Just a thought, but interacting with social media to build a brand means that you customers need to be using this medium. Dealing with more technical B2B PR clients, it is unlikely that say design engineers will be using Facebook in their professional capacity. I know that there are professional networking sites like Linked In, but for some of the ‘techie’ groups that we need to speak to they are simply not engaging as yet with social media in their professional capacity – that leaves us with exploring other media, which might include microsites.

As someone who has been in the PR industry for too long, I have sadly seen too much good content get used once and then get discarded, but sadly that has in the past been the way of the world. In the B2B world we see alot of new product launches that have a short but focussed life. I am not a particular proponent of microsites but if done well they seem to serve a purpose. Surely the message is to engage constructively and well, give the customer something useful to take away in the hope that they may do business with your customer in the future.

Would be interested in your thoughts.

I agree, micro-site esque functionality on social platforms (and Facebook is the obvious candidate), or perhaps spanning multiple social platforms, will probably become the norm.

And it’s an inescapable fact that somewhere in the equation somebody will always be lining their pockets.

I’m working on the “Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World” book at the moment, and micro-sites are certainly a common factor across the big brand world of online advertising.

To be fair the best of them are incredibly well executed and contain some amazing content… and a few are starting to integrate with social platforms and encourage broader, ongoing dialogue and interaction with consumers.

Looking at them with a “campaign” mentality I guess they make sense and can deliver very effective short term results… but their isolation is their downfall. As Robin Grant of We Are Social pointed out at the Understanding Digital event last November, smart brands are moving away from isolated campaign-based advertising to focus on building an enduring dialogue with customers.

But while online marketing moves very quickly, and evolves constantly, bigger brands are typically a bit slower on their feet. It takes time for them to cop on and catch up… so I suspect we’ll continue to see campaign-based micro-sites from digital agencies working for big-brand clients with deep pockets for some time to come.

They should, of course, be hiring you guys instead !

Great post. Broadly speaking I agree with you… there’s no point in a crap micro site, and yes it’s an open invite for digital agencies to write cheques.

But just lately I’m revising that view a bit. What if we all built *great* micro sites. Properties that were integrated as counterparts to Social properties, that were plugged in to a a long term search strategy, etc…? I can’t help but think for every reason not to build a crap micro site, there are a bunch of very strong counterpoints to build great micro sites… ie, if they’re well thought through, integrated and implemented.

That said, they probably wouldn’t be called a ‘micro site’ and they’d definitely look different… but from a ‘show me the money’ point of view they’re practically the same. Perhaps just built by different agencies like yours and mine….?

What do you think?

Cheers

Roger