You’ve spent time and resources building a solid presence on the web. It’s attracting visitors and potential customers, but then what?  How does the information and opportunities it creates flow into the other parts of your business processes?

This is often the point at which web sites stall in their development. You know it’s important to get your information out there in order to get leads or even sales online, but, without clear direction, it typically goes no further.  At this point, your web site plays just one role in your business.

By taking the next step, and tying your website into other business processes, you can improve efficiencies and customer experience.

Leads

Contact forms are a commonplace feature on sites today. You want to make sure it’s a simple process for those interested in learning more about your products or services to get in touch with you. Usually this information is sent to someone internally via email. Sometimes that’s sufficient, but what if that person is busy or on vacation? The lead sits in there inbox, hidden until they can get back to it.

A better way to handle this is:

• Have the lead feed directly into a CRM system.
• The lead can go directly into a workflow, sending out notifications to both internal staff and the customer.
• When the main contact is out of the office, the workflow would trigger an email to other staff that a lead has not been responded to and needs follow-up.
• When that response does occur, it is recorded in the CRM system and available for others on staff to see.

In this case, the integration of the web site and the CRM system helps sales stay on top of new business opportunities regardless of staff availability.  One person being out does not hold up everything.  Furthermore, that lead can be tracked and followed from the time it’s entered until it’s closed without any need to manually reenter it into another system.

Support

Just as important as leads coming into sales, are questions and issues coming in from current customers.  Again, integration into CRM or a help desk makes your company more timely and efficient when handling requests.

The efficiencies in how customers are helped can be taken a step further.

• As questions come in, staff can categorize these requests which can then be reported on.  
• As you see trends in what topics are popular, you can proactively address these by creating a knowledge base.  This is a set of reference articles can help both internal support staff and external customers.  
• Your staff can respond quickly with proven answers by directing customers to the knowledge base articles.
• In the future, customers can search these articles and find the answers themselves, eliminating the need for support to get involved in these cases.

Sales

When a company selling products moves to the web, they usually have systems already in place for accounting, inventory tracking, and similar functions.  Once their web site starts bringing in orders, they may need to take the order information gathered from the web and then manually enter it into their internal systems.

The great thing about modern software systems is that data is stored in similar ways. This makes it possible to set up processes that synchronize this data.

 For example, Pinnacle has built a solution called the Connector which allows businesses to set up maps between different databases and specifyhow the information flows between them.  Even if your systems store data in different ways (one stores quantity and unit price while the other just has a total), the integration can still be automated.

With a solution such as the Pinnacle Connector, or direct integration of the website with CRM, a company’s ecommerce store would be able to send the order processing information directly to their other systems, eliminating the possibility of human error, and ensuring that all necessary information has been entered into the correct systems.

On May 20, we hosted another seminar on Web Strategy and Social Media and took another survey of the use of Social Media by our participants.  You can see the results of the survey below, listed next to the results from our January 14 survey.

What do these new numbers tell us?  For the most part, across the board, Social Media usage in small business is on the rise both personally and professionally. The biggest jump we see is in the use of video.  YouTube usage has gone up 15% since the last Web Strategy event.  Businesses are beginning to understand that by leveraging video, they can connect with customers in a real way.

Some things that were learned at this event:

• Small business leaders are continuing to struggle.  They’re having trouble with getting started with Social Media, with creating a Social Media strategy and implementing it with consistency.
• Everyone is an expert.  Whether you are in a leadership position in your organization, or consistently working in one area, you have an expertise that can be shared with others.  This can be done through various Social Media channels like Facebook or Twitter, writing in a blog, etc.
• Every business does not have to be on every form of Social Media.  The whole benefit to using Social media is to actually meet your customers/clients/members at their point of need.  Find out where they have a presence, and then create a presence for yourself in that environment.
• Content is KING!  When it comes to building a website, running a Social Media campaign, or writing in a blog, content is still king.  Using keywords throughout the website or blog helps to increase your SEO ranking.

Resources

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Web Strategy event.  In case you have any questions or would like to review some of the material we went over, we are making the resources from the event available below.

I have had the opportunity to talk with both local and non-local companies/organizations about social media.  When the subject of blogging comes up, the same question always seems to arise... "Do I really need to blog, though?" 

What it comes down to is this.  If you own or manage a company or organization, you have an expertise and knowledge to share, and there are many benefits that come from sharing this expertise with your customers, listeners, etc.  It's as simple as that.  In this article, I have compiled some tips from a couple of different blog articles on why you should blog (or the benefits of blogging) and what you should blog about.

So... what is blogging?  "Blogging is essentially 'earned media,' or a chance to let entrepreneurs get to know me by sharing my thoughts online with complete transparency."

Why should I blog?

1. Become the expert.  Be the thought leader in your industry.
2. Build customer relationships.  By focusing on customer needs and not selling, you can build relationships and trust.  Blogs are a fast way to join the customers' discussions, provide tips and insights or receive feedback.
3. Knowledge management.  Readers can find valuable information they need, and company reps can use the blog as a resource with customers/readers
4. Rank high in search engines.  Search Engines reward sites that are updated often.

What you should blog about:

1. Define your target audience.  Who do you want to build a relationship with?
   (Customers, partners, suppliers and your broader industry as a whole.)
2. What kind of information will your target audience find valuable?
3. Find your niche.  Try to talk about something that is differentiated from what other blogs in your field cover, even if your approach is just slightly different or new.
4. Be passionate about what you write.  Make sure the topic is something that you’ll have a passion for writing about on a regular basis.   
5. Keep up your blog.  If you’re not going to keep up with your blog, you shouldn’t start one in the first place.

How to create something people will want to come and read every day:

1. Be authentic – Use your own style and voice.  Don’t try to be someone else.
2. Be transparent – Be willing to talk like a human being, show feelings and a point of view.
3. Get inside your readers minds - Each time you present, you need to think about who is in the audience and what they want to hear.
4. Solicit feedback – Ask people what they want to read about and then cover those topics.
5. Don’t be offensive or take public risks – Don’t be too extreme with jokes and comments.
6. Have fun – Make writing fun, if writing becomes a chore, it will show.

Company blogs – examples:
http://www.blogsouthwest.com/blogsw
http://www.whatsthediff.com
http://blog.pinkcakebox.com
http://southbendpolice.wordpress.com

Resources: 
http://mashable.com/2010/03/01/company-blog 
http://www.corporateblogging.info/basics/why

Heard the buzz on Social Media but just don’t know where to start?  Well, roll up your sleeves, and get ready to get your hands dirty. Pinnacle is hosting a hands-on workshop to help you get out of the blocks with your social media strategy.

We’ll be focusing on:

• Strategy—we’ll help walk you through creating a social media strategy that best represents your brand.
• Implementation—we’ll walk you through setting up a Facebook page and Twitter account along with how to do some basic customizations.
• Content—we’ll assist you with creating a social media content plan to help you with daily social media posts.
• Tools—we’ll show you how to use some basic tools to simplify your social media.
• Maintenance—we’ll help you create a plan to maintain your social media strategy.