Does my website need social media links?

First there is all the hoopla surrounding the IPO of Twitter. Plus relief that Facebook’s share value has rebounded. All this noise might lead to small business operators asking does my website need social media links? While the money market experts try to peg the real value of these shares, our task is to demonstrate the value of social media in our website designs. Is there a return on investment when you add social media to your site?

It is natural to be skeptical about the ROI of social media. New technologies sometimes fail to meet our expectations. A case in point is QR codes. Adding that bizarre image to our web promotions was supposed to be the next great thing.

The problem is that they don’t always work! Nothing is more frustrating than committing the time and energy only to find out that the technology doesn’t deliver as promised. Whether the problem is in generating the code or the ability of the clients to capture it, it just hasn’t become the next great thing.There is no default go-to scanner for cell phones. The lack of standard QR software has made the experience of following a QR code to a landing page a hit and miss event. And if the scanned code led users to a desktop site, well then you completely misunderstood what the experience should have been. Asking mobile users to navigate a site that doesn’t deliver a mobile friendly theme is a wasted effort. And what about rewarding them for scanning the code with a coupon?

Does a website need social media links, like Twitter and Facebook? It may depend on your target audience. Facebook’s audience seems to be changing to an older demographic. Is that good for your market? Do you have the means to provide content for Facebook as well as your website?

My first experience with Twitter came at an event called Tweetstock, held in Brantford Ontario. One of the speakers asked if any businesses had a “telephone policy” that employees would reference when answering the phone. His point was that anyone can and should answer a social media inquiry, just as they would answer a ringing phone.

An online marketing strategy should help you decide what social media platforms you reasonably support. It doesn’t make sense to get deeply involved with social media if you are unable to monitor the conversation. It used to be that an unanswered phone call was considered a terrible reflection on the operation of a business. If you decide that your website does need social media links then make sure that you are ready to answer the call.