Sich im Social Web amüsieren

By the way, this is the first post in English. I’m making progresses on my new version of the website, which will be fully bilingual, in between I decided to start to write in English (and my partner in Germany might also write some posts in German).

This blog is not going fully bilingual now, so posts won’t be fully translated. But there is a summary in each language, and when we migrate to Drupal, the most important posts will be translated.

So, on the topic itself….

Ins Social Web einsteingen means finding the right networks, the interesting blogs, the people who share the same interests, whether on Facebook, on Twitter, Xing, or any other community.

I know the web, Simone Bull, my partner, knows marketing and strategy and speaks German, when my German, to be honest, is not good enough to really play my part in a community. Therefore, it’s a place we explore together, trying to find the right little stones to follow to find our way, as did Hop-o’-My-Thumb.

And that’s sometimes rather difficult, specially when we are confronted to the strange flair of German web, which I would described as anything but optimized.

And when I read a “web marketing specialist” who promotes the use of Twitter, but without providing an easy way to find her on Twitter… well “ich amusiere mich”.

We started simply, by googling some words, and looking for some places on Facebook. Not so easy as it sounds, as the German web is structured in a very different way. Facebook is feared, up to the point that there are only around 6 millions people living in Germany on Facebook, for more than 13 millions in France. (But, for those who don’t know it, Germany has 82 millions inhabitants, for 65 millions French people.)

At the same time, in the local newspaper, we found an article written by …. well to be honest a potential competitor. She is a marketing consultant, and was speaking about twitter and the web. And how you should behave. On most of the things, I agreed (but may be not on the recommendation to use one’s firm name or brand, as a principle. It depends of the cases….)

The very funny thing was…. she gave in the article her contact information, and her website. But not her Twitter.

OK, I told myself, it’s a mistake of the journalist, and if I go on her website, I find her Twitter.
Well, I did, but not so easily. The classical Twitter button was not there, not even the “follow me on Twitter” magical words.

The Twitter feed was there, quite hidden, looked like a normal post. On the homepage, just with the title Twitter, and the indication that it had been posted three days ago. And here, finally, was the link, the little stone that Hop-o’-My-Thumb was looking for. The only link I could click on to reach her Twitter page was this “3 days ago”. And it was because I was really looking for a link that I found it. It did not look like any other link on the page (the usual blogging links where orange, with German sentences like “Erfahren Sir mehr”, inviting you to read more, when the Twitter link was pure grey).

Full oh hope, I arrive on the Twitter … post and not page. Which means that I had to click again to go to her profile, and finally read what she had to say, and decide (or not) to follow her.

Now, let’s make a short summary : I have a Twitter account, I know you can follow people, and I know how to do it. I do websites, and I’m used to analyze a page, and find a link. But I am really her target group ? And do I have the feeling that she really masters web communication when she does not lead easily to her pages ?

This is far from being the first time I have these questions about web agencies, specialists of “Suchmaschinen Optimierung” (Search Engine optimization) with web sites with tons of keywords but no content semantical structure, with web marketing consultants I can’t find on the web, with well paid and well recognized webmasters who don’t even know how to avoid basic duplicate content through .htaccess file.

And that’s the reason for the partnership with Simone Bull. To try to bring international state of the art web optimization to small and middle size companies on the web.