, I found myself rather passionately defending user experience after someone challenged a panel of designers, saying, “Well, it might be prettier. But it’s not compliant, and we can’t have our sites not be compliant.”

“It” in this case was a design composition — a flat image — so it definitely wasn’t compliant at that point … it wasn’t even a website!  Of course, it’s imperative that sites be compliant, but technology today ensures that we can integrate improvements in information architecture and usability to visually represent data in a more engaging way while meeting existing 508 criteria.

And adhering to existing requirements while capitalizing on the engagement promoted by the technology advancements of today’s digital marketplace certainly is one way to bolster user involvement in government online.

I’m often asked if we at Tellenger “do social media.” My short answer is “Yes.” People generally want to know if we do both social media campaign planning and execution (yes), and at what rate (approximately $130/hr, depending on the complexity of the project).

But I normally probe a bit more about what people want to achieve, because social media is more than just having a Twitter account or a Facebook page. In response, I’ve heard:

• More sales. (Actual conversions from campaigns)
• More traffic. (Higher numbers in general)
• More brand awareness. (Greater presence in existing social networks)
• Wins over the competition. (More sales and social media followers alike)
• More customer feedback. (The right vehicles to encourage audience interaction)

Each client’s social media strategy is different, and each of these questions carries with it important elements that not EVERY client would need. For example, our social media strategy at Tellenger is participatory — we individually have been building our social media profiles for years, but only recently started a company blog collectively. By contrast, we’re working with someone who is preparing to launch a product, and driving sales is The Sole Purpose for his exploring social media in the first place, so careful planning, detailed execution, and daily analysis are absolutes.

Social media campaigns can be tremendously successful when done in consult with existing marketing and messaging, in consideration of the great, back-end capabilities that can be integrated, and with proper measurement that allows for instant evolution (i.e. Do more of what’s working; immediately stop doing what isn’t). Most people can’t afford to lose money right now, and the instant feedback that social media monitoring provides allows for business owners to see the performance metrics that are essential to their making informed, immediate decisions.

Of course, asking the right questions early to discover “what do you want to achieve with social media?” is Step One.

I was just having a conversation with an executive of a manufacturing company that’s been doing business offline for nearly a century. His company builds giant machines with 40,000+ parts — not the typical product people purchase on the web. But the parts that bring those machines to life, well, that’s a different story. So their question is, “How do we best sell our parts online?”

Initially, we’d ideally want to provide loyal customers the ability to buy replacement parts online directly through the corporate website. Those brand loyalists on average spend about 18 hours online each week, and traditionally NOT in social media spaces, so having an e-commerce capability on the corporate website will suit their needs. And, since this company knows which of their parts typically are ordered more often than other parts, they can even proactively contact customers and drive them to the corporate site to buy new parts. This also becomes a great opportunity to sell accessories to keep the machine well-maintained and operating efficiently.

A recent Forrester Research study describes how the healthiest manufacturing companies are making money right now by selling their products via *other* websites. Reaching the folks who aren’t necessarily brand loyalists–but still need replacement parts that they’ll buy through their existing favorite retail parts replacement shops–makes sense. (And, this route could be pursued regardless of whether the company wants to offer its own shopping experience online as described above).

Finally, with technologies like Alvenda’s product (a fully functional storefront in an embeddable widget), distributing that reach into existing social networks (and beyond) is getting easier than ever. Now, affiliate websites can host the storefront widget, earn a small referral fee while the company reaches more consumers, and everyone increases revenue.

I’m personally looking forward to the day I can visit my feed reader and, in addition to getting all the great content I consumer each day, be able to peruse all of my favorite shopping outlets (now including Alice–which you should check out if you haven’t yet–to save big bucks on my toiletries) in one place. And that day is not too far off!

Touting “I had Bran Flakes again for breakfast” on Twitter *may* help your brand reach its goals … if you’re leading a community of people trying to eat a higher fiber diet, for example. But really, each client’s business or organizational goals are unique, and so each client’s messaging is, too.

