Esty Gorman iris NY director of strategy: Is the brand website a dying channel thanks to the overwhelming social media choices we face?

By iris NY director of strategy, Esty Gorman

Recently, Facebook turned nine. And while that may not be very old, it’s feels like a lifetime since the social network completely changed the way people interact with each other and with brands. Since then, social platforms have been popping up all over the place, so that we now have a constantly evolving social media landscape combined of the more established, mainstream networks (Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc) and the newer, more niche ones (Thumb, Medium, Chirpify, to name a few). Marketers are now faced with a dizzying array of choices on how to slice their digital budgets to create the most impactful marketing plans.  

In order to help educate our clients on this continually evolving landscape, iris set out to better understand the behaviors of the hyperconnected individuals who use these platforms. Partnering with GWI, we commissioned a quali-qaunt study in 6 markets around the globe to uncover the thoughts, motivations and behaviors of consumers and how they connect with brands. While much of  what we found was in line with perceived wisdom, there were a few eye openers that we found particularly interesting – especially in relation to how people in the US are interacting with brands.

No one can argue that as “consumers” we have more choice than ever in terms of branded content available to consume. And at the same time, the sheer amount of choice places more power in the hands of the individual. What we weren’t expecting to find were such drastic differences between how Eastern and Western consumers interact with brands. For example, 50% of Moms in India and 38% in Indonesia have visited a branded social network page in the past month, however in the US that figure drops to 21%. But, more than 50% of US moms are visiting brand websites.  

While brands are able to elicit “likes” in social media (nearly 50% of US moms have liked a page), many are experiencing the challenge of keeping them engaged, and coming back to visit, illustrated by the fact that only 1 in 5 are actively re-visiting these pages. As brands look to create more content and enhance visibility through ad buys, one additional nugget that we found to be enlightening, was a website is twice as likely to drive a consumer’s opinion of your brand than an ad on a social network.  

So while there may be 141million hits on Google under term “are brand websites dead?” we may want to reconsider having them at the heart of our campaigns and building a socialized ecosystem around them versus forgetting them and leaving them behind. After all, if all of these hand-raisers are coming to your home, do you want the first impression to be messy and unkept, or do you want to create an experience that welcomes them in and gives them the best impression possible? 

Esty Gorman is the Director of Strategy for iris Worldwide in New York. She is responsible for the strategic development of key brands including adidas, Coty, Cola-Cola’s energy drink, NOS, Reckitt Benckiser, Sony and Diageo. Esty is also an active contributor to Urgent Genius, iris’ social platform that creates topical content at speed. See what piques her interest @Esty501 on Twitter.