ftindex2011 excavation

8/3/2019 FTIndex2011 Excavation

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/ftindex2011-excavation 1/93

FT Bowen Craggs Index 2011: An excavationDavid Bowen, April 2011

© Bowen Craggs & Co. 2011



Slide 3 ©Bowen Craggs & Co. 2011 www.bowencraggs.com/ftindex

Aim of the Index

To help organisations know where to look for ideas

To identify trends in online communications

To allow companies in the Index to measure themselves

against their peers

To be the industry standard in this complex but increasinglyvital area




How we do it

We do not control selection of sites

Thoughtful and detailed method, not simple tick box

Highly trained experts one brain approach

Granular approach (8 metrics, 26 sub-metrics)

Aim is to help, not just to provide a ranking: ² Convince bosses

²

Track progress ² Peer comparison

² Identify strengths and weaknesses

² Best practice

Methodology & FAQ: http://bowencraggs.com/ftindex/FAQ




What the Index rewards

Concentration on all areas ² Construction

² Message

²

Content

Good scores in construction (and to a less extent message) comefrom good governance

Content scores are equally spread, so companies can add theirown weighting for how well the site serves ²

Investors ² Press

² Customers

² Jobseekers

² Society




Top line stories

Averages have edged up

Less relaunch activity than before

Some reskinning, phased relaunches, much polishing

Success or failure depends on control no obvious trend tobetter governance

Greater social media integration, though not even

Good content getting more emphasis, especially video

Many small moves the devil is in the detail




Regional stories

Main activity has been in the US: partialrelaunches and social media activity, with somecompanies improving governance. Ahead on

customer metric. In Europe, the front runners are consolidating

governance is well developed, leading to high scores

BRICs groups lag on all metrics, though less oninvestors. Activity in Brazil, though governance isan issue, Russians have improved.

Little change in Asia (China, India, also Japan)




Regional scores

Average scores by metric US Europe RoW BRICs

Total 178 182 170 135

Construction 37.5 39 37 30.5

Message 31.5 33 31.5 28

Contact 8 7.5 6.5 5

Serving society 21 22 20 15.5

Serving

investors

20 22 21 18

Serving media 18 18.5 17 12.5

Serving

jobseekers

19 19 17 11

Serving

customers

22 21.5 20 14




Industry stories

High scores reflect investment and concentration by

energy groups

Industries with reputation issues tend to invest most: oil,

pharma

Industrial conglomerates use the web to tell their stories

Consumer groups are increasingly applying their slick

branding skills Banks and IT companies struggle to mix customer and

other target audiences




Themes

Governance issues

Social media/off platform

Your biggest publication

In defence of reputation

Be global (if you want to be)

Reality check: be authentic

Moving off the web platform

Section specifics




Governance issues

Relaunch and upgrade: Getting it right, getting it

wrong

Without a relaunch: Polish, slip, fix, fragment

Specialism versus imbalance




Relaunch and upgrade: Getting itright, getting it wrong

Quality of governance shows up when a site is being

relanch

ed or upgraded More piecemeal moves this year not always well

handled, and sometimes very poorly



Slide 13

Successful

relaunch



Slide 14

Sticking

plaster



Slide 15

Template creep



Slide 16

Double vision:

HPs newsroom, 1



Slide 17

Double vision:

