Social Media Marketing For Dummies®

Chapter 9. Practicing SIM on Your Web Site

In This Chapter

• Plugging your Web site into the social Web

• Streamlining the user experience on your Web site

• Aggregating information for your customer

• Focusing on the experience and not just the product

For a long time, companies segregated microsites developed to support a digital marketing campaign from their corporate Web sites — for very good reasons. The corporate Web site had multiple audiences, sometimes needed to sell the product directly, and had to create a more timeless, stable impression than the microsite. The corporate site didn't just cater to prospective customers but to existing customers, shareholders, members of the press, business partners, and suppliers, too. It needed to carry information and include functionality that met all their needs. What's more, the corporate Web site needed to reflect the company's brand; the company couldn't change its look and feel based on the whims of a specific campaign.

The microsites were a different story. Companies built these mini Web sites to support display banner campaigns, and the microsites were time bound and oriented toward specific events or audiences. This could be Christmas shopping, Father's Day, or Back-to-School promotions for teenagers. Creative uses for the display banners directly reflected on the microsite, which would typically contain information about the specific offers. After all, with companies spending so much money on the display banners, they needed to drive visitors ...