That’s exactly why we move social media engagements through planning, execution, and evaluation phases (all three of which consistently are iterative as campaigns unfold and the data is analyzed) because being prepared and strategic is essential to success. This approach is also critical to ensure that social media engagements work in concert with existing sales and marketing efforts. Doing so reinforces consistent messaging and increases progress toward a common business goal.

Two of our social media case studies illustrate just how broad campaigns and goals can be:

1. A non-profit combating underage drinking “competes” with other advocacy groups of greater and lesser fame. With an old site and no knowledge of the social media space’s potential, they didn’t know where to begin in order to gain support from financial supporters, and then gain support from American citizens who want to activate and prevent underage drinking. So they asked us to help.
   • Goal #1: Gain funding toward executing a new online strategy
   • Goal #2: Create a more dynamic, interactive online presence to better connect with volunteers across America who are interested in preventing underage drinking
   • What we did: Defined an entire online media campaign encompassing a microsite, blog, Facebook group, Twitter strategy, email marketing, and future considerations such as a database for users to input and extract data related to underage drinking prevention efforts.
2. A B2C is launching a new product and competing against other local vendors. Exploring an emerging market already saturated with like companies was daunting, and they wanted to open with a bang. So they asked us to determine whether or not a social media campaign was one tactic they should leverage as a complement to their existing marketing efforts.
   • Goal #1: Determine if social media has potential given the competitive market
   • Goal #2: If so, use social media to drive more foot traffic on-site
   • What we did: Created a research-based competitive analysis and defined a social media engagement using Twitter with existing marketing strategies to execute defined messages and an offline feedback process that would hook into Google Analytics goal-conversion tracking for instant analysis, evolution, and insight into returns on investment.

And we love helping clients get into the social media space, whether they’re trying to raise awareness, increase sales, or sell Bran Flakes.

Paul Boag of Boagworld authored “10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging.” In it, he knocks common corporate pitfalls like using a blog to publish press releases or treating it like a straight marketing tool (rather than as a means to form relationships with individuals).

Blogs aren’t intended to be packed with marketing jargon or attempts to up-sell. Readers confronting such commercial-style content likely will be dismayed because they didn’t find genuine personality in that brand’s informal communication vehicle. Those readers might even cry. (But probably not.)

So when clients tell us, “I’m told I need a blog,” we always ask, “Why?”

If they want to “get more sales,” then we might explore additional methods for attracting leads — and leverage a blog secondarily to add more context for helping users make decisions. If the client wants to “connect with audiences” through accessible, two-way communication, then a blog might just be the perfect solution.

Either way, clients who are willing to put forth the time and effort it takes to produce valuable blog content that’s useful, interesting, or capable of building communities will best position themselves to land a loyal readership that helps them learn and grow overall.

When Dave created the new Digital Strategies division and asked me to lead it, I jumped at the chance for a couple main reasons: primarily, I love meeting with new people and talking about the web. It holds endless possibilities, and we help people capitalize on those possibilities. Secondarily, Dave had established Tellenger as a firm that truly builds long-term relationships with clients. It’s a model I find unique in a landscape of web shops that promote their particular preferences or technology solutions (which may not be what a client actually NEEDS).

To that end, we’ve got six core values that we infuse into our client relationships and business processes.

1. Exacting Technology – We’re a technology-agnostic firm, which means we’ll recommend and implement or integrate solutions specific to a client’s particular needs (rather than our personal language or platform preferences).
2. No-Bull Estimates – Our cost estimates are organized by individual line items – sort of like a menu of solutions catered to individuals’ unique needs.
3. Purpose-Driven Deliverables – We only spend clients’ time on deliverables that inform, demonstrate, and/or provide actionable direction. (If they don’t truly demand attention, why bother?)
4. Open Collaboration – We use Basecamp to collaborate on everything from timelines to documents and centrally store assets like logos, images or files.
5. User-Based Design – We substantiate our beautiful, accessible designs with user-experience research that considers industry Best Practices.
6. Analysis & Evolution – We analyze results against identified benchmarks and recommend adjustments for improvement. (Really, being attentive and proactive allows us to innovate.)

I’m so proud to be helping clients capitalize in the digital space while also being a part of Tellenger’s own dynamic growth.