Webpresence is just a fancy way to describe a way of positioning, of creating a picture or thought of you in your intended audience’s minds. You want webpresence to communicate your position, great after-sales service, safe and secure, low price, Asian expert, innovative technology, best burger in Pittsburg, whatever. Webpresence is just a description of how your message is working on the internet. In an earlier age we could say TV presence.
Note that there are two parts to webpresence, what you are known for and how you are communicating that message, the what and the how. This raises issues today identical to marketing meetings from time immemorial, what’s the message and how do we get it out. Not that much has actually changed: marketers still eat doughnuts too.
Achieving successful webpresence requires success in both aspects. You don’t want the audience to get the wrong ideas about you (it’s harder to change an impression than to make one). You also don’t want to have the best message but not have anyone see it: the mousetrap trap.
“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door,” an idea that all you must do is focus on the best what, is bunk, a trap for the unwary. Unless people know about your better trap they will not come to your door. You need the how as well as the what.
The diversity of the internet is a conundrum for many traditional and new-age marketers: with so many channels available, which ones should be used? More meetings and more doughnuts later, two possibilities arise: focus on the message and approach the web conservatively, a website with some video perhaps; or focus on the channels and approach the web with gusto, using every gizmo and gadget available. Neither approach works.
Balance is hard to achieve, but is where successful webpresence comes from. Start with a good message then stop thinking about it, focusing instead on how to deliver it. Be open-minded about the channels and the how, but act always with the message and the goal in mind, getting the right message (the what) communicated on the right channels to the right people (the how).
Webpresence is not about message content nor about channels and technology used. It is about both. Balance requires neither a conservative or a with-gusto approach, nor a brilliant, all-encompassing message. It requires exactly what Goldilocks wanted, a web marketing effort that is just right, neither too what or too how.
