Forget social media, it’s branded websites

Two in ten online consumers indicate that, in the past month, they have forwarded a link to an article about a brand or product (19%) or to a brand’s or product’s website (19%) to someone in the past month, while 15% have forwarded a link to a brand’s or product’s video. Surprised ? Where do you think consumers are going to turn when they eant information on your brand or product? If you answered Facebook you don’t get ice cream after dinner today.

A brand’s web site still trumps its Facebook page and Twitter stream as a mom-trusted resource. Moms ranked social media sites behind other online sources in terms of trustworthiness when it comes to brands. While 32% ranked a brand’s website as a trustworthy source of information, just 10% said the same of its Facebook page, and just 4.4% said they considered Twitter streams to be trustworthy.

There are no shortcuts to developing a great branded website and the strategy should always drive the budget . Marketers should not allocate “left overs” to their digital marketing.

The other key problem that I think a lot of marketers overlook is that brands are media and as thus websites need to be updated consistently. This means adding new content and getting rid of pages that don’t attract visitors. It also means a lot of multivariate testing to ensure you are maximizing your website.

The hype around social media is loud, but marketers need to see through that garbage and understand which digital marketing assets really drive brand objectives.

Originally published at www.newmediaandmarketing.com on January 26, 2017.