Analyst surveys often seem to quantify the obvious. That seemed to be the case recently, when Forrester revealed that most of its analysts don’t like using walled-garden AR portals on vendor websites. Not surprising — few people like to register for content. That’s why we have things like BugMeNot and Anonymous Cowards.
Yet, a debate of sorts rose up around this point among some of the AR bloggers. Anonymous AR bloggers at the ARmadgeddon blog took issue with the Forrester thumbs-down on AR portals, and cited agreement from a Hill & Knowlton AR expert. They believe access to privileged vendor content justifies access hassles.
Aren’t AR portals a bit retro? We’re well into the Web 2.0 and UGC window, and it has implications for AR just as it does for everything else. Some AR pro’s — like Catherine Helzerman and Skip MacAskill — are willing to experiment in Second Life while they keep the conventional paradigm running. Many more are turning onto blogging. Meanwhile, fundamental changes are already beginning to appear out in the mainstream — in press rooms, websites, collaboration environments.
So here’s what I would do instead of investing in a legacy walled-garden AR portal. Start-ups, multinationals — doesn’t matter.
First, collaborate with my media relations colleagues. Focus on making sure the online press room is properly designed and always freshly stocked with content. The idea is to create a high-value reference resource with documents, audio, video, photos, contact information, blog links, archives, targeted search, email alerts, and feeds. For help with priorities, check out TEKgroup International’s free annual study on what journalists want in a corporate press room. (Caveat: high tech represents less than 15% of respondents this year.)
Next, collaborate with my corporate web teams to make sure company websites and site maps support the way that analysts perform online research. Embed supplemental content, links, keywords, titles, tags, share widgets, and feed opt-ins right on the very product and services pages where analysts are likely to land. Use SEO techniques to optimize content visibility within the corporate websites and beyond — in search engines, bookmarking sites, aggregation sites. Informal testing with hand-picked analysts can really help.
Last step: start looking at Web 2.0-style collaboration tools for sharing my proprietary content with analysts on the fly. Shared spreadsheets, wikis, chatrooms, videoconferencing - the list of choices is awesome. A good place to start looking is the Office 2.0 Conference website.
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October 11th, 2007 at 5:26 am
Thanks for the link.
Some analysts told me they were not going to use Second Life because they have a first life already. Given how much they travel I assume this might be a widely shared sentiment.
Analysts want their cake and eat it: access information immediately and get the inside track. Those two requirements are mutually exclusive but AR portals are a good fix -if populated with enough information.
PS: agree with you on collaborating with PR, we’ve posted on the subject:
ARmadgeddon: It pays to play with PR
October 11th, 2007 at 6:11 pm
Hi Barbara -
I strongly agree with your suggestions and approach and can tell you that based on our research (iPressroom provides Online Pressrooms, Microsites, New Media and Digital Asset Management Portals to clients including Target Corp., Trend Micro and UCLA among many others) journalists hate to register for content. In our opinion - the only content that should require registration are high-resolution downloads of digital assets and perhaps embargoed content for non-public companies. Generally, the more transparency the better, and the more keyword-rich content you make available the greater potential boost to your search visibility.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Thanks, Chris and AROnaut. Sorry for my long delay in replying.
You both hit on one of the challenges for analyst relations practices — they don’t just provide embargoed content to the ICT analysts, they also provide content that is never to be released to the general public.
I agree with Chris, such a requirement does not justify putting other types of content into a password-protected portal. Nor does it justify lack of consistent tagging and user-friendly navigation on the main website or online pressroom.
Aside from special promotions, analysts behave much like other website visitors: they enter company website on the typical landing pages, using typical keyword searches, and typical referral sites. That experience affects analyst opinions about a company’s marketing savvy, business culture, and customer service, among other things.