Core Driving Platform

As a digital media agency, our social change business and organizational clients are no longer coming to us with one or two websites, but with a handful or more. We strive to make these sites part of a seamless digital ecology. This means that the different parts of an organizations online digital footprint — including things like Facebook and Twitter profiles — integrate and complement one another. This enables clients to smartly manage their digital ecology.A key component of a smart digital ecology is what we refer to as the driving platform. The driving platform is the main organizational website online. It is the place that everything in social media, campaign sites, and other parts of the digital ecology should drive to. In order to establish an effective driving platform, clients need more than ever to step back and consider deeply what it is they are trying to do overall.With this is mind, the core driving platform has to achieve several goals. The first is that it needs to be able to establish the organization’s credibility. People coming to the driving platform must understand what they are there to do, so the website should clearly indicate what is to be achieved. It must also point to the other elements of the organization’s digital ecology. Making sure that the driving platform is consistent with branding and messaging on these external elements is key. The content must be clear, concise and communicate the right message. A website today is not in a vacuum; while the driving platform is the key place that people visit to learn about a new organization, social media must also be taken into account.As an agency that works with many clients like you, we are given unique and valuable insights into how organizations work. We understand the challenges and opportunities that clients face and can see the larger patterns that start to emerge. One of those patterns is the ongoing complexity of managing a digital ecology. The core driving platform is the central ingredient.

• Author: Phillip Djwa