Tips for Traditional Business Websites: Should you go Social?

By now almost everyone has knows the term “Social Media” and a good portion of you are either using it in your day-to-day life in the form of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and blogs or have implemented some form of it into your website. Social Media is an incredible tool for encouraging interaction with your website, increasing return visitors and search engine traction to name a just a few benefits.  While the upsides are numerous, the downsides of integrating them with your website are sometimes overlooked. Below are some things to keep in mind if you are considering integrated Social Media features into your website.

• Many businesses block Social Media sites on their networks as part of their internal office policy. So if you are targeting businesses this is definitely something to consider. Look into your target audience to see if there are external factors that may limit effectiveness. In these instances a blog approach may be a better bet.
• They require continual interaction by you to keep them current. Social Media is named such because it is “Social”.  Many site owners don’t realize the time commitment this can generate. For the full benefits of social media integration to be realized you have to be fully dedicated.
• They can allow external content to be posted to your site depending on how you have implemented it. Usually this is in form of comments that are not content filtered. If you are concerned about what is said on your site, having anything that allows comments is probably not for you.
• Leveraging Social Media can lead to most of your content being on their sites vs. yours.  Many of the tools available allow a user to comment and interact on your site but the data is actually on the service’s site. There are pluses and minuses to this so take the time to understand where the data exists and if that fits your needs.
• Much of the technology is still evolving at a rapid pace and in some cases not standardized. Some code may need to be upgraded or replaced in a short period of time. If you have the budget or in-house staff to handle these updates this is probably not something you need to be concerned about. If you are a small one-man-show with little free time you will want to weigh the options.

All that said, when Social Media is paired with the right site and needs it is a very valuable and effective internet tool. If you have further questions regarding Social Media on your website or this article please contact us.

 

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