HPs newsroom, 2



Slide 18

Newsroom 1

Newsroom 2




Without a relaunch: Polish, slip, fix, fragment

Top sites are always looking for small improvements

Improvements are now as likely to come from extra social

media features as tweaks to the site

Some good sites have been strangely neglected

Others estates have started to fragment, with many more

microsites



Slide 20

Polish



Slide 21

Polish



Slide 22

Polish



Slide 23

Polish



Slide 24

Fix



Slide 25

Slip, slip



Slide 26

Fragment




Specialism vs imbalance

Some sites emphasise certain roles over others

Fine, as long as the site still works for all users

A problem where it does not

Linked to fragmentation in turn linked to poor governance

Splitting corporate from customer sites can be an answer



Slide 28

IR specialists



Slide 29

Individual shareholder

specialists



Slide 30

Media specialists



Slide 31

Split Apple



Slide 32

Stumbling journeys



Slide 33

Splitting sites




Social media/off platform

Prefer to think of them all as part of online comms

We classified 22 of the sites as social media friendly

More signs of integration between th

e web and oth

erchannels

But still a great deal of fragmentation

YouTube and Twitter are dominant; Facebook only for careers



Slide 35



Slide 36




Your biggest publication

The home page as the front cover

Creating engaging content




The home page as the front cover

Make the page engaging

Drawing visitors in



Slide 39

Home page

engagement



Slide 40



Slide 41



Slide 42



Slide 43



Slide 44

Signposts to

stories



Slide 45




Creating engaging content

Your website is the most read publication you have now

includes your social media channels

Big moves forward by companies that have followed this logic.

The amount of strong content on microsites shows that thepush for better content often postdates the design of the site.

Video is the most used tool, with YouTube and websites often

working in tandem



Slide 47



Slide 48



Slide 49



Slide 50



Slide 51



Slide 52



Slide 53



Slide 54



Slide 55



Slide 56



Slide 57




In defence of reputation

Website is the most accessible official source during a crisis

Social media important, but less easy to prove it is genuine

BP oil spill response should be studied



Slide 59



Slide 60



Slide 61



Slide 63



Slide 64



Slide 65



Slide 66



Slide 67




Be global (if you want to be)

US companies have a constant problem from sharing the US

with the global site

Getting better, but occasionally they forget the global aspect



Slide 69



Slide 70




Reality check: be authentic

The web has many roles, ranging from third party audited

truth (eg annual reports) to pure advertising

How can visitors be persuaded that a site is close to truth than

fiction

An answer is to give subtle clues of authenticity through

design or content



Slide 72



Slide 73




Moving off the web platform

Apps are clearly a growing trend very few signs on the

corporate sites, but some have been launched

What is the relationship with mobile sites?



Slide 75




Section specifics

Investor Relations:

² Uncertainty about how to provide annual reports

² Use what we have can override Use what our audiences need

Press: Image libraries seems to be going backwards; Flickr is

growing but not taking up the slack



Slide 77



Slide 78



Slide 79



Slide 80



Slide 81




Fading image libraries

31 of the companies do not provide an image library

Twelve provide no images at all

Some going backwards

Lack of clarity about usage

Increasing use of Flickr, but rarely well linked to the main site



Slide 83



Slide 84



Slide 85



Slide 86




Careers sections get slicker

Continuing integration of social media

More use of video in employee profiles



Slide 88



Slide 89




Themes for the year

Cloud

Mobile

Apps

Governance

Measuring success

Interested in these topics and more?

Join the Web Effectiveness Network




More than 300 members from 5 continents

Quarterly meetings & annual conference

LinkedIn group with lively discussion forum

Need to know how others deal with specific issues? Ask the groupand get real answers fast. Managers from very different organizationsdiscover that they are facing the same challenges, and share ways totackle them.

Group research - helping you to stay in touch with the keyoperational and strategic issues (and how they are being addressed byfellow members around the world)

There is no cost to join but membership is subject to acceptance visit http://bowencraggs.com/Network-group for details




About Bowen Craggs & Co.

Bowen Craggs & Co is a unique web effectiveness research and consultancygroup.We help you close the web effectiveness gap: the differencebetween what you are doing and what you could be doing with your digitalcommunications activity principally websites, social media and apps.

Our firm advises more than 50 of the worlds largest organisations on theirweb communications strategies. We help them ensure that their websitesare doing the jobs they should be doing as well as they could be.

We do not build websites (this means you can rely on the independence of our advice).We help improve effectiveness with strategy, expert reviews,market research, measurement and best practice.

If you would like to find out more about us -visit www.bowencraggs.com or contact Dan [email protected] / +44 7786 707434

ftindex2011 excavation

Documents