kwd web management report 2013 (open resource)

1 – KW Digital Web Management Report 2013

KW Digital Web Management Report 2013

kw-digital.com

The challenges, strategies and management issues for Web Managers in 2013 à


Inside the mind of a Web Manager 2013

We asked people who run corporate websites about the challenges they face in 2013 and their priorities and plans. 137 professionals from 123 listed companies in 22 countries participated in the sur-vey. 44% of the companies that took part in the survey are in the FinancialTimes’Europe500.Theseareourfindingsfromthesurvey.

Web managers are concentrating on ensuring that their websites work well in mobile devices – responsive design is high on the list of priorities for the year. This is a sound priority since around 17% of visits to corporate websites are from a mobile device (according to a KW Digital analytics study of 15 corporate websites). Apps on the other hand are a low priority this year and also have low degree of satisfaction among the companies. The trend is clearly moving to responsive website design.

Companies tend to spend more on their website and prioritize their website more. Their biggest challenges are their social media presence and digital strategies.

KW Digital Web Management Report 2013 – 3

123123123123from of them

44%44%44%44%

$$

Decreased17171717%

Increased28282828%

48484848%

Unchanged

50%

47%

43%

39%

35%

%

%

40404040

18181818

Who we asked? Website investment

Main content areas for improvements Technical solutions

Use of social media channels

83%83%83%83%Used by

76%76%76%76%

KW Digital Web Management Report 2013


The corporate website is a priority– but not always for senior management

Senior management involvement is important for building a long-term roadmap and communication strategy for the website. Many companies lack a clear online strategy signed-off by the senior man-agement which often creates a gap between the business strategy and what is communicated on the website and other corporate digital channels.

Strategy-related issues were also one of the key challenges mentioned by respondents. e.g. “Separate business units have different goals when it comes to digital communication – they prioritise differently andit’sdifficulttoreachasharedvision.”Formulatingasharedvisioniskeytoproducingadigitalstrategy,butonceestablished,itofferssignificantguidancetothoseinvolvedindevelopingcorporatewebsites.

Nearly 40% indicate that senior management is highly, or fully, involved in determining the goals and vision for their company’s digital corporate communications. About 20% have little or no involvement from senior management. The respondents who give the corporate website their full priority (about 31%) have their senior management’s involvement and full attention.

percent have little or no involvement from senior management

20Source: KW Digital Web Management Report 2013

To what extent is senior management involved in determining the goals and vision for your digital corporate communications

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Not at all involved

Slightly

To some extent

Involved

Highly

Fully involved

Source: KW Digital Web Management Report 2013


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What content do you plan to improve or emphasize in digital channels in 2013?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60OtherNone

Risk informationDebt information

Contact informationComplete overhaul

Corporate governance relatedOnline annual report

IRMedia

Career relatedCSR/sustainability content

Information about the company

The corporate website and online corporate communications have the highest priority when compared to social media and corporate mobile apps. The corporate website will be prioritised by over 92% in 2013 compared to social media 67%.

Companies will primarily work on improving information about the company (50%), CSR/ Sustainability content (47%), Career related content (43%), Media and IR.

How will you prioritize the following areas in 2013?

0 20 40 60 80 100

Online corporate communication(strategy, presence, effectiveness)

Corporate website (strategy, content, look and feel,message, traffic, transactions, stakeholder satisfaction)

Social media (strategy, content, distribution, response)

Corporate mobile or tablet apps (strategy, integration,content, presence, distribution, response)

Not at all prioritzedSlightly prioritizedPrioritized to some extent

A priorityVery prioritizedFully prioritized




40% say they plan to improve or emphasize re-sponsive design during 2013, in comparison, only 18% plan to improve or emphasize their mobile or tablet app.

Social media is a challenge for many companies. It is also an area where they see a need to focus their efforts. The integration of social media channels within the website creates added value withtrafficflowingfromonemediumtotheotherand using the already established technology with

the social channels rather than having to develop them on your website. A great example of this is a LinkedIn plugin which lets your visitors see if they have any 1st or 2nd degree LinkedIn contacts working at your company. Another example is us-ing an integrated slide-share module for showing and archiving your public presentations instead of developing your own. A bonus is that the presen-tations will be available both on Slideshare and on your website without any extra efforts of upload-ing them more than once.

