Social Networking

This blog generally doesn’t concern itself with political matters; it does attempt to remain reasonably topical instead. This week’s post will concern the resignation of Ms Paris Brown the Countries first youth police and crime commissioner (PCC) Ms Brown made a number of potentially offensive but definitely misguided tweets on the twitter social network, the furore this caused resulted in Ms Brown having to resign from her post and considerable embarrassment to Kent Police. What I find remarkable about this scandal is not the fact a young woman made indiscreet choices when using a major social network, is the fact that major organisations are still allowing these elementary social networking mistakes to be made by their representatives, although brand is not the correct term for a Police authority, they do have a reputation to uphold, this alone suggests that Kent Police authority need to analyse their organisations approach to social networks with Ms Browns former boss Anne Barnes suggesting that Kent Police’s vetting procedures, which were used during the recruitment process, did not normally require social networks to be scrutinised for posts of this grade.(source: BBC)

This week my blog will examine what I consider to be the main problems with websites, after examining these problems I’ll develop a number of recommendations to help in the development of successful, fit for purpose Small Business websites, in my opinion the number one problem is a lack of clarity about the website’s aims, fortunately the solution for this problem is pretty straightforward

1. Ensure the website has a clear aim

I know this sounds obvious, I find it surprising how many people don’t know what their companies website is really meant to be achieving, if a site has a clear goal so many factors fall into place, like what should the blog focus on? What SEO Keywords the website targets, and how should the site be structured? Is the purpose of the site is to sell widgets? If so the site should make the purchase of widgets extremely simple, whilst displaying the widgets on offer in an attractive manner.

2. Understand your Audience& Customers

The next essential consideration for potential website owners would be to appreciate the intended audience for the website, this influences the writing style employed, featured content and images used by the website. What might be a great image for a website aimed at a teenage market would perhaps be inappropriate for a website aimed at senior citizens

3. Interaction, Interaction, Interaction

The final ingredient for a successful online presence is interaction, although web 2.0 is a frequently bandied around term, interaction with friends and customers lies at the heart of it, once you get to know your website visitors and customers you can develop website content and services they want, hopefully boosting website traffic and sales
These Considerations won’t guarantee online success but they will certainly lead to a more focussed website which has a genuine goal rather than a wishy-washy website which appears to have no direction. If the site has a clear goal its success or failure can be monitored and steps taken to remedy shortcomings where necessary.

I have to admit I was dubious for a very long time about the value of Facebook however in today’s networked society it is by far the best way of connecting with your customers (for some business’ it would be an inappropriate social network to utilise), amongst certain demographics a Facebook account is the norm i.e. everyone has one, especially with younger age groups. It is all too easy to go overboard with your sites integration to Facebook, it should be used to enhance the User experience with your website rather than completely overwhelm it with an abundance of icons and logos, the face pile sidebar block was a feature I was keen to implement but the Facebook comments block had an unacceptable impact on page loading times