In short, no, but its role is changing.
Prior to the explosion of social media, a company’s web strategy revolved around its core website. The key issues were mostly related to garnering traffic and the best means to convert that traffic. Now the core website is becoming just one component, albeit one with a central hub role, in a widening circle of a company’s web presence. Blogs, micro-sites, event based sites and most importantly social sites are taking on an increasingly important role in the overall web strategy.
The home page on Coca-cola.com directs their visitors to become fans of their Facebook site. They now have over 3.5 million fans. Links to Twitter and Myspace are prominent on most every large company website. Even railroads have Twitter accounts now. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Myspace and dozens of other social networking sites are commanding a significant and rapidly growing portion of the Internet traffic. Like in the early days of search, when companies that staked out a position and continued to expand it, reaped huge benefits as traffic increased, companies must get involved in the social networks in order to preserve their position in the social realm for the future.
For example, do you have a Twitter account that covers your trademarks and brand names? How about Facebook? Will people be able to find you if they are looking for your name, or is it back to the days of URL squatters all over again?
We already have clients who receive the bulk of their traffic to their core website from Facebook referals. Today, these are mostly social or community oriented organizations that are a natural fit for this environment, but we are also seeing strong growth in referals for more traditional companies as people begin to rely on the social sites for recommending their business contacts instead of using the traditional search engines.
The role of the core website is changing again just as it has evolved from being a basic brochure to being one of the central methods for communicating with your customers. It should be an exciting ride!
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