Which solutions linked to your corporate website do you plan to improve/emphasise in 2013?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60NoneOther

DesignA new content management system

iPad/tablet/smartphone appInternal search engine

Mobile adaptationFunctions to increase interaction with visitors

Search engine optimizationSocial media – integration

Responsive designFunctionality (e.g. charting tools, databases)

Content structure

Traffic coming from mobile devicesto 15 corporate websites (Nov 2010 – Apr 2013)%

0

5

10

15

20

2013-032013-012012-112012-092012-072012-052012-032012-012011-112011-092011-072011-052011-032011-012010-11

Source: KW Digital


Companies plan to improve the content structure, functionality, and integration with social media. They are also turning their attention to responsive design. These are sensible priorities. Responsive design has started to become a corporate web-sitemust-have,sincemoreandmoretraffic to websites comes from mobile devices.

Wehavestudiedtrafficfrommobiledevicesin15websites between November 2011 and April 2013. The trend is staggering, going from 5,3% in April 2011 to 11,3 % 2012 to 17,5% in April 2013. We are getting to a point when the visitor expects the website to be optimized for their mobile phone or tablet.

Preparing for visitors from mobile devices


Purpose of the websiteThe majority of the respondents indicate that the purpose of their website is to give relevant and significantinformationtokeyaudiences.25%indicate that it should be the central hub for the

company’s external communications. This tells us that 25% use the corporate website for company related information as well as to market their products or services.

Social media, strategy and consistency – the biggest challenges for 2013We asked respondents to indicate what they think their company’s primary challenge in digital communications is for the moment. Social media was by far the largest challenge with comments like “Learning to adapt social media in a very conservativecompany”and“Weshouldimproveourpresenceinselectedsocialmediachannels”.Otherchallengesfacedwerefindingastrategyfor working with social media and deciding what channels to prioritise.

Digital strategy was also mentioned by many as their top challenge, “Social media should more and more become part of the online corporate communicationstrategy”,“[ourprimarychallengeis] how to change focus from traditional printed mediatoafullyintegrateddigitalstrategy”.Theseare both great topics for discussion when working on digital strategy.

What best describes your purpose/vision of your corporate website?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Other

To be compliant and provide regulatory information

To increase the valuation of the company

To increase brand awareness

To be the central hub for the company’sexternal communication

Give relevant and significant information to our key audiences(investors, shareholders, journalists, job seekers)


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Social media of increased importance but also one of the largest challenges

The importance of social media is growing stronger. 79% of companies use social media for corporate communication today. Of the 21% who do not, a third are planning to become active in 2013, which tells us that the trend is continuing to grow. Social media was also the most cited chal-lenge for web managers in 2013, where many struggle with the absence of any strategy or framework for working with social media.

percent use social media for corporate communications

79Source: KW Digital Web Management Report 2013


Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are most popular61% and 50% responded that they actively use Facebook and LinkedIn respectively. Twitter is the most popular social media platform among the re-spondents – it is actively used by 69% of the respondents’ companies while 83% indicate that they actively or less actively use Twitter for their corporate communications. This can be compared to 59% a company page on Twitter in 2012.

Facebook competitor Google+ is actively used by 23%, SlideShare, a pres-entation sharing service is actively used by 18% and Scribd is actively used by 2%.

When it comes to choosing your strategy for social media and deciding which channels to be present in the most important part is to decide what to communicate, how often it should be updated and who should be responsi-ble for doing it. Consistency over time is key to keep interest from your audi-ence. Although SlideShare and Scribd are used by a few they are channels that could be of great value for your business. They will make your docu-ments and presentations reachable to many more people than they would if they only reside on your website and depending on your business this could be a great way of establishing you as a knowledge-leader in your niche.

Major investments in social mediaThe trend towards investments in social media continues, with more com-panies investing more money on social media. 28% have increased their budget related to social media while only 5% has a lower budget than last year. 67% of companies see social media as a priority in 2013.

A majority of the active companies have a social media policy84% of the companies who are active in social media have a social media policy. The most common content is guidelines for how employees should use social media at work (58%) and guidelines for employees’ behaviour in relation to corporate social media channels (47%). Other popular content includes the instructions for internal social media teams on how to respond to questions published through corporate social media channels (41%) and how the company’s social media accounts should be run (34%).

Surprisingly, only 28% have a crisis plan with instructions on what to do in a social media crisis. There are numerous examples of social media crises that could have been eliminated, or at least minimised if the company had a well prepared crisis plan. A social media policy should give mandate and guide-lines on how to act in a crisis in a given circumstance.

69percent use Twitter actively for corporate communications

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Monitoring social media75% of the respondents use a system for social media monitoring and 40% use a social media management tool (SMMT) to manage accounts, content, monitoring and measurement of corporate communications.

