Social media isn’t new

Though its breaking through on mainstream media and even Oprah is tweeting, social media has actually been around for a little while now.  I sent my first tweet back in 2007 and it was already fairly established at that point. Facebook has been around since 2004, MySpace since 2003. So where these networks may seem new to you, they have been around for some time and come with established communities.

Which one is a good fit for your company?

Depends really.  Around 1.5 Million local companies, regardless of their service or products, have a Facebook page. This lets them connect directly with some of the 400 Million + active users that visit the site.  Facebook pages are a good way for your company to raise brand awareness, keep people abreast of events or offers, and have a point-of-contact within the network.

Where Facebook’s demographic is starting to skew older, MySpace tends to appeal to a younger adult, slightly female slanted, and teen audience.  This may suit you better if you operate in that market space.  The expectations in MySpace are a little different than Facebook, but a lot of the tools (blogs, video, audio) are similar.

Twitter is a great resource for sending out news blasts, coupons, and if you have time, interacting directly with your customers.  The flood of information can be overwhelming so you should look at using something like HootSuite or Tweetdeck to manage the conversations.

There are a whole lot more social networks out there, but the important thing is to find the ones that have members that want to, or already do, use your company.  At the end of the day its all about building relationships, so start small and participate.

A few things to remember

• It does not matter how many followers you have on Twitter, as long as they are the right ones
• You do not have to be on every single social network
• You must link between your web site and social media profile pages
• Be consistent in choosing a profile name across all the networks you are on
• Listen and respond to everyone

Technorati tags: social, media, web, twitter, facebook, myspace

But if you are a small business, how can you use video?

First thing is to get an account of a couple of the various video sites out there.  Two I like are YouTube and Viddler.

YouTube is great for the instant hit.  Most people have heard of it, you can view its content on the iPhone, but with that is the danger of being lost in the “noise” of everyone else’s funny videos of cats.

Viddler has a smaller community but some great tools such as putting your branding/logo on the video whilst uploading and allowing people to tag and comment on the video at certain points as it plays.  Gary Vaynerchuck uses this to great effect for Wine Library TV.

Once you’ve got your business/product/brand account set up, the next thing to do is get some content up there.  If you’ve appeared on TV there’s a good chance you can get that footage and re-purpose it using one of these accounts. Then embed it on your site.  I helped CareerComm do this recently with Tina’s appearances on NewsNet 5.

You can also use video to highlight products or give tours of your work. Remember, as with everything online, be yourself.  Nothing cries out FAKE than ill fitting suits and stilted dialogue.  Allowing the videos to be embedded (placed on someone else’s site) or shared through social networks, is also a great way to spread word-of-mouth marketing online.

Technorati tags: video, youtube, viddler, marketing

Being the clever things that they are, search engines “know” that most people are looking for a service just around the corner so they let the owners of these sites improve their chances by adding more information about them such as prices, methods of payment, and specialties.

For a search of “web design willowick“, DMWebsites comes in second. Clicking on that will give you access to various details I may not list on my site and the chance for people to leave reviews.

Google also gives you the chance to offer coupons.  Most of the other major search engines offer similar services. So when you go to get your web site built, make sure you let the search engines know too.

Technorati tags: search, engine, seo, local, listings

1. Find a cheap designer?
2. Buy a book and learn HTML?
3. Open Word or Notepad?
4. Find a cool site to copy?

If you were thinking number 3, you’d be right.

Before you do anything about a web site for your company/organization/band, sit down and write down why you need one.  The reason for doing this is simple – It should be the first thing that you’re asked by any decent designer or firm you approach to build the site for you.

Maybe you want to promote your store, advertise upcoming events, or showcase your songs. Without this knowledge in your pocket you could end up with a web site that does not suit your needs and leaves you frustrated.

What next?

Next thing you should write down is everything you want to say on your web site.  Don’t really think about different pages or headings at this point (that can be done as part of the Information Architecture), but more about the type of content about you and what you have to offer.  Again this is something that the person building your web site can use to guide the design and functionality.

In the coming weeks I’ll be posting some more tips and ideas on how to get started on, or refresh, your web site.