The question was brought up to me several times within the past couple months: “Is micro-sites fading away because Facebook Page Campaigns are the new fad?” I was once again reminded of this topic last night when I was surfing around the web and saw the image that I used as the feature picture for this post and thought… “you know what, let’s dive into this question and finally answer it.”

Plain and simple: No. Micro-sites are not disappearing, why should they. If people in your organization is telling you just the opposite please double check their credentials and send them on their way. It is stupid to say that one digital tool is going to devour another, because that it just what it is a “TOOL.” Your creative strategist needs to look at the whole picture and see what tools are the best tools to implement and to use in any campaign, as well as declare how those tools are going to be used, create guidelines and rules. One of the great things about putting together a digital campaign is that there are so many components to help you spread the message and make it successful.

Let’s take a quick look at the roles of a couple digital tools that make up a very simple digital campaign.

WEBSITE

A website is used as a brochure tool, a centralized location where information about your company can be found. If users want to find the root of all evil for the products or service you are selling, this is where they go. Let’s hope you posted a 1-800 number and not your personal cell-phone number – that would be bad. For this example let’s look at an outerwear company

MICRO-SITE

This tool is great to highlight something special that you are are doing or you are selling. “What you have jeans that look like they’ve been worn by teenage girls one too many times that not only look like they are wrinkled, have holes and multiple discoloration but actually are wrinkled, have holes and discoloration and they are ONLY $105.00?!” Highlight this product on a micro-site and show actual teenage girls wearing those jeans, have images of them running a muck in the park, on the yard or at a farm – but make sure they’re smiling, users are suckers for happy people – place a “buy now” button predominately on the page and call the site “Super Jeans!”

FACEBOOK PAGE CAMPAIGN

Want to get more social and create an experience where you know your target market is 90% of the day. Facebook pages is the place to do it, but what should go on this page? not the boring information that could be found on your website. I like what’s on the micro-site, because its fun and has personality, but I don’t want to just regurgitate that information here. I know, let’s have people do some silly things with their $105 jeans and have them post it here for the world to see. Soon we will have 100s of posts from people around the world sending us pics of themselves planking, owling and maybe even “Tebowing” with their jeans in hopes to get featured on our page. Oh the joys of social media, it takes so little to make people feel special, but the benefit is on our end because now everyone and their mama’s now know that they bought our jeans – that is what you call free advertising with a side of product placement in a sense.

At this point people are now talking about your product, they’re sharing and liking your pics and the world is great, but that’s not it let’s continue the conversation – I bet you know where I am going with this – oh Twitter, I love all 140 characters that make you who you are.

TWITTER

The beautiful thing about Twitter is that you can have multiple things going on about your service or product, and the people who are in this world will embrace it. Let’s talk about #dirtyjeans and if they really #lovemyjeans because if they do they will tell their friends that they gotta #getapair of our #superjeans. At the end of the day guess what, I am promoting all those trends and they will soon find out that I am the master of all things digital.

From this point users will be so exhausted of hearing, seeing and reading about your products that the next time they see the next tool they will raise their hands in hallelujah and say to themselves “I’ll take 2.” OK maybe I’m exaggerating, but they will definitely be aware of your product at this point.

BANNER ADS

The pioneer of all web advertising. I know we’re all sick of them, people say that they are useless – “the ROI on banner ads are too low,” “the CTR of these types of ads are at 1% in CPC and only 2% in CPM.” But the bottom-line is this, you see it, you know its there and if it was compelling enough you know you’ve clicked on them once or twice before – just like a billboard on the street or ad in a magazine banners bring awareness, the difference is banners can take you to the checkout line in a click of the mouse.Put together a well-thought out plan and execute, readjust if necessary – that’s the beauty of digital.

I know, that was a lot of stuff and I hope I answered your question, there is definitely more tools out there that we did not touch on like location-based services, augmented reality and much more. So on your next campaign when you are trying to figure out what platform your campaign is going to live on ask yourself the following questions: “what is it that you really want the end-user to do?” “how can I implement all these tools to make it a more comprehensive campaign?” “how should my content strategy look?”

Put together a well-thought out plan and execute, readjust if necessary – that’s the beauty of digital.