News© Institutional Communication, 11/02/2010

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“The user is the center of any on-line communications strategy”

Some fifteen experts discussed the latest communications trends on the Internet at the University of Navarra

Professionals from the University and other experts in Communications participated in the workshop
Photo: Manuel Castells

Fifteen experts gathered at the University of Navarra to discuss the latest tendencies of on-line communications. The participants all agreed that the user is the center of any on-line communication strategy.

Among the experts present: Pilar Marqués, assistant director of Corporate Reputation and On-line Communication at Repsol; the director of Web-Analysis at Prisacom, Adrián Segovia; the former director of SEO in Vocento, Estrella Álamo; the director of Business Development at Iritec, Sergio López, and the general director of the agency 101, as well as various professors from the School of Communication; in addition the directors of different centers at the University participated.

In total, there were 14 addresses made on topics such as corporate strategy, on-line reputation, usability, accessibility, search engine placement and corporate presence in on-line social networks.

During the sessions, a number of important issues were discussed, such as the importance of multimedia content, how the Internet can help the formation of students, how to improve the presence of education and research material on the web and how to improve user experiences.

The workshop, which was focused on the on-line communications strategies of the University, concluded with a synthesis of the ideas discussed by the specialists. The workshop moderator, Gustavo Entrala, General Director of the agency 101 and alumnus of the School of Communication at the University, stressed the importance of six key ideas for improving communications on the Internet.

Six ideas to understand on-line communications today:

1.- Global strategies: Managing digital communication implies managing content, user interactions and perceptions while aligning them with the overall strategy of the institution and integrating them in all the relations with interest groups or stakeholders.

2.- Listen and talk openly: Institutions need to learn to control interaction with the user. They need to be experts at listening to what the market and social media say and, through their openness, take part in the conversations with users. The Internet is not an innovation any more, it is the real world.

3.- Always think about the user: Institutions should know the user from inside the web site (Business Intelligence) and from outside (Social Media). At the same time, it is important for the information given to be displayed more intelligently. That means offering a web site where users never get lost, find what they are looking for and understand what they find. This should be possible on every navigator, at any resolution and on any operating system or device.

4.- Organization: The Internet is not just a means of communication, but a tool to improve the organization’s activity and the effectiveness of the whole management process. Any restructuring of a web site involves the reorganization of the work groups involved throughout the institution, and not just that of the content of the web site.

5.- Visibility and search engines: If Google does not know us, we do not exist. And if it knows us but we are not among the first search results displayed, then we do not exist either. We need to understand the trends in keywords searches and integrate them into our online content. The goal is to make our web sites answer the questions asked by internauts; we need to think the same way they do.

6.- Communication by every means: Lastly, institutions should bring information to the user through the new media. Free on-line social network applications allow users to create and share information in different formats such as videos, podcasts and images, expanding their presence on the Web beyond just their own site.