Recent goings-in within the technology world – most specifically the advent of Twitter user names and Facebook’s vanity URLs – has resurfaced the discussion around URL strategy. Traditionally, marketers have been mostly focused on what their main URL is and/or should be. Many of us have endured the battle of someone else owning our brand’s domain, or needing to change a URL during an acquisition or name change event.
The most complicated URL conversation over the last 3-4 years has been how to ensure secondary systems – ala your email service provider’s landing pages – match up with main URL. Then along comes Social Networking and its draw for companies. (We’ll save the entire discourse on URL shortening services for another day.)
At the highest level, there are two ways to think about your Twitter username or your Facebook vanity URL: if you’re locked-and-loaded with your current brand and URL, just match them up. Your customers will appreciate the consistency – and your SEO and SEM programs will continue to bear fruit around your already-optimized terms.
If you’ve got aspirations of changing your URL (and your customers can clearly understand the new nomenclature), then move to your new brand in the social media space and continue working on your main site’s URL. The best case here is when you’re migrating to a new nomenclature based on customer feedback – think when the Gap dropped ‘The’ from the brand.
While this is the simple approach, many creative marketing folks have gone a step further and truly embraced social media as more than just another marketing channel. They’ve developed specific personalities (real or created) that serve as a concierge within social networks. The best example I’ve seen lately is @HyattConcierge on Twitter. This extension of traditional tasks into the social media realm represents an interesting shift is how marketing and customer service is managed inside big companies.
Overall, your first consideration for URLs should be ‘Can my customers find me intuitively?’ Taking their view is not only recommended – it’s required. No matter how great you believe your value proposition to be, users simply will not go to complicated lengths to find you. Meet them where they expect to find you.
And if you’re just starting a business, place serious weight on being able to secure matching URLs between your site and social media sites. Given you’re starting with zero awareness, every dime spent on brand building should be geared around a single name.
Tags: facebook, social media, Twitter
This is just great – I recently launched my first site and this is exactly what I was looking for.