How To Build A Social Corporate Website

What are you talking about, website? Having a Corporate Website is so 1.0, right? That may be true, but I have come to believe that there is still a need for a corporate website. One that can coexist along with your Twitter optimized blogtastic-wikinator forum, mind you, but a corporate website nonetheless.

That being said, if past websites were all about having a place on-line to put your billboard… then today’s corporate website needs to be about your real time activity and the operative words these days are sharing and easy.

Some Thoughts

I feel that the overarching goal of today’s Corporate Website is twofold:

1. You want it to be as easy as possible for people to connect with you about what you’re doing
2. You want it to be as easy as possible for people to share what you’re doing with their social graphs.

With that said, here is how I’ve been thinking about rebuilding our website at work lately:

dynamic is better Our site was originally designed with two distinct sections. The traditional website and the blog. On the current site, the blog was to be dynamic while the traditional website was to be relatively static. I would argue that the static website is the quintessential Web 1.0 website, and I really think we can do better in making the entire site dynamic, not just the blog.

easy navigation Drop down menus in your navigation can more than likely be redesigned to flatten out your website. Websites have landing pages, whereas blogs just get right into the posts, so instead of wasting a landing page with some introductory dribble, why not use the front page as a gateway to the things you are doing? When links to your work are on the front page of the site, you can utilize a minimal navigation menu throughout your site, with like three choices: Home / About / Blog. I really like the idea of keeping it simple.

your work These pages used to be static, but that was then. Today, these pages should pipe in photos, videos, news, and blog posts from the things you’re doing out in public. This means that anytime somebody comes to your site, they’ll get a real-time glimpse of what’s going on with that particular initiative. It also should be pretty easy for outsiders to connect with official project people involved in the effort on their social networks of choice. Both of these types of tasks can be accomplished easily with today’s technology, but off-line work flow will more than likely need to be redesigned around collecting the media in the right place and populating it on the page.

about you This section of your site should really be used as a place to recruit talent and develop future business. Your company’s story is compelling, so make sure that is represented in this space. But also give people a sense of what goes on during the typical day in the organization. Homemade YouTube videos, contact forms, and links to groups you’ve created on social networks are great ways to give prospective recruits and partners a way to connect with you.

your blog Or should I say your voice. Here are some takeaways from a year of attempting to establish a group corporate blog. The truth is that I am in the process of implementing these “findings” with our blog, but knowing is half the battle:

a. Find people who are passionate about a topic that pertains to the business
b. Screen for the people who are also passionate about writing
c. Establish guard rails around what’s cool and what’s not cool to write about
d. Set up a topic calendar and follow through with it

What Do You Think?

This is the blueprint for today’s Corporate Website, according to me. I would love to get your take on it, though. What could be taken out? What did I miss? Let me know below…