10 ways for your site to be less awkward

What does it mean to “join the conversation?” I’ve been thinking about that a lot and this is my current take.

When I visit your website, or interact with a piece of your content on another website I am beginning a conversation with your brand. There was a time when your site was simply a destination and the chat was very one-sided. The site talked a lot about you and your business and what it could do for me and it had one gateway to start a conversation off-line — the online form. A little awkward, but hey, there are other channels to really get to know each other.

Then sites started learning about me from my behavior. They watched what I did and made suggestions based on my actions. This was a start but it was more like someone watching me and thinking they know who I am. Not a very great foundation for a relationship.

Then sites began to grow less socially awkward and actually approach me. When amazon.com made a recommendation they at least began to ask whether they got it right. Today, not only are sites engaging in richer conversations with people, actual people are engaging in conversations on sites like Twitter.com and Facebook.com. Now, the bar has been raised on the etiquette a site must employ in order to be a better conversationalist.

The key method for engaging in a richer conversation is to think of how we build personal relationships — over time.
We don’t just tell someone all about ourselves and then expect them to be in a relationship with us. Pure observation is just awkward. We give a little and we get a little. We ask questions. We share experiences. We make observations and we suggest activities. Even those suggestions are opportunities to learn – ‘would you like to eat at Joe’s Diner?’ ‘no, I much prefer that salad place.’

Netflix.com does a very remarkable job of learning about me and continuously asking for my feedback in bite-sized ways.

It wants to know what I thought about the last movie I rented and then it gives me suggestions based on my responses over time. It remembers the things I have told it. When it makes a suggestion it asks me if they got it right. This is a great online manifestation of a brand that is interested in building a relationship over time.

Pandora.com is a music service that allows me to create a ‘channel’ of music that is similar to my favorite artists. This site is friendly because it tells me why it is recommending each new tune. I always have access to this information and it is refreshingly not simply based on artist name, producer, album title, or any other really explicit attributes. They talk about tone, and style being behind the recommendation. Most importantly, they ask me whether or not they got it right. They pay attention to the stuff I skip past and the stuff I listen to. They are interested in learning about me and ultimately I reap benefits from their knowledge. That is the start of a beautiful friendship.

There are myriad ways to join and engage in the conversation between people online.
Here are just a few that have stood out in my travels:

1. Ask me how I liked what I just read
2. Let me share it with someone
3. When you make a recommendation, ask me if it is a good one
4. Remember what I shared with you
5. Show me what you’ve learned about me and remind me of the conversations we’ve had. (Don’t be creepy)
6. Tell me why you are making a particular recommendation
7. If you alert me of something, let me take an action or respond
8. Reply to what I said about you outside of your site
9. Make your content flexible and portable
10. Be as interested in me as you want me to be in you

Many of these don’t require giant efforts or for me to build a robust profile within the walls of your brand. It is ok to think small sometimes. Short conversations are what make up long relationships.

Looking forward, I am going to have more and more information about me online and it will become easier for me to share it with a brand. This can be a very tempting invitation to get greedy and nosey. The brands best poised to reap the rewards of this boom of personal information sharing are those that understand all of the points I’ve made before. They are building relationships. They are not being nosey, or awkward. They are joining the conversation.

Thinking Small: eTrade launches a social network

eTrade launches an implicit and tiny social network-like feature.

I came across this example of a small feature that instantly evoked a sense that there is a community of users on eTrade. I am not an active trader by any means and the actual info within the widget was not what made it stand out to me. It was the fact that I was exposed to the activities of other users within this community in a really subtle way.

This is partly what I was referring to in my post about “The social app that will redefine financial services firms.” Exposing the crowd activity is a type feature that could allow full-service firms to differentiate their private experiences. They are inherently a community of like minds (and often rich ones too).

The key to this feature is that it was not too creepy or invasive and it did not require me to do any work. It also did not make a recommendation to me. I can draw my own conclusions about the list that is presented. I do have to make a certain cognitive leap though to apply context to the list. It makes me ask ‘what types of users are searching for quotes on eTrade.’ That will define how I ultimately interpret the resulting list.