Useful Online Business Services For Website Development Acceleration
10 January 2010During a recent review on online business services at econsultancy.com, it was revealed that blog reading and social network activities represent the fourth most popular activity online, even more interesting than e-mail. 10% of the time that we spend when interacting on the web is spent within social media sites. As a measure of the importance of social media sites, search engine giant Bing revealed that second in its list of the top 10 world trends for the year was Twitter. This just goes to show the sheer level of interest in social media and in this case, the new boy on the block Twitter. Just as it is important for you to “be” on Facebook, you must maintain a proactive presence on Twitter as well.
Twitter has been widely referred to as a micro-blog and has really found its own niche. Pretty much everyone now knows that you can send status messages of up to 140 characters through Twitter and this has really caught the interest of the business world. Companies can keep in touch with clients, publicly handle customer relationship issues and generally reveal a level of visibility that is quite unique.
A Twitter presence for your online initiative should be more than just a straightforward account. For example, create a dedicated background design and never accept the generic offerings and profile settings offered by Twitter, while also configuring your links correctly and deciding how you are going to build a followers list. There are a number of tools available to you, many based on straightforward keyword research, enabling you to accurately target people who have said they are interested in your niche. This, like Facebook, requires regular maintenance and management for best effect. You should allocate time, ideally again on a daily basis, to create meaningful messages, a.k.a. tweets, and interact with others through direct messages. If you think this is quite a lot of work, just realise that a majority of corporate members do not meaningfully interact through these mediums, and you can set yourself apart. By making a big effort to set it all up and then committing to management, you can really take advantage of this fabulous new medium.
The world of Internet marketing is obviously dynamic, but it has changed almost beyond recognition in the last few years. Web 2.0 heralded the arrival of the social media revolution and this changed the very mindset of marketers online. These days you must put every effort you can into making a good name for yourself through a subtle and more considered approach, branding yourself as expert in the field. It is never advisable to try and hard-sell on Facebook and Twitter or other social media channels, and you should be very careful! It is highly recommended that you maintain a blog in addition to your main sales site. By linking between your blog and your main sales hub, even if it means creating a subdomain within your website development to host the blog, you maintain separation while also taking into account potential sales.
You need to think about your very core operations. You need to educate prospects about your product or service, whatever it may be. You may know how great your offerings are and may be convinced that they represent a great bargain for people out there in the real world. However, you need to convince others and this is where you must establish yourself and your organisation as experts. A blog is so important and must be well-designed, thought out and presented professionally. Generally, website development platforms such as WordPress are invaluable here, or you could choose to set up a content management system to start off with.
Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an accomplished Executive Virtual Assistant Service which helps companies of all sizes reach their commercial targets. Want to get more information about online business building success strategies that really work? Contact VMF today!
