Live in the real world

I was reading an article posted on an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) website called The Value of Offline Publicity (Warning: that site is so busy with information, buttons, ads, and banners you might become disoriented). I enjoyed the article for one main reason – it was not your usual SEO topic. The author talks about your website being an extension of you or your company and thus what you do can have profound impact on your site.

He has a point.

I felt his methods concentrated on making your business into a ‘cult of personality’ where the business is an extension of the person (his article makes the assumption that most sites are one person operations – and in the world of knowledge blogging that is the truth). I’ll admit that I think his ideas are very effective – I have promotional strategies very similar to several of his bullet points – but I think that his six tips are just the tip of the iceberg. What he is talking about with a couple examples is a whole paradigm of thinking. It’s the idea that your PR and marketing is all tied together. Each piece of your marketing feeds each other piece.

Too often businesses cut their website and online strategy off from the real world. In SEO circles this is especially true, SEO tends to gets really geeky – it likes to live completely in the head. Marketing needs to be a whole body – what you do online effects the real world and vice versa – and with a little planning you can nudge things in the right direction and sometimes get the perfect storm – buzz synergy that feeds on itself.

I always tell clients – what you talk about to your clients in person, you need to talk about online. What you do in your business you need to talk about online. What you are doing online you need to talk up to your clients. If you don’t want to do this – chances are something isn’t going well in the business or you are trying to be something you are not either in reality or virtual reality.

What good is a brochure without a web address on it? or a website that never talks about print publications? The idea is to have one voice – just because you cross into a different medium doesn’t mean your voice changes. How you say things will change – what you are saying won’t. If it does you have a dangerous disconnect that will disorient your customers.

Now by all means follow his advice – become famous – just remember that all your agents (print, pr, tv, radio, web) need to talk about what you are famous for – and they need to talk up each other as well.