Brad Westness.com

Back in the early to mid nineties, businesses all wanted to “get online” to establish their web presence on the (then) newly popular “information super-highway.” Having a website was promised to bring them untold riches and an exponential increase in customers.

Even brick-and-mortar local businesses that didn’t offer any services not available on site joined in the land grab for domain names and, in their hurry (and inexperience) put up quickie-pages with those little graphics of “under construction” signs and “Screen Bean” clip art. Generally they included a photo of the business and the address. If they were really motivated, they might have also included their hours of operation and possibly an “about us” blurb.

Then, they forgot about it.

Nobody told them that these things need to be maintained. Nobody told them that the little “Last updated September 1993” note in the footer would look bad in a few short months, or that rapidly changing technology and standards on the internet might soon cause their page to display incorrectly and make them look out of touch or careless. That the hours of operation never got updated when they expanded their staff and started staying open later. Or that the picture should probably have gotten updated after they remodeled, so people could recognize the building after seeing it online.

They didn’t want to think about that stuff. Why should they? They’re busy running their diner, or antique store, or construction company, or whatever. They’re used to the world of the phone book, where the content expires and is updated by someone else each year.

Over the last decade, the internet became so pervasive that almost everyone now understands what it is and how it works more clearly than back in the early 90s. There’s still plenty of old, outdated local business websites floating around out there, but most local businesses understand the value of having a web presence and keeping it accurate so people can find information about their establishment.

However, these sites still weren’t really doing the local businesses a lot of good. Customers didn’t flock in, cash in hand, the day after the site launched. What went wrong?

Somewhere along the line technologists and small-business pundits became convinced that the secret to generating business through your website was to create communities. That way people would hang out on your site longer, and feel a sense of camaraderie with your other customers and feel like they have an avenue to discuss concerns and comments with the staff.

So everybody decided they needed a guest book, or bulletin board, or a commenting system for all their news posts. They hired people to install these things for them. Surely a vibrant (and profitable) community would spring up!

However, again, nobody told the business owners that these things don’t maintain themselves. Comments, guest books and bulletin boards need to be moderated. News posts need to be written, preferably by someone who understands marketing and has some decent writing skills.

That brings us to where we are today, in 2010. There is now a plethora of these sorts of ghost-town communities for local businesses all over the internet. Need to ask a question? Post it in the “Questions” forum on the message board! Then sit back while nobody ever responds to it, and realize that the last time the administrator (or anyone) logged in was six years ago. Marvel at the blog, with a total of four posts, all of which are over a year old! Check out the MySpace page, which is so overridden with comments from metal bands containing HTML and embedded video and audio that your browser crashes.

So now the web pundits are pushing a new sure-fire way for local businesses to strike gold on the internet. Social networking! Web 2.0! Tweets! Facebook!

History is repeating itself.

Business owners want to put Facebook and Twitter on their websites, and web developers dutifully implement it, but someone needs to let them know that those Facebook pages need to be moderated. Somebody needs to actually write tweets if you want them to show up on the homepage. Someone needs to make sure the replies and responses aren’t just spam, or ne’er-do-wells claiming the company is “WORSE THAN HITLER.”

People are statistically much more likely to comment (or tell their friends) if they’ve had a bad experience than a good experience. So maybe the old “testimonials” page is not really better off being replaced by a comments section. It makes sense for celebrities and rock bands to have community sites, as people want to discuss them, and subscribe to their Twitter feeds because they want a window into their lives and enjoy hearing updates about their current projects and such.

Not that all these Web 2.0 type services are a bad idea for businesses, but they certainly require some thought. Take a step back and think through what the implications of “Facebook integration” actually are for your business before you just go ahead and implement it, especially if you have no intention of maintaining it after it is launched.

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