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Manila Bulletin devider Technews devider Why companies must invest more on their official website

Why companies must invest more on their official website

Published Feb 13, 2023 01:36 pm

For the longest time, I have been criticizing Philippines organizations (corporations, NGOs, universities, colleges and schools, and even government agencies) exclusively relying on social media for their communications.

Two major justifications I often hear are *all* Filipinos are on these social media sites, specifically Facebook, and their website is difficult to update. Let's take on these justifications. The first is an outright misconception that all Filipinos have Facebook accounts (or Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok). No, not everyone is on these social media services.

What is worse is that Facebook is a closed system - meaning, access to whatever is posted there requires viewers to create an account, and creating an account requires a mobile phone number. I won't even talk about the effects of these social media services on one's mental health and privacy, but you get my point - not every Filipino wants to be on Facebook, most specially.

Anyway, if the intention of these organizations is wider reach, then they clearly have failed already. Some organizations livestream events, post photos and videos, and host online chats, during their events on Facebook, thinking they are reaching more Filipinos.

Unfortunately, this is not true! Yes, it is discriminatory* - discriminating those who do not have an account. It is worse when the organization is a public university, college, school or a government agency! If this *is* the intention, then there is something really wrong. The clincher is when organizations use Facebook exclusively to provide services for paying customers!

Why are organizations, such as Globe Telecoms, making it difficult to access customer support services when customers do not have Facebook accounts? Note that these are paying customers being left out! Inclusivity must be the objective, not more exclusivity, right?

Another justification I often hear is that their website is difficult to use. If the official website does not work the way it is supposed to work, then revamp it! There are free, open source content management software that can take care of this issue - it is just that they do not want to, I guess. These organizations do not want to invest on their infrastructure, I get it, but do not subject readers/viewers/customers to the privacy-invasive practices of these social media companies! Similarly, corporations have the obligation to provide support services to their paying customers!

They should invest on proper customer relationship management systems and not rely on the likes of Facebook! Again, I won't even go into the details of Facebook's, Twitter's, Instagram's and TikTok's privacy issues, but these issues are very well documented already. If they have not heard of it, then they must be living under a rock. Anyway, maybe when they hear about what ChatGPT have to say about this (funny how the answer is spot on this time), organizations might think twice about this ridiculous, discriminatory communications strategy.

ChatGPT on why relying on social media services for communications is not good corporate strategy Social media is here, and should be used to maximize reach, but not as an exclusive platform for your organization's communications strategy. Putting all your eggs in a rotten basket - yes, rotten because these social media services are known to host and promote questionable content (hateful, vile, false content) - is never a good idea. Luckily, organizations, there is still time to fix it, but will you?

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