Web managers plan to prioritise their social media efforts to surface infor-mation related to Press, Careers and Corporate Responsibility in 2013.

75percent use a system for social media monitoring

Do you have a social media policy and what does it cover?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

We don’t have an official social media policy

Other

Crisis plan - Instructions for what todo in the case of a social media crisis

Instructions for the social media team on what contentto publish in the corporate social media channels

Instructions for the social media team on how to respondto questions in the corporate social media channels

Guidelines for all employees conduct relatedto the corporate social media channels

Guidelines for how all employees are allowedto use social media channels at work




More focus on mobile-friendly web 41% of the respondents currently have a mobile-friendly website with content tailored for mobile or tablet devices. Of those that do not have a mobile-friendly website, 31% plan to develop it in 2013.

However only 20% have a responsive website, which is the most current technique for creating mobile-friendly websites. Out of those who do not have a responsive website, 39% are planning on making their website responsive this year. This clearly shows that responsive web is a strong trend going forward.

38% of companies currently have an app, compared to 29% in 2012. Of these, 98% have an app for Apple iOS and 58% for Android. 67% indicate that they will prioritise corporate mobile or tablet apps in 2013.

67percent, will prioritise cor-porate mobile or tablet apps in 2013



Web Managers: Who they are and what they do 137 professionals from 123 listed companies in 22 countries have participated in KW Digital’s survey this year. 44% of the companies that took part in the survey are included in the Financial Times Europe 500.

The majority of the respondents are Head of Online Communications, Web Managers or Head of Corporate Communications working in a Corporate Communications department. Most are responsi-ble for web content and digital media and around 40% indicate that online annual reports and overall corporate communications are included in their responsibilities.

In most cases the Head of Communications is in charge of the company’s corporate website. 57% of the respondents have 1-3 people working on the corporate website more or less full time, 19% have seven or more people. Interestingly, 7% of the companies do not have a person working full-time with the website.

In 62% of the companies, senior management is involved in determining the goals and vision for your digital corporate communication.

Head of Online Communication/Digital media, 19%Web Manager, 15%Head of Corporate Communications/Communications Director, 12% Head Corporate Web, 9% IR officier, 7% Communications officer, 7% Head of IR, 5% Web editor, 3% Other, 23%

Title



Corporate communications, 64% Investor relations, 17% Online/Web communications, 12% Corporate Affairs, 2%Media Relations, 1% Other, 11%

Department

0, 8%1-3, 58% 4-6, 16%7-10, 10%10 or more, 8%

People working full time with the corporate website

Areas of responsibility

0 20 40 60 80Other

Sustainability/Corporate ResponsibilityInvestor Relations

Marketing/Communications strategyPress and Media

BudgetOnline annual reports

Overall corporate communicationsDigital media/multimedia

Web content/web editorial





About KW Digital

KW Digital is a digital corporate communications agency that helps companies make better use of digital channels in their corporate communications. We provide strategic advice and execution based on our research and experience.

KWDigitalisadivisionofKingWorldwide,theleadingglobalfinancial communications and stakeholder management company. King Worldwide employsover900staffservingmorethan1,000clientsfromofficesinNew York, Boston, London, Stockholm, Madrid, Cape Town, Moscow, Dubai, São Paulo and Hong Kong.

For more information about KW Digital please visit http://kw-digital.com.

Contacts for more information

About the report

The Web Management Report is a yearly report produced by KW Digital. It is based on the KW Digital Web Management Survey which is carried out to understand what web managers and others responsible for corporate websites see as their challenges this year. The purpose is to let them share knowledge with each other and help them build their cases internally by referring to how others are doing.

The report summarizes the responses of the sur-vey which was sent out in March 2013. We asked 34 questions ranging from the size of the corporate website budget to the importance of social media in corporate communications. Our research gives a good insight into what companies will focus on overthenext12monthsand,inthisdifficulteco-nomic period, what issues are important to them.

The KW Digital Web Management Report 2013 is published as open research under a Creative Commons license. The web managers that have

responded to the survey get access to the full ver-sion of the report which also includes management and budget information.

For more information about the report please contact:

Helena WennergrenDirector, Head of Marketing+46 8 407 22 [email protected]

Staffan Lindgren

Managing Director

+46 8 407 22 12

[email protected]

Phil MarchantManaging Director UK

+44 (0)20 7920 9734

[email protected]

© 2013 by KW Digital. All rights reserved

kwd web management report 2013 (open resource)

Education

digital web management

digital strategy

corporate digital channels

digital communication

corporate websites

digital strategies

management issues

web managers