Paul Wallbank – Brilliant Communications

Tag: online

  • Your own little part of the internet

    Your own little part of the internet

    Five years ago I did a presentation describing how a website was essential for every business’ online strategy.

    The Business Cornerstone was delivered at the time where many advisers proclaiming Google Places and Facebook as adequate for building an internet presence.

    Over time, the importance of having your own domain and website has been proved as different platforms have messed users around with changing terms, arbitrary rulings and often simply closing down services.

    The importance of doing things your own way was underlined yesterday with the announcement by Medium, and Twitter, founder Ev Williams that the company is restructuring and shouldn’t be considered a publishing platform.

    For those who’ve published pieces on Medium that the service is not a publishing platform would have come as a surprise given the company has spent the last 18 months encouraging people to contribute to their site.

    That Medium is pivoting into something else – a Facebook, an Instagram or a Google Plus – shouldn’t be surprising but once again it illustrates the interests of this services are not necessarily the same as yours and when they conflict it’s your interests that will come off second best.

    While platforms like Medium, Facebook and LinkedIn are useful for distributing your message, the best long term online presence you can have is your own website. It’s a lesson those who rely on free third party services keep having to learn.

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  • Lake Wobegon and the sharing economy

    Lake Wobegon and the sharing economy

    New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd can’t get an Uber because her feedback score isn’t high enough.

    Similarly, when the Philadelphia Citypaper’s Emily Guendelsberger went undercover as an Uber driver she too found feedback scores determined how much work a contractor won.

    Guendelsberger found a driver with feedback score of 4.6 risked being dropped by Uber while Dowd discovered her rating of 4.2 meant drivers didn’t want to take her.

    Both these numbers are out of five and translate to 84% for Dowd and 92% for drivers.

    If you’re the type that works from the baseline of giving three out of five for delivering a service as described then adding points for exceptional performance or deducting marks for a poor experience then you’re messing with the system.

    With the Uber scoring model – and one suspects this is the same with most of ‘sharing economy’ feedback mechanisms – the baseline mark is a perfect five with small increments deducted for poor performance.

    Basically the curve is squeezed up to the right. Business Insider reported last year that only one percent of trips receive a rating of one or less and five percent below three.

    In Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon every child is above above average, it seems in the world of the sharing economy almost every participant is in the top ten percent.

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  • As seen on TV – where are today’s trusted sources

    As seen on TV – where are today’s trusted sources

    In a local shopping centre over the weekend this business was selling massage tables using the fact they’d been mentioned on TV to enhance their reputation.

    Citing an appearance on TV in the hope of improving your credibility is very much a mid-20th Century way of doing things. In the 1960s or 70s an enthusiastic mention from a TV host was the way to get the punters beating a path to your door.

    Today, things aren’t quite the same. TV was on a decline as a trusted medium – despite the successes of talk show hosts like Oprah Winfrey – long before the internet arrived. The web bought social media and now buyers can consult their friends and peers before deciding to buy.

    What was interesting about the sign was there was no indication of a social media presence or web page and that in itself showed how old school this business’ advertising was.

    For the business owner, it would have been hard work getting a mention on TV. Space isn’t cheap to buy and getting a mention on a current affairs show requires either the services of an expensive PR agency or many hours of bugging producers and not a small degree of luck.

    Then again, maybe a complete lack of online engagement didn’t matter. The shopping centre I was in would have an average customer age well over forty and, most of the market the business was aiming probably comes from the sizeable retirement village across the road.

    How this business ignores modern communication channels is instructive about the generational change in business and society, particularly on how different age groups find their trusted sources.

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  • For God’s sake get a website

    For God’s sake get a website

    The annual MYOB Business Monitor was released earlier this week with the depressing news that half of the Australian businesses surveyed didn’t have a basic website.

    MYOB’s survey reinforced the finding of PayPal’s Digital Literacy Report a week earlier that found only 34% of Australian small businesses list their contact details online.

    This is madness – over a decade ago consumers moved online and now with the mobile internet any business without a website is almost invisible in the marketplace.

    What is really dispiriting about these reports is that listing with the various online services and setting up a website is not hard, at worst it should take half a day for a simple site and to complete Google Places, Facebook and Yellow Pages listings.

    The easiest way to create a website is to setup a free Blogger page, it takes about twenty minutes and is more than adequate if you just need a site that lists your services, location, contact details and phone number.

    While Blogger is good for the basics, it does run the risk of locking a growing business into Google’s walled garden which is why WordPress is the better alternative for more advanced companies or proprietors.

    Most readers of this site already know how important an online presence is for any organisation, but it’s almost certain that everyone knows a business owner who doesn’t have a website.

    If one of those business owners is someone close to you, then the best thing you can do for them is to sit down with them and setup their basic online presence.

    Unless you think it’s time they went out of business. In which case you won’t have to wait long.

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  • 57 million websites and nothing on

    57 million websites and nothing on

    Twenty years ago, Bruce Springsteen sang about TV having 57 channels and nothing on.

    While little has changed on TV, today the web has 57 million websites* offering little beyond click bait and a quick rewrite of someone else’s work.

    At the moment that model works for the kings and queens of the digital manor who pocket a few pennies for each of the ten stories their overworked interns pump out in a day but it’s hard to see how that form of publishing adds value to the audience.

    The 1990s television stations and cable networks got away with no adding value – and still do today – because they are in industries that are tough for new entrants to enter.

    But on the web there are far fewer barriers to new entrants which means offering 57 channels with nothing on, or 57 million websites with no real content, isn’t a long term path to success.

    *a wild guess

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