How to Use Social Media to Improve the Web Design for Small Businesses

Extending your website's presence through social media has become a very effective method of online marketing for small businesses, and it can be even more effective to integrate all that social media offers into the design of your website.

It can be particularly useful for small scale businesses as it is a fantastic way to express the individuality of your business in your web design, and to get customers engaged with your unique product.

The first step to using social media in your web design is learning from the social media websites themselves. Sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are popular for a reason. This is found mainly in the addictive and personalised content offered by the websites, as well as excellent usability. You can transform your own web design by imitating such personalisation, by allowing your users to share your content through the Facebook 'like' plug-in. The plug-in encourages your users to 'like' content that interests them, functioning as a very useful tool for seamlessly publishing links to your website to a large audience, with the added recommendation from a friend.

Your web page design can also be made more interactive and responsive by using image and video sharing websites such as Flickr and YouTube. Embedding Flickr and YouTube accounts in your web design will improve the dynamism of your design, as well as encouraging increased sharing of your material. With interesting videos and images, your content could easily go viral, generating greater amounts of traffic to your website.

Creating a blog syndicated to your main site is an excellent way of increasing interactivity while keeping content fresh and search engine friendly in your web design. Allowing your users to comment on your blog posts provides feedback and discussion over your business. Twitter can be used similarly to provide updates on your business straight to your customers.

Some social media sites seem designed specifically for small scale businesses, such as the relatively new mobile application Foursquare, which enables users to 'check-in' at various locations in their city, automatically sharing the information with the individual's entire social network. This creates a system of word of mouth advertisement that can be very powerful. Integrating a local profile of your business, particularly one linked to Google maps, Foursquare or the Facebook check-in application, in your web design can boost your social media compatibility and increase the movement of customers to your actual business.