Is the death of the corporate Web site near?

There’s been considerable discussion over the last year or so about the concept of “killing” the corporate Web site. What the heck does that mean, anyway? There are still plenty of companies out there that haven’t established their first beach head on the Web, and now there’s talk about those very same Web sites being obsolete?

These discussions are centered on the very prominent theme in 2009 of social media. The public’s perception of a company’s products and services is heavily influenced by conversations taking place outside the walls of the company.

You can no longer rely on a single asset to provide the online voice for your organization if you expect it to compete with the potentially high levels of “chatter” (some voices in a void, some heavily influential) in the social media ecosystem. The impact and utility of that single corporate Web site — if used alone — may be smaller than you think.

The thinking behind this is that for many, the traditional corporate Web presence is a relatively static, frozen-in-time snapshot of an organization. Content may not change very often, and the content that is there is more of a monologue (About Us, Our Products, Our Services, Our Clients), rather than a dialogue with its audience. An infrequently- or poorly-managed corporate Web presence will be out of synch with the day-to-day changes inherent in a dynamic company and do nothing to facilitate dialogue, engagement or participation.

Passive to Active

Gavin Heaton blogged about publishing online assets that “transform behavior from the passive to the active.” Heaton points out that “Participatory behavior leads to better interactions between people, brands and businesses.”

Facilitating participatory behavior can be accomplished within a corporate Web site, with some focus and deliberation. It’s obviously easier to accomplish this goal at the onset of a Web project than to enable it months or years after a site’s architecture and information design has been cemented. Unless you haven’t touched your primary corporate Web site in five years, I’m not suggesting that it go away; I am suggesting that companies leave the world of static marketing monologue and start to engage in participatory dialogue.

Consider taking the best and most dynamic parts of your company; your people, your culture, brands, your essence, and distributing them throughout the social media ecosystem. Only then can you leverage the power of these emerging channels to build relationships and create advocates and evangelists for your brands.