Take Pinterest – it was once mostly seen as a way for women who were interested in fashion and shopping to be able to collect images of the things they wanted to buy. This sounds like a perfect place for designers and clothing stores, for example, to meet potential fans and customers. Over time it has become the “next big thing” – with fans, marketers, and brands jumping on to check it out. It’s no longer a “niche” social network, but that doesn’t mean it has value for everyone, or that it looses it’s value for the initial early-adopters.

In all things marketing, you must know where your potential customers and fans are. If you have a product or offering that has a good visual representation, or if you know your audience is busy pinning away, then Pinterest might be the right social network for you to add to your arsenal. However, it’s not worth simply jumping on the bandwagon if there won’t be much return on investment.

Marketers and companies often find success in less well known places. For example, businesses in the food and beverage industry may be looking at up-and-coming sites like <a href=”http://www.foodspotting.com/”>Foodspotting</a <http://www.foodspotting.com/%22%3EFoodspotting%3C/a> >, and wondering why they even need a Facebook or Twitter account.

But balance is important, and no matter how much a targeted social media site may seem like the best fit for your company, in the end (at least for now) you’re always going to have greater access to a larger audience on Facebook and Twitter.  Use your niche social networks to harness the audience there, but don’t forget to post links on the major social media sites to the content you upload elsewhere.

The purpose of this is twofold.  One, it alerts people to the other social media sites you use, and may help encourage people to join those sites and follow you if the focus of the site appeals to them.  Two, for those potential customers who like to keep things simple and stick with Facebook, you don’t lose them – you just add another interesting facet onto your existing social media strategy.

How on-topic your blog needs to be depends a lot on the nature of your business, as well as your branding strategy.  If the tone of your other communications is friendly and informal, then you can probably get away with a more conversational blog, with a bit of leeway on topics.  On the other hand, if your brand’s tone is serious and factual, then it doesn’t make sense for your blog to be casual and chatty, and you’ll probably want to keep things more on-topic.

The size of your business also makes a difference.  In a large corporate environment, it’s generally expected that your blog will mostly feature posts that are on-topic for your business. If you work alone or have only a small office with a few employees, then your audience may want to get to know you a little better.  It might be nice, from time to time, to use your blog as a way to let customers and potential customers see part of your personality, or the dynamic in your office.

Be careful, however, about letting off-topic posts take over your blog, and keep an eye on just how off-topic you’re getting.  You might love cute kitten videos on YouTube, but posting them every day on your company blog might get to be a bit too much, unless your business is pet supplies.  Use your personal social media accounts (not your company ones!) to share the cute videos; use your business blog for more business-related topics, with perhaps the occasional off-topic or tangential post thrown in.

If you’re worried about being able to come up with enough relevant blog topics, keep in mind that you don’t need to post to your blog every day, and in fact that can get tiring for your audience if the range of topics is all over the place.  As long as you’re coming up with a few strong posts a month, perhaps one or two per week, that will be enough to keep your audience engaged and reminded of who you are and what your business is about.

Without a doubt, over the next year some more “next big thing” sites will pop up, and certainly you’ll be tempted to try out most, if not all of them, at some point.

However, it’s important to remember that you are only one person, and unless you have the resources to hire a team of social media managers, there is only so much time and effort you can allocate to social marketing.  It’s essential, therefore, to continually assess how your current efforts are faring, and decide accordingly when changes need to be made, or if no changes need to be made at all.

Failing to focus on the social media sites that will work best for your business, or that are already working well, is the easiest way to fall into the trap of spreading yourself too thin.  Just because a site is the fad of the moment doesn’t mean it’s here to stay, and you don’t want to take attention away from a another site that is working well for your business.

To use a simplified example, let’s say you have a big following on Facebook, and you’ve built up an active community there with strong engagement, and that’s taking up most of the time you’ve allocated for social media management. Then Pinterest comes along, and you want to get in on that action, so you start spending a lot of your social media time developing your Pinterest account, meanwhile letting your attention slip from your Facebook community.  Then maybe it turns out that Pinterest doesn’t work out for you, and in the process of finding that out, you’ve lost a good portion of your Facebook fans.

That’s an oversimplification, of course, but you do need to acknowledge when tried and tested social media is working well for you, and resist the urge to jump immediately onto every new network that comes along.  Focus on the number of networks you can handle given your available resources, and if you already have a great social following somewhere, don’t give it up for anything.

One thing that’s important to remember is that pretty much all business owners are in the same boat.  When Facebook changes for you, it changes for everyone else, too.  The difference is in how people respond to it.  Sure, we all grumble about it, but in the end, those who thrive are those who keep calm, carry on, and simply make the necessary adjustments.  Yes, you may have lost your custom landing page in the most recent overhaul, but so did everyone else.  Even though it may be frustrating, you can use it as an opportunity to make your page stand out in other ways.

In terms of keeping in touch with what’s coming up at Facebook, there are forums where people discuss rumors of upcoming changes, but if you want official information, you can follow the <a href=”https://blog.facebook.com/“>Facebook blog</a>.  It doesn’t get updated very often, but when it does, it’s usually some information that will be important to the community at large, and upcoming changes will almost always be announced there.

