A good web professional should be asking you questions like these as part of their service. But frankly, I would advise you to consider these questions ahead of time for the following reasons:

• Become a more knowledgeable consumer (saving yourself money)
• Make your provider’s job easier (saving yourself money)
• Reduce the risk of your website project failing (saving yourself money)

Is saving yourself money important to you? Well here you go then.

1. What is your web site going to do for you?
Tip: Try to identify specific sales, marketing and customer service challenges or goals.

2. What is your web site going to do for your users?
Tip: Think like a customer, a very impatient and critical customer with many alternatives.

3. What is the value of successfully accomplishing the goals from #1 and #2?
Reality Check: Your web site project should makes fiscal sense.

4. What is required (internally and externally) of your web site to deliver on those goals?
Warning: A common pitfall is to start listing features before defining goals, leading to a bloated feature list.

5. List the top 3 things you want users to do. List the top 3 things users want to do. How do these lists compare?
Reality Check: Its a red flag if these two lists don’t look very similar.

6. How will you identify and measure success on first day your site is live?
Example: Data entry is automated and the manual entry process is eliminated saving 10 hours each month.

7. How will you identify and measure success 1 year after your site is live?
Example: We currently receive an average of 17 new product ideas each month from customers via the web.

8. Why will your customers and users tell their friends about your web site?
Reality Check: Faerie dust and hope are not reliable.

9. Why will your customers and users repeatedly return to your web site?
Tip: Regularly deliver something new and valuable to your customers and users.

10. Does your investment support #4 (requirements) and make sense with #3 (value).
Reality Check: Make sure your aren’t strangling your web site before it even has a chance.

Are these questions helpful to you? Do they make sense? For my fellow web professionals, do you have any suggestions or additions that are valuable to you and your clients?

“Social Media is such a new frontier that there really is no way that someone could honestly claim to fully understand it. It is constantly changing, and rules of the game are continually being remade and broken.”

John compares good social media consultants to guides who provide knowledge, a sense of safety and confidence. I couldn’t agree more.

So how do we select a qualified guide? I though it would be fun to take a look at Lewis and Clark (I love Oregon) and ask why would I be willing to explore a new frontier with these guys?

1. Some visible wear and tear – I feel better seeing unhidden signs of prior missteps and failure. Perhaps even worn with a sense of pride. I want to know that my guide has faced the unexpected, survived and is better because of it.
2. Packs, guns and knives – I want to see a collection of useful tools and gear. I may not understand what everything does, but I want to know that my guide is not under-equipped.
3. Buckskin clothing – In this case it is a sign that my guide has foraged from a similar environment that we are about to enter. It is just more evidence that my guide has operated in a similar environment before.
4. Other guides – I like seeing that my guide doesn’t travel alone and is connected with other guides from whom he can learn and receive help from. Honestly, I take on look at Sacagawea and I feel better about the expedition.
5. A variety of skills, perspectives and approach – Lewis, Clark and Sacagawea could not have been more different. Did you know that Clark wasn’t even of proper rank to co-lead the expedition with Lewis?  I like knowing that Clark isn’t guiding us simply based on some unrelated title or rank.

Does that apply to confidently selecting a social media guide? I like to think it does.

Lets face it. The barrier to entry for being a “social media expert” is somewhere between puberty and a free Facebook page. Here are a few posts I think are good reading for both guide seekers and professional guides.

• Social Media Consultant or Snake Oil Salesman (by Dawn Foster of Oregon)
• 10 Questions to Evaluate a Social Media Expert
• Social Media Snake Oil

What do you think? What criteria would you use to select a guide? For social media or otherwise.