Gone are the days of perusing the yellow pages to find that contact or business you’re looking for. Since smartphones became a necessity in society a decade ago, social media has become an essential way for sharing information and contacting businesses, people, and organizations. Nowadays, it’s rare to find a business or organization that doesn’t have some kind of social media presence to promote themselves, whether it be on a website or an accompanying Instagram page.
Websites and apps are developed for an infinite amount of reasons and without web developers who create and code fervently, our devices would be useless. Thanks to web development, we are also able to share all of our posts, pictures, videos, and other forms of media on socials. Both social media and web development depend on one another; you could say that they have a symbiotic relationship that allows them to mutually benefit from each other.
First, let’s look at some important considerations to keep in mind when combining the two and then some ways to fully take advantage of their connectivity, usefulness, and ubiquity in our lives.
Consistent brand identity
Instability and unpredictability can be scary for customers; consistency can make them feel safe when interacting with a brand and help them place their trust in the right place. Building trust not only means sticking to your word, but also projecting an image that doesn’t waver. Just like with people, businesses have an identity and maintaining a clear and consistent message across various mediums is key.
A strong brand identity shows the mission and beliefs of the company; from the color scheme and design to the writing style, cohesion between websites and their social media shows that the business knows who they are and what they are doing. By leveraging social media marketing and SEO, both freelancers and companies can maximize traffic to their sites where they can fully express their brand identity across all platforms.
At the end of the day, a strong, cohesive brand identity communicates trust, safety, and consistency for not only the customer, but also the company itself.
Just a click away
Presenting a united image throughout all your pages is important, but how do you get from one page to another? When designing websites, web developers have to remember that it’s extremely important for the business and social accounts to link to each other. Luckily, both websites and apps are now designed with connectivity between them in mind, which means that you can find icons and links bridging them. How? Let’s see:
The stories feature on most social media platforms gives users the option to add links as clickable buttons
Users can link to websites in their bio
Websites have nifty little buttons (normally found at the bottom of the page) that bring users straight to the social media page
Although those buttons are useful, there are many other ways to optimize their interconnectedness and make them more seamlessly united. For example, a website can post YouTube videos of content that connect directly to their YouTube page. These functions physically bridge the gap between social media and web development so that they feel like one seamless entity.
It takes two
The upside to when any two things are different is that they are also complementary, allowing one to help the other in a variety of ways.
Social media
Most people put short, bite-sized pieces of information that are meant for fast consumption or to plant an idea in people’s heads. Short tweets, Instagram stories, and Facebook posts are all examples of short messages that spark interest and are generally concise, fast, and easily consumed.
Websites/apps
Longer and more detailed writing is provided, giving users more information about their brand identity, mission, products, and core values. Websites focus uniquely on the content that they choose to post, which means that the reader won’t normally get distracted by another story popping up or a list of suggestions like on social media.
If social media is a swipe of the finger on a dating app, then the website is a coffee date to get to know the person. You may be able to feel something from both, but your informed decision comes from the coffee date.
How to Combine Social Media and Web Development
Short and long posts
Now that you have these features in mind, combining the two in creative ways is both useful and fun. Creating synergy between both a website and social media is easy when making campaigns that unite the two; to leverage the mechanics of short and long posts, you can share bite-sized posts on social media that link to longer posts on the webpage, piquing people’s interest briefly, urging them to click the link, and then providing them with all the information on the website.
These kinds of social media posts can range in content, pertaining to topics like an important part of the company’s story, values that the company strives to embody, or even employee posts to highlight the staff.
These three examples show attention-grabbing and engaging snippets to the audience in the form of videos, photos, and/or brief texts; by linking the posts to the website, viewers will consume relevant information, potentially click their way to longer posts, and learn more about the company.
The customer is the star
What’s the best way to make someone feel special? For most, putting them under the spotlight and making them feel like they’re the main attraction is the perfect way:
Provide space for people to share and connect with other potential clients on social media, making your image appear more approachable and relatable, just like with online reviews
Integrate a spotlight or review into the website; video or text interviews, stories, and reviews on the website give more space to share more in depth information
Use social media websites like Youtube or Twitter to give additional visibility to the brand, encouraging them to check out the website/social media pages
Choose your own adventure
Presenting a survey with several options for website content shows what the browser really wants from the website and their social media presence in general. There are many advantages to using surveys on socials:
Data and feedback directly from the client provides companies and freelancers with information about what they can do to increase engagement and web traffic
Ideas can be easily scrapped when they receive little to no votes
Open-ended questions can lead to new ideas that may inspire new content
Combining social media and web development is essential when looking to create a consistent brand identity and develop a loyal and recurring clientele. When making profiles and content, seeking connections between them, businesses, individuals, and organizations must have a firm image of what they want to project to the world and decide how it will impact their message and image.
There are an endless number of creative ways to expand, mix, and combine them: let your mind wander and see what comes up. If web development interests you, you know what to do:
