So much has been written so far about the death of the website. This post is NOT about it.

This post is about how much life there is outside the website. Culturally, the website was born as the place for brands to speak to consumers, just like a physical place, the website gets visited by users who specifically search for it, for its content or get attracted by the experiences it offers. But there is much more.

Peter Morville worked on Information Architecture since 1994 and found out that for IA what matters is a balance of context (and business), user (needs and behavior) and content. Then, his area of interest shifted from Information Architecture to User Experience. This is when he found out a lot of other components mattered for the user.

The user - according to Morville - lives experiences based on 7 different elements, as this diagram represents:

The User Experience Honeycomb by Peter Morville

This representation highlights that a valid User Experience must be

• useful
• desirable
• accessible
• credible
• findable
• usable
• valuable

Assuming that User Experience is made at least of all of these elements, it's quite clear how these aspects are not limited to the traditional concept of website. Information Architecture traditionally focuses on websites (some experiments try to extend out of it, but it's not the praxis).

What's outside the website is not just website promotion. We need to shift the perspective, putting the user at the center of our view and seeing the digital experience from his / her point of view. As soon as we do it we see how much the digital experience is made of places, structures, but also connections between places, between users, conversations and gathering points.

Associating User Experience to Information Architecture is good, but it's not enough. If we detach the "user" part and extend the expression to "Experience" (instead of "User Experience"), we see how much overlapping there is with real life. We find out that:

• Information Architecture can be associated to Building Architecture, the activity of designing and constructing structures
• User Experience covers the total built environment (not only a single building / website)

Architecture, in its original concept (αρχιτεκτονική) is the key. Not only "Information Architecture"

The Environment around those structures we traditionally define as websites (or even portals) is full of life and sometimes it's good to see it as an entry point, but most of the times it must be a meeting point. Brands that understood it are coming out and creating experiences outside the traditional website, they're meeting their consumers where they're living their experiences, they're adding their value to the users' conversations right where they are.

Websites are still valid when they generate unique value that cannot be generated where the users are. But if great value can be added to the consumers' conversation outside a website, it's much easier to reach users without needing to be reached. Why should they come to the brand if the brand can go and join them?

What's your experience about it? Do you prefer to interact with brands when they come to you?

User Experience outside the website means:

• useful - offer great content where users expect it.
  Example: Mercedes Benz - The Live-Well Dashboard
  
  
• desirable - offer content that's valid on a level of image, identity, brand and emotional design
  Example: Burger King - Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy
  
  
• accessible - build experiences that can be potentially lived by the largest number of people
  Example: Kraft - iFood
  
  
  
• credible - communicate trustable content
  Example: Barack Obama - Social Media campaign (see Facebook)
  
  
• findable - make it easy for users to find you
  Example: (put any brand's name that invests in Search Engine Optimization)
  
• usable - design experiences that allow users to achieve their goals easily
  Example: Burn - Burn Alter Ego
  
  or, in general, experiences that adapt to interaction model already known by the user (Burn's one integrates seamlessly with Facebook interaction solutions)
  
• valuable - the user experience must be valuable for who creates it
  Example: Red Bull - Red Bull Connect (it's a website, but we need to focus on the Social Network connections)
  
  

Can you think of some more valid references?

Messages can be received differently and generate several interpretations. Subjectivity plays a big part in every communication. It can be positive, too. Sometimes.

Nothing’s easy, but what’s even harder? Something that looks easy but, in fact, is one of the hardest thing in the world.

Engagement through Social Media.

Tom Smith published a great article on Mashable about the reason Big Brands Struggle on Social Media you should read it, but here are the main points:

• Social Media is considered a marketing channel (while it's not limited to it, but often related to communication, research, development and support, too)


• There's no Social Media dept. in companies (so, it must be pushed into the company by a facilitator, responsible to coordinate with several depts - not an easy duty)


• Content and communities are global (so brands get in touch with a wider audience, not just in terms of size, but also in terms of characteristics)


• Social Media is strategic (while many budgets are easier to be allocated for tactic initiatives)


• Social Media cannot grant results (interaction cannot be foreseen with the same precision as CPM of an advertising campaign)


• The metrics are unconventional (new kinds of measurements can't be easily confronted with traditional ones)

All of those points, that summarize the main reasons that cause difficulties to brands, can be related to a main reason: the "Social" part of Social Media. "Social", in fact, means it's about people and companies behind brands are - of course - made of people. As people, they often have direct experience of Social Media, but have little experience of it professionally.

The struggle occurs when "Personal" experience prevails over the "Professional" approach and, when this happens, it pushes decision makers to think their own experience can be in some ways generally valid for anyone, including the target of their marketing and communication actions.

What's really hard about generating engagement through Social Media is that it looks very easy.

Brands that succeed the most are the ones that are able to detach from personal views and think with the customer's lens. This is true on any kind of activity and communication channel, but it's harder to do on Social Media.

This is why the brightest and most successful decision makers in this field are the ones who do not treat Social Media just as another communication channel, but as a structural component of their brands and that try to find way to generate engagement in the consumer meeting the real expectations and needs of the audience.

What's your experience about that?

Have you ever thought "why should I be interested in this blog" or "why should I want to upload a video on this website" or "why do they think I like their brand so much that I should put their artwork on my blog"?

Have you ever felt a brand doesn't treat you as you expect on Social Media: as a human?

Photo credit: Brewedfreshdaily (a reminder to look with the consumer's eyes)

Several brands are finding out how people active on Social Media can be a huge asset to leverage. Especially influencers, who are connected to many other people through many Social communication channels (blogs, social networks, content sharing websites, micro-blogging, micro-interaction widgets...).

Some brands understood that:
Influencers are a communication channel: and their connection should be leveraged.


Some other brands understood also that:
Influencers are not only a communication channel, but generators of meaning: and also this should be leveraged.


When brands rely on influencers only because they are a good access to Social Media channels, they loose a big part of what the influencers' community around a certain topic can bring.

When brands give content and ask back for meaning, they stimulate the influencers to generate commitment to the brand.

In the last few days there are two examples of it: Frito-Lay Cheetos and Nokia N96.

Frito-Lay Cheetos has given full freedom to influencers to build up content related to the brand, with no strong message or creative idea than the message itself. Find out more about Frito-Lay Cheetos initiative.

Nokia N96 focused on the message and had a strong and precise idea behind it, which the influencers brought on. Find out more about Nokia N96 challenge.

Both approaches can work. The former allows the brand to have a big media coverage, the latter maybe gives the brand less visibility, but it tends to generate commitment and goodwill for the brand.

What do you think? What works best?

A few days ago, Google launched Google Latitude.

Technically, it’s a plug-in for Google Maps that allows you to know exactly where your friends are and to instant message with them in real time. You can also see user generated ratings and tags of places around yourself.

Less technically, Google Latitude is a symbol. We’ve changed and we’re changing. And Google Latitude is one of the latest drop in the bucket. I think Chris Brogan's post about it is worth a read. Also, here's a video about Google Latitude.

• Borders between friends and acquaintances are blurring. We can now be connected no only by a situation (we're all in the same place), now we connect with people who live on the other part of the world just based on their interests and contributions in "our" part of the world. In some situations, people who live far and we've never met can be more connected to us than people who are near us. Let me clarify: I couldn't live without my "real" life friends. But I'm also gaining everyday important insights and help from people I'm just connected with.
  See David Armano's reflections about it.
• We (and people connected with us) are hyper-tagging our reality (mobile is just a device). Most of what we see is likely to be tagged and rated by other users or other friends, and we can put our "tag" on it, too. The "connected" world helps us being more aware of the "real" life.
  
  It’s happening what seemed funny and unreal in this video from early 2007.
  
• Several dimensions are overlapping, and also time is relative: in real life you have real time, but what's stated to "comment" real life remains.

We are increasingly living in multiple places at the same time. We’re accelerating possibilities and knowledge. We can exploit what other people already know and found (and so can they). Our potential grows bigger because it's partly overlapped to others'.

This also opens possibilities for Social Influence Marketing. There connections and relationship can be a good way to spread awareness, goodwill and trust for a brand and product. Social Influence Marketing means these connections are becoming fundamental. targeting communication through them can be an excellent way to market and communicate products and brands and to build relationships. See this interesting report to get more in-depth with the concept of Social Influence Marketing by Shiv Singh.

Social Influence Marketing means these connections are becoming fundamental. targeting communication through them can be an excellent way to market and communicate products and brands and to build relationships.

(Want to know the reason of this so Search Engine Unfriendly post title? Keep reading.)

Do you know Jethro Tull? During the LP “A Passion Play”, when track one fades into track two, you’ll hear a story. The Story of the Hare Who lost his Spectacles. This quite nonsensical and absurd story revolves around misunderstanding and miscommunication: a hare looses his spectacles and owl, newt and kangaroo try to help not understanding that the hare already had a spare pair. Give the story a listen if you have some time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m glad to announce today the hare has found his spectacles: all of the hare friends now know in real time what the hare's needs are and where they exactly are at anytime. They're also "accelerating": they are more aware of their world.

Photo: Giladr