How Web 2.0 Websites Connect with Social Networks

Bill Grunau 5 Comments SEO, Social Media - SMO, Website Design  Print

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 How do you design a website or connect your existing website with social networks and social media?

This seems easy enough, right?

Add a few cute icons on the top right hand side of your website, maybe add a blog, and poof you are in Web 2.0 wonderland!

I suppose you can leave it at that and many do just that and proudly proclaim they all over Web 2.0.

But there is a lot more to it than adding a couple of cute icons and few links to social networks.

Connecting to Social Networks, Creating a Web 2.0 Website

First let’s look at how  social networks and websites are interconnected in Web 2.0.  Note that I said “interconnected”, not just connected.

Information flows between all of the various networks and websites and content is posted on each as well, thus they are interconnected, even entwined.

It not enough to just connect your website to the various social networks.  To harness the full reach and power of Web 2.0 and social media you must have a presence on each of various networks or as Brian Solis put it, you must “engage”.

The first obvious step is to set up your social network accounts and pages, and sadly this is as far as many go and why they consequently fail.  They create the pages and accounts, leave it on auto pilot, and wonder why nothing is happening.

7 Steps to Get Started on Web 2.0 Websites and Social Media

1.  Set up your social network accounts: As a minimum a Facebook Page (not a profile, a Page), Twitter, LinkedIn (for your brand/business), and Blog.
2. Branding: When setting up your accounts be consistent in the naming, e.g. use your brand name where ever possible and use it consistently.
3. Update your Website: As a minimum add the links to your social media accounts. You should also update your website to include the Open Graph interface and the most popular Share and Like buttons for social media.
4. Correct installation: Make sure your website links, shares, RSS, Like buttons work and work properly and it is a clean and compliant installation. If not you are wasting your time and money.
5. Develop a Social Media strategy: Wow, here’s a concept, actually have a strategy and plan! I am being sarcastic again, but few have a Social Media strategy and plan.
6. Invest: To be successful you must invest something even more valuable than money into the campaign, your time. Not the time of an intern or even a “expert” consultant, your time.
7. Stick to it: Consistency is key, you have to stick to it. I have often said “blogging and Tweeting often feels like you are having a really interesting conversation with yourself”. By this I mean you will not get a lot of feedback early on and you just have to stick with it. People are listening, they just seldom give you any feedback and the silence is often deafening.