If it’s all just too exasperating and you don’t have the time or patience to deal with the frequent Facebook changes, it’s a great idea to get some outside help with social media management.  Social media management services make it their business to keep up-to-date with all the upcoming developments at Facebook (and other social networks), and can help you stay current or even slightly ahead of the game.

Will Facebook ever settle on one formula and stick to it? Probably not. The web is moving forward at lightning speed, and Mark Zuckerberg did not build a multi-billion dollar site to have it lag behind.  If there’s anything Facebook has taught us so far, it’s to expect the unexpected, so be prepared for any and all changes that might come your way! Do you embrace changes to social networks, or is it harder for you adjust to a new way of doing things?

What is the purpose of the redesign? There’s a common misconception that everyone needs to redesign their website every once in a while “just because,” but that’s not necessarily the case. Sit down and make a list of all the reasons why you need to redesign. If you’re having trouble coming up with anything and you’re happy with how your current website is performing, maybe it’s not yet the right time.

Is your SEO as good as it could be? If the recent changes with the Google algorithm have left your site not ranking as highly as it used to, it’s probably time to revamp your SEO. Your web designer should be able to advise you on the optimal way to use the redesign to your advantage and make significant improvements.

Have you received any feedback? Since your customers and potential customers are the ones who have to use your site, it pays to take notice of what they say about their experience. If you’re getting repeated complaints about one particular feature of your site, either remove that feature or modify it accordingly in the redesign. Likewise, if people seem to love a particular feature, don’t get rid of it just for the sake of change. Stick with what works; fix what doesn’t.

How can you improve your content? A redesign is the perfect time to assess the content of your site and make any necessary improvements. What kind of information are your customers looking for, versus what you provide on your site? Quality should always have priority over quantity – make sure the information you share adds value to the site, and make sure you don’t leave anything out that could be helpfull to your audience.

How can you improve your navigation? There’s nothing worse than a website where you can’t find what you need, or you can’t find your way back to where you were five minutes ago. Clear and obvious navigation will always win out over clever but over-complicated menus that bury content and confuse the visitor.

If you’re serious about having a website redesign that works for you on every level, our web development services may be of some help.

1. Embrace the social aspect.  The whole point of twitter is that it’s supposed to be conversational.  Making sure that you’re speaking with your followers rather than just at them is one of the main keys to keeping people interested in what you have to say.

2. Don’t ramble.  The 140-character limit is there for a reason: to keep things short and sweet.  Don’t use it as an opportunity to split a 500-word essay into a million tiny pieces – choose your most important message and break it down to its most essential component.

3. Be retweet-friendly.  Be generous about retweeting content from others that you think would be relevant to your audience.  In return, make it easy for others to retweet your content by leaving enough characters free for the necessary “RT @handle” text at the beginning of the tweet.

4. Get the balance right.  No one wants to read a hundred tweets from you in an hour, nor do people want to follow an account that only gets updated once a month.  Put out a handful of tweets per day, and let the size of the handful be determined by the level of interaction you’re getting from your audience.  Space tweets out so that there’s not a big clump of tweets followed by a lot of silence.

5. Show your expertise.  Twitter provides the perfect platform for sharing your knowledge.  You can use the search function to look up keywords relating to your field, and when people ask questions you know the answer to, you can step in and help them out.  This not only helps spread the word about your business, it shows that you really do know what you’re talking about.

As with most social media, balance is key – say what you have to say, but be respectful of how other people use the platform, and over time you’ll build a strong following. Are there any other tools or methods you’ve used to help build your Twitter reputation?

The thing is, a blog will help bring in customers, and the positive effects of having a blog are significant.  The content you include on your blog not only supplements the information on the rest of your site, but it can help you connect with your audience in a more conversational way.  The comments feature allows people to add in their own thoughts or ask questions, creating greater personal interaction.

But that doesn’t mean that your blog should be solely about your business.  In fact, most blogs tend to cover a range of topics related to the company’s focus, providing extra value for people who are looking for information on those topics.  In addition, a blog is a perfect platform for you to showcase your areas of expertise, which in turn will help your readers recognize you as someone who is knowledgeable in your field.

Having a blog with a variety of blog posts also provides content that others can link to. These inbound links will drive more visitors to your site, as well as boosting your SEO.

Good blog posts will also get people talking and sharing, and these days, sharing usually means social media.  This is also good for your SEO because Google now ranks sites higher if they have a high number of shares on social networks.  So if you can create blog content that gets a conversation going, you’re more likely to been seen again and again around the social media circuit.

Of course, what was said above about time and effort remains true – you do have to create content that people will find both unique and interesting.  Many business, however, avoid starting a blog because they’ve underestimated the value of putting in that effort.  For a relatively small time investment, you can start seeing tremendous increases in site traffic, as well as improvements in your search engine rankings.  You can also start building a community of readers who will come to your site again and again, to see what new content you have to offer.  Certainly that alone would be worth quite a deal to you.

