hidef

It used to be that when great causes called HiDef to seek advice, the question would be, "I just bought this domain name; what should my website look like?" I would salivate while beautiful web design and development scenarios materialized--site architecture, page layouts and workflows that would allow the client's audience to connect to their product or service.

Those mental explosions are happening less and less now. I no longer say, "Well, you need to hire a designer and developer for starters (Oh, and we're just the ticket)." Instead I'm finding myself saying, "Tell me a little about your goals, and let's talk strategy." A recent post by Seth Godin, though its focus is on approaching a redesign, seems to say the same thing: Before you start talking website, start talking web strategy, because starting with strategy in today's internet is going to save you time, money.

Website vs. Web Presence

A website is a space that you can get to by typing in a URL. Whoever owns the URL can place content in whatever format they'd like to any extent they'd like, and also offer people who visit these spaces to interact with the content and take actions like participating, buying, or reflecting.

A web presence is a grouping of content about a specific organization that leverages the user experience and functionality available at different URLs to engage participants throughout the web with the organization's cause or offerings.

A key tenet of marketing is to "go where the people are." Many companies are still creating websites on the belief that "if you build it, they will come." While that was true in Field of Dreams, it's not true for the Network of Web Users currently active online.

People are conversing more on sites like these than anywhere else on the web.

The people are here, and they're here a lot. What does that mean for social enterprises and other business owners who want more traffic coming to their sites? Stop trying to get traffic to your sites! Go establish your web presence by putting meaningful, provoking content where the people are. Participate in those conversations, share your story there, and then watch as people will become interested and want to know where they can find more information. Your cause depends not upon the design of your website, but rather the quality of your cause, its message, and the conversations it cultivates through its web presence.

So, where are the people you need to find? If you're a faith-based cause, you might look at tangle in addition to Facebook. If your mission is to improve the environment, check out sites like treehugger where many come to get good information and inspiration about sustainability. Do some research to see where your people are, then begin entering the conversations already taking place to begin establishing real presence.

Establishing a Web Presence

Thinking in terms of "web presence" versus "website" is just the beginning. How does one start to build up interest around one's cause or social enterprise and then sustain it? Let's take a look at some tools of the trade that will serve as great jump starters.

The first tool you'll need is a way to get your message out through content. Blogs are the way to go and quite easy to set up thanks to platforms that offer free versions of their product. Blogger and Wordpress can get you up and running with a clean, capable presence within minutes without your finagling with domain names or servers. Once you have such a service, you can start utilizing the cornucopia of tools that folks have built to work with these services to help you achieve a goal once your call to action is delivered. Teamed up with a good strategy to achieve a critical mass of constituents, this centralized place for content can quickly become a social network in and of itself--for free. And, with a good strategy already considered, you won't stare at your first post and ask yourself, "Hmmm, now what do I say?" You'll do the first thing that will launch your strategy.

Genuine engagement on relevant networks
will lead to genuine interest--and action.

Once you've established a big "X marks the spot" on the Internet, you'll need arrows to point people to it. That's where the power and tools of social networks come into play. In this day and age, it's not about clicks, it's about connections. Applications such as Causes that are built atop social networks like Facebook can help you generate grassroots participation in your cause (and not just "I like this cause"--Causes handles receiving donations on your behalf and cuts a cheque if you're an established non-profit). If your cause needs to secure funding outside the realm of a non-profit, tools such as ChipIn can do the hard work for you. Sites like LinkedIn help you connect to likeminded people and connect you to companies who can become partners for your cause, not to mention features such as Answers that allow you to start conversations that may lead to fruitful participation.

And it's all free.

Free is Not Free

Well, not really free. As with any worthy endeavor, be it a New Year's resolution or a push to save the world, your most valuable asset for your project will be your time. You won't be able to get someone else to make the critical decisions on your strategy, your image, and your message. You'll be asking hard questions that require good answers before you create your first account. You'll commit to providing timely value on an ongoing basis to sustain the strategy after the initial push. Think of it this way: Building your strategy is like preparing a banquet. Seeing the strategy succeed long term is like ensuring that each guest remains engaged in conversation at the table for as long as the banquet needs to last. Preparing the banquet is hard, but sustaining the interest is sometimes harder.

By the way, you might need a website after all.

Even with this slick set of tools--with more being added daily as web innovators like us busy themselves throughout the world--many great causes will indeed need a web presence to centralize their efforts and provide access to information that doesn't sit behind a social network's gates. At other times none of the widgets and third-party tools will fit the bill for what you need to do to get people involved, so outside help will be needed to build custom solutions.

But don't start by designing your website; start by designing your strategy, then consider how your website will help achieve the outcomes in addition to the rich toolset now available to help you connect to people like never before.