Workplace Safety”Prevent-it” campaign lacks finish…

Don’t get me wrong, I love the graphic WSIB shock-ads, I also love the messaging and clear, consistent “call to action” at the end of each print, radio and TV ad, which is to visit www.prevent-it.ca.The ads themselves are not informative, but rather act as lures to get people’s attention on the issue of workplace safety by having them visit the website.

The only problem is, the website itself has no content.

Yes it’s flashy and sexy, it incorporates some modern scripting languages, and it is consistent with the ads, but that’s about it. The site has no original, informative content. It’s simply a gateway to the WSIB website (which houses all the information that should be on “www.prevent-it.ca”), as well as various PDF documents, and media files of the advertisements. I can almost hear the ad/web agency proudly beating it’s drums and shouting “Look what we can do!” to potential future clients.

Noted problems:

• Splash page hurts search engine visibility (not a good place for sponsors to be on…who clicks on an ad before they even get to where they set out to go?)
• 30 second Flash intro is an unnecessary interruption for audiences seeking information (they already saw the ad on TV, why are you playing it again?)
• Broken links and/or links that re-direct back to the landing page (try pressing the second bullet under “parents”)
• PDF’s should not replace CONTENT! (Simply posting up PDF’s of your print collateral and calling that a website is sooo 90′s..get with the times!)

Things I do like:

• As noted in a previous post of mine, I love simple, clear calls to action that follow the 1-2-3 concept. In this case:

1. See-it
2. Learn-it
3. Do-it

In addition to this, the site segments the information according to identified target audiences:

So the general strategy and overall information organization of the site makes sense, only there is no meat. Where is the user engagement? Perhaps an online workplace safety quiz catered to each target audience would have done the trick? Or better yet a contest where users can submit nominations for the “safest workplace” award. Better still, how about a direct link to a place where users can post a complaint about their work environment, especially considering you just scared the living crap out of them!

That’s just my two cents, your opinions may differ. As you can tell I was quite disappointed after excitedly arriving at the site upon viewing the TV ads. Maybe my expectations were too high? What are your thoughts?

Cheers,

-MK

A midnight rant on “Facebook Fatigue”…

It’s midnight here in my Montreal hotel room, and I can’t help to control my urge to rant about a term that has been coming up lately in the business blogoshpere and key marketing podcasts: “Facebook Fatigue“.

Basically, certain “traditional” marketing folk are getting tired of Facebook and the aura of hype surrounding it. They’ve tried some ads, or maybe even started a group, with no results. Further yet, they bombard their business e-mail lists with Facebook “friend requests” in what appears to be some sort of subconscious, pseudo-high school, business popularity contest. Then they sit there with 500+ contacts and stare at their empty Facebook “walls” and wonder why there are no signs of life.

Well guess what? That’s not what Facebook is supposed to be about. It was not made for “business” purposes. This was originally supposed to be a Harvard dorm room application for students to communicate with each other and see what their friends are up to. Within a few months it exploded all over College campuses across North America, the rest is history…

The vast majority of original Facebook users have “genuine” connections. Meaning that they simply added their offline friends and family to their lists; They simply brought the conversations online. If you request to be added to someones list (whom you don’t know very well) in order to promote your business or build a client database, you will stand out like a sore thumb. If you’re not careful you will do more damage to your brand than good. Facebook is NOT MySpace!

A large part of the group of people that actually “use” Facebook for what it was meant to be, consists of “early adopters”, (myself being one of them- on Facebook since late 2005). When the mainstream media got a hold of Facebook (most notably after the VirginiaTech incident), businesses came running in faster than ever before. Soon after, Facebook opened its platform to developers (Facebook Apps), at which point the floodgates flew wide open. The professional business world (most of which didn’t grow up using and learning proper etiquette of ICQ, MSN Messenger, etc…) started adding as many people to their “friends” lists as possible with an intent to either network or promote something to them…this is where “quality” suddenly took a serious hit and “quantity” was the new kid on the block. As a rule of thumb, I tend not to accept “friend requests” of people I do not know well enough to want to have a beer with them on a Friday night.

That being said, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Facebook has a ton of great advertising tools for businesses to help them reach these true social networks. While I’m still not particularly sold on the “fan” page idea in terms of my own business (I find they cater more to stores and artists), the targeted social ads are fabulous.

My point here is that if you’re going to use Facebook for business purposes, you must realize that what works for one business will not necessarily work for another. Fan pages work for some, but for others that want to create communities around a subject rather than a brand (and thus become authority figures), “groups” might make more sense. For those that simply want to build a business network, I recommend using LinkedIn. Above all, if you’re going to use any of Facebook’s great advertising tools, make sure that you know who your target audience is ahead of time so that you can cater your message accordingly. Finally, please stop talking about “Facebook Fatigue”. If it’s not working for you, then either re-examine your tactics (to see if they align well with your overall objectives) or accept the fact that Facebook is not for everyone.

Update on Social Media Policies in the Canadian Government

A while back I wrote a blog post about a special social-media task force set-up by Government of Canada CIO Ken Cochrane. The task force was set-up to examine social media best practices and develop government-wide policies on its usage accordingly. In a recent interview with InterGovWorld.com Ken Cochrane talks about the latest progress:

The CIO branch is expanding acceptable use policies for the Internet to cover off social media and other Web 2.0 technologies. “This policy work isn’t finished yet, but as we develop the rules more fully, we’ll share them across departments so they can adopt them.”

There are many aspects to sort out such as privacy, accessibility, and a code of conduct. Bilingual requirements are also a concern for this emerging area. “To encourage people to offer their ideas when using blogs, they must be allowed to do it quickly in their language of choice in order to make effective use of this medium. Instead of making it mandatory to translate everything, we summarize it all in both languages on a weekly basis. This seems to satisfy bilingual requirements.”

Cochrane also talks about the government exploring the use of Web 2.0 tools to engage citizens, and about a recently completed online survey to get Canadians’ views on the issues that garnered about 2,500 responses.

“They see Web 2.0 as interesting, but there was also cautionary feedback. They don’t want the government to use the technology just because it’s cool – they want such decisions to be based on solid business requirements,” he says. “Canadians expect the government to be serious.”

This is an interesting point, but I think it came out because there is a general misconception amongst the public about what exactly is Web 2.0 and social media. I would have liked to have seen the survey questions as well, to see if they were formulated properly. Too many people now think of Web 2.0 as a buzzword representing cool viral videos on YouTube, chatting on Facebook and catchy one word application names (tumblr, plaxo, flickr, twitter, jaiko, etc…). It’s not about being flashy and having all the latest tech gadgets, applications and tools, but rather about accepting the democratization of the web and about the fact that one-way, stagnant communication with taxpayers is no longer acceptable (in terms of government).

However, it’s good to see progress and discussion like this about Social Media going on internally in the government. I think this will help renew the outdated Treasury Board communication policies that currently exist, which significantly limit effective 2-way dialog and collaborative “citizen-2-government employee” engagement. Not only that, as Ken mentioned, Social Media and Web 2.0 tools and applications can be extremely beneficial for streamlining internal business processes and collaboration between work groups, which is something the government desperately needs.