Does this scenario sound familiar?

My site is registered with the major search engines. I've been assured that it’s SEO-friendly, there's a good linking strategy in place, and we are testing banner advertising . . . but I’m not getting the traffic I was promised, and my visitors aren’t sticking around. What’s going on?

It's simple. You need more relevant content on your Web site!

Now listen carefully. I'm not saying you should scrap what you’re doing today (because a solid online marketing strategy includes those tactics), but I am saying that you may want to consider supplementing your existing marketing efforts with an online community (aka, a social networking or social computing site).

Why?

Well, an online community is a low-cost alternative channel that will help create more relevant content and that "STICKINESS" needed to keep site visitors engaged with your brand and message.

Here's an example of how Dell uses a blog to engage its customers to promote the brand:

How?

As you begin to publish conversational content, site visitors will participate in those conversations and share their experiences, best practices, opinions, and talk more about your products and services. It's that user-generated content that makes a community so powerful and what keeps visitors coming back for more. So . . . the more user-generated content, the better! Heck, you may even create a few customer evangelists along the way.

Here’s another example. . . Xbox uses forums to create ongoing conversations within its community:

As you begin to define your online social computing strategy, I highly recommend Forrester's approach to social marketing -- POST -- People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. Start with your audience, define your core business needs and objectives, build the strategy, then identify the technology needed to make it happen. Don’t let technology dictate your strategy. It should only enable you to accomplish your business needs.

That being said, once you've reached the stage of identifying what technology is needed, you may want to consider a white label social networking platform like Community Server to help you build, manage, and grow your online community.

At a high level, the main components of Community Server are:

Blogs - Push out the message

Forums - Initiate discussions and gather feedback

Wikis - Searchable knowledge repository

Groups - Like-minded people coming together (aka micro-communities)

Media Gallery - File storage and sharing

Profiles - Identity, connecting with others, roles/permissions

RSS/Email - Pull people into the community

Reporting - Analytics to determine ROI, insight into the pulse of the community

These components can be implemented as stand-alone modules—perhaps you’d like to start out using a blog to announce company news and events—or fully integrated throughout your community where each component is working together. There's no right or wrong approach, just whatever it takes to meet your business needs.

Voice your opinion

If you are looking to drive more traffic to your Web site and are experiencing some of the pain points around easily creating more relevant content . . . feel free to chime in and share your thoughts. We’d love to hear from you.