1. Form over function.  If creating a pretty website has caused it to become difficult or confusing to use, potential customers will get frustrated quickly (restaurant websites are notorious for this!).  Sites can be both nice-looking and functional, so you don’t need to sacrifice either aspect, but priority should definitely be given to function over form.

2. Poor navigation.  Sometimes, in an attempt to be clever, web designers will try to get innovative or artistic with navigation styles or categories.  Navigation should be obvious, and the categories should be clear.  Your visitors should not have to guess several times to find a particular piece of information, and you should make it easy for them to find the information again on repeat visits.

3. Auto-play. So you have this cool video or audio that you want your visitors to hear – you should just have it auto-play as soon as people visit the site, right?  Probably not – auto-play can be jarring at best, and angering at worst.  By all means, put your video in a prominent place where people are sure to see it, but give the user control over when to play it.

4. Withholding or hiding contact details.  Considering that businesses usually create a website to increase their customer base, it’s shocking how many business websites there are where the company contact information is either buried in some strange place, or worse, not on the site at all. Make it easy for your visitors to reach you in as many ways as possible, including an email address and phone number.

5. Too much Flash.  There was a time when Flash intros were all the rage, but these days, visitors to websites (especially business websites) want instant access to information.  If you insist on having a Flash intro, it’s essential to offer the user a way to skip it and get to the main site. Also, keep in mind that some mobile devices won’t even display Flash content, so there’s that concern, as well.

For business pages, however, the old format lingered for a while.  Companies waited to see if their pages were going to be converted to match the look of personal pages, and some even started preparing a new design for the Timeline banner layout.

The wait is now over – businesses and brands will indeed need to start switching over to the new format, and as of April 1, any businesses that have not already switched will have their accounts automatically converted.  So what does this mean for you as a business page owner and marketer?

Pros:

Better communication. Previously, businesses pages did not have the capacity to send private messages to fans and customers on Facebook, but that’s changing.  With the new design, you can use your business page in the same way that you’d use your personal account, and send messages in private when necessary.

Better branding. The banner format is, simply put, a beautiful design.  It allows an impressive amount of real estate at the top of the page for a logo or other image that represents your brand.  There are restrictions, however – Facebook terms of service do not allow for you to post your contact information or promos in the banner image, for example.

More control.  With the previous design, older content automatically got pushed further and further down the page, and buried under more recent content.  With the Timeline format, you can select certain pieces of content to be “sticky” and remain at the top of your Timeline for as long as you want.  This is great if you’re running some kind of promotion that you want highly visible at all times.

Cons:

Fewer featured tabs.  In the past, you could feature however many custom tabs you wanted.  With the Timeline design, only four tabs are featured, and the photos tab is mandatory, so you only have three tabs to work with for custom featured content.  However, this can work in your favor, forcing you to simplify and prioritize which content is most essential to your marketing strategy.

No landing page options.  That default landing page you designed to funnel more fans in and encourage Likes?  You won’t be able to use that anymore.  With the new design, everyone has to use the standard Facebook landing page, so you’ll need to concentrate on making your banner and featured content as compelling as possible.

So there’s an overview of the changes that will affect your Facebook pages, but if you’re not happy about everything, don’t worry – if there’s one thing we’ve learned from experience, it’s that no matter how many times Facebook changes, there will always be a way to turn it to your advantage. Do you have any stories to share about how you’ve used past changes to build your business or grow your pages?

But old habits can die hard, and sometimes you can find yourself hanging on to tactics that are ineffective at best, and bordering on illegal at worst.  Keeping your SEO knowledge and sites updated is one of the best ways you can ensure that your rankings stay high, and that you don’t risk getting your sites penalized.

One of the outdated techniques still seen frequently on all kinds of websites is keyword over-saturation.  Not only is this a technique that your visitors will find annoying, search engines will see right through it, as well.  In fact, over-using keywords hasn’t worked for improving ranking in several years, and some search engines even penalize for it.

Nonetheless, some people are still hanging onto the idea that “more is more” when it comes to saturating an article or blog post with certain terms.  Your content should be useful and informative first, and keyword-specific second.  If it reads bizarrely because of the number of times you’ve inserted the keyword terms, you need to back off.

Hiding keyword over-saturation isn’t any better.  If you’re rationalizing keyword over-saturation by inserting keywords into text that is just outside the visible margins of the page, where your readers can’t see it but search engines can, that’s no better.  It can be considered spam.  Likewise if you’re using text that’s the same color as your background, or text that’s hidden using JavaScript.  These are all practices that should be avoided at all costs.

Another tactic you need to be careful about is link building.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with link building itself, and in fact one of the best ways to get your site ranked highly is to have a lot of well-respected and popular sites linking back to yours.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it, though.  If you have ever given money to a site in exchange for a link back to your site, not only have you acted unethically, you are  violating Google’s terms of service (as well as just about every other search engine).  Getting yourself removed from the Google index is not worth the small amount of traffic or ranking boost that buying a link will get you.  It’s just not worth the risk.