An update on Eskom’s Online Marketing

A quick update on my previous post about Eskom’s Meatball Sundae… It seems that the beleaguered power utility has been paying a bit more attention to its online reputation management and marketing (perhaps someone read my post and approached them ).

First, a Google link search on Powering South Africa now returns 116 results; whereas, before, it only had two inward links over and above one or two internal links.

Second, whereas a search on ‘Eskom’ returned a lot of highly ranked negative results a month ago, Eskom’s own sites (main and subsidiary) dominate the first page of the search results; and the first truly negative link is only halfway down page 2.

It may be partly explained by the fact that there was much less load shedding in March, and that they haven’t been getting flamed as much lately, but they definitely seem to have been doing some work on their online presence too.

If you invite email enquiries, make sure you respond

If you’re not prepared to answer email enquiries, don’t invite them on your website.

Earlier this week, I submitted an email enquiry to Multichoice about whether subscribing to just MNet was still a possibility. Despite a growing array of DStv bouquets, there’s no mention of good old fashioned MNet (and the ‘Buy MNet’ link on the MNet website is just a link to the DStv site). This is actually the second email I’ve sent (I sent a similar query some time ago, but didn’t follow up).

Multichoice might ask why I didn’t follow up with a phone call if I didn’t get a response. It’s not a particular priority of mine to subscribe – even less so, after experiencing their non-responsiveness – but, more to the point, I’d refer them to the first line of this post. Why set up an email address for enquiries or webform if you don’t have the capacity or the system to respond to those queries?

What do you want to see on a political party’s website?

We’re reviewing the DA’s main website at the moment. It was built in 2003, and it’s long overdue for a revamp.

We’ve got what I think are some pretty cool ideas to make it fresh, interesting and entertaining – for example, we’ve picked up a few ideas from Barack Obama (although he probably spends more on his website and online presence than the DA’s entire annual operational budget) and the LibDems in the UK, among others.

But I’d love to get some input from users, web designers and online marketers about what they think would make an excellent party website. So I’ll keep our specific ideas to myself for the moment. I don’t want to influence or limit any innovative ideas that may be out there.

DA launches new interactive website

On Monday, the DA launched a new online initiative – The Silent Majority. It makes use of video (many thanks to MyVideo for providing us with a customised player), photographs and sound recordings to tell stories about the real life impact of policy decisions and implementation (or lack thereof). As you can read on the site’s ‘About’ page, it is “designed to bring to the fore stories and issues concerning those South Africans who do not usually have a voice in the mainstream media.”

Tip O’Neill, Speaker of the US Congress between 1977 and 1987, once famously said “All politics is local.” The Silent Majority seeks to illustrate that by telling local stories about the lives and experiences of people on the ground, rather than just looking at national politics, the ANC or the government.

“It is this gap, between the national and the local, between the general and the specific, and between the promises and the practical reality, that The Silent Majority will explore.”