What is a vanity website?

A vanity website is basically a place online that aggregates all your information and your social bios into one place online. Designers and other web savy people social media were doing this a long time ago - buying their own name domain and pointing links to their work or just placing their CV and portfolio on it.

It was out of the mainstream however due to the skill of having to build it from scratch and making it unique from everyone else (you can be you with a default set of templates). The other reason why they were never extremely popular is the fact that the average joe or executive did not have a presence online. But with this “fad” of social media not disappearing and the fact that most of the major networks rank extremely highly for peoples own names, it has almost forced us to take our online reputation seriously.

So how do I set a vanity site up?

There are a few services out there currently that can not only give you the infrastructure that you need, but integrate with all over the major social networks. These are:

• Card.ly - This is probably the one with the best traction at the moment allowing a bio page, links to all your networks, complete contact information storage and streaming from your participating networks. There is a wide variety of custom themes but unfortunately no support for completely custom. Signing up for a paid membership however does give a greater ability for customisation and even gives you a fully-followed link out of it.
• Flavors.me - doing almost the same as cardly but with what I think are better templates and also the fact that you can submit some definite personal touches such as a custom background images (a la Twitter) and integration with a smaller number of networks (Last.fm, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, Tumblr). However the overall look is very arthouse, trendy, designer friendly, which I am sure will appeal to the more fashion conscious. The only downside is that it doesn’t appear to be accepting many members at the moment and also appears to be a paid only service.
• DIY - By going DIY you buy your own domain address and can use your skills (no matter how limited, to build your own vanity website. Take 5 minutes just to install a Wordpress blog and not only can you combine all your services into a page, but you can also have a fully functioning blog which you can actively use for a week or two and neglect - as per the vast majority of the online population. As long as your homepage is static like and accepting feeds from your social networks then you can hide the blog in the back until you are a bit more disciplined.

Do I really need one though?

Well this really depends on how important it is for people to find you online? By having an exact domain match for your own name which then links out to your chosen networks (you can control the flow) then you can maybe hide some of the things you get up to (I’m thinking of your Facebook) and only give people the full perception that you want them to have. None of the other networks will outrank an exact domain match for you. It’s almost a certainty.

So for those that are on every network known to man, and want to have that one stop shop for them, vanity website is definitely for you.

Set Aside Time in Your Day

If you do not set aside the appropriate time in the day, and just leave the networks running in the background you will definitely not be productive. Spend a week making notes when the majority of your network is online, or even see if you can figure out the patterns of some of the people you really want to get in touch with. Then build your social media timetable around that. I try to spend no more than 1 hour per day across all the networks during office hours.

Reread Every Update Before Posting

None of the major social networks allow you to cancel an updated submission once you press send. Whilst you can delete it, you never know that someone could have got a RT in or taken a screenshot in that spilt second. So for every second you spend typing that update, spend the same amount of time to proof read it. You will be surprised how many mistakes you can make in 140 characters.

Read Your Companies Policies

If you are being social on the corporate dime, make sure you play by the rules. You have heard all of the horror stories of people getting fired or reprimanded from their social updates, and you might think your immune. Trust me, you aren’t. They will find it, scold you, then show you the door. Think of it like being caught out on a date with your mate’s girlfriend behind his back.

Separate Business & Pleasure

Everyone likes to have fun on the weekend, and some people like to have a little bit too much fun. But if you fun ends up on the company feed, I doubt there will be much fun left when Monday arrives. I setup fake names and cartoon photos with accounts that only my close friends and family have access to. That way you will never really know what I get up to on the weekends, or when I am not posting on the blog.

Nothing I am saying here is ground breaking, but if you are a new player in the social media game, and you want your staff to know what is expected, show them this post. Or if you are an employer, what do you have setup to make sure your staff don’t abuse social media?

How?

Good question. I think the first place to start is to only focus on as many networks as you can. You should not aim to have a presence on every network known to man, you would not have the time to build credibility and trust on it without it chewing away every working minute possible. A practice that we have found that works well is assigning a network specialist (I refuse to use the word “Guru” *shudder*) to represent the brand on that platform. No confusion and it leaves more time to focus on what matters the most.

What networks should you pick then? It really depends on your target market. If you don’t know where your target market are spending their time online, the easiest and quickest way to find out is to just ask them. Plain and simple.

Ok, I have my networks & assigned people to them, now what?

Get them to participate. And by participating you should be monitoring what people are saying about you (as a person) and about your company and its products. A key point to know as well that your social network persona extends beyond just your work life, but you are representing you as a real person, that just happens to work for a particular company. You cannot be someone on a network that is not you in real life. It will just lead to confusion and distrust if you were ever to meet those in your network at a function.

Some good tips for participating I have included below:

• Share what you are reading with those in your network
• Mention what you are up to in your job - a new product/service you are helping with, achieving a milestone, etc
• Interact with others in your network by commending them or adding to the conversation with your point of view
• Never go crazy with blatant self promotion.

Oh No! We were misrepresented on a network!

Inevitably you will have a client or random individual say something about your product or brand online that you probably didn’t want in the public domain. And this is where I believe you can have a measurable strategy. I recommend taking the following steps:

1. Each day take note of how many comments are made about your brand or product/service online.
2. Spilt that list of comments into a file, labelling them Positive, Netural, or Negative.
3. Begin to interact firstly with those that are negative. This is because most of the time these concerns are voiced on a network, they are looking for a solution. And rather than go through your call center or rep, they feel they can touch the people that matter the most online. Your aim should be able to clearly define the real problem they are experiencing with your organisation.
4. For those that commend and applaud your organisation, you should really thank those individuals, and when/if possible, reward them in private for their kind words. This will continue to motivate them to sing your company praises.
5. For those that are neutral, the best way is to engage them in public and address their concerns or queries. We have found much better success when this is done by an individual’s personal social media account, rather than a brand’s one. However, there are exceptions to this rule, so feel free to use your discretion.
6. It would be wise for the negative respondents, if they aren’t really looking for a response to let them be, and add them to a list to interact with at a later date.

How do you measure the success of the campaign?

I think this is the easiest part. The aim should be to increase your tribe. We want to see an increase in positive comments across all targetted networks.

We want to see every neutral response turn into someone that will at least consider the product, if not follow our sales process all the way through to a client.

We want to see the negative posts neutralised and have their problems resolved. It is not reasonable to believe that you can remove all negative comments from the Internet. Stick and focus to the goal of solving the needs of individuals.

Social Media doesn’t need to be smoke and mirrors. It can have goals and metrics to evaluate the progress of the goals. If you can rectify 80% of the negative feedback of your organisation online and receive 5% increase in the amount of positive mentions, I think that is a fantastic result for your business. Don’t you?