How social media is impacting web design and how you can integrate it

By Jack Dawson on 12 April, 2016 https://twitter.com/Dawson88Jack

Social media is everywhere and seems to be affecting everything from the way marketers advertise and sell their products to how websites look. The world of the Internet has significantly been impacted by the social media platforms. Businesses need to come up with a social media strategy if they wish to succeed. One area that most people don’t pay much attention to is how the social media has impacted web design.

Impact on Website’s Design

Almost every business has a presence on social media and there is no better ways of letting customers know this than through the home page. It is for this reason that almost every website being created today has icons of the different social media sites the company has a presence on. Upon clicking on these icons, a visitor is directed to the social media page of that company.

The use of icons to show which social networking sites a company is on is becoming more and more important for websites today. All in all, for this strategy to work for you, you must make sure the links are working and that your social media page is active and has important information to help visitors.

Attractive designs for social media pages

The social media has become the most interactive marketplace on the Internet. The best thing today is that you can customize how your social media page looks so as to match your voice.

Facebook fan pages can be designed to match your business. You get the opportunity to match your social media page with your web design. The same can be done for other platforms like Twitter. This makes it possible to achieve consistency in how you promote your business. You can now customize your profile so that it grabs the attention of your viewers with an immediate effect.

Impressive designs for Ads on Social Media

More and more people are joining the social media sites as the sites’ popularity continues to increase with each passing day. Facebook, for example, is forcing companies to use it because of its massive number of active users that stands at more than 1.41 billion. More companies are hence driving their ads to social media and the main focus is perfect designs for the ads.

The reason for creating impressive ads is to gain more clicks or increase effectiveness. The design of the ads affects the number of leads gathers and subsequently the revenue earned. Moreover, impressive designs are needed to create other materials such as banners and memes.

Interactive Designs

Following the success of social media sites, the platform has impacted the web designs in a great way. Social media web design has inspired the design of most websites because it is more interactive and interesting. Web designers shape websites in such a way that the website is loads smoothly on any screen and in a way that it is interactive.

The purpose of creating interactive web designs is so as to attract more interaction from prospects and existing customers.

Using Images

Some social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram were developed with the aim of making it easy for users to share images. Most websites are following in the footsteps of these social media sites by creating websites that contain more images.

Pictures speak a thousand words. They are the best communication components hence the increased use of images in website designs.

Ways to Add Social Media to Your Web Design

Now that you understand how social media is influencing website designs, it is time to look at some of the ways you can add social media to your web design. There are several ways of doing this.

Let your customers know which social media sites you are on
This is one of the most straightforward ways of adding social media to your design. In your web design, place icons of the social media sites you are on. Although placing these icons on the home page is recommended, if you can place the icons on all pages the better.

The general rule is to make sure the social buttons are visible. The more visible the icons are, the more users will interact with them. Do not forget to add a call-to-action that asks your visitors to ‘like’ or ‘follow’ your brand.
Allow social logins
Allowing for social logins will make it easier for your visitors to connect with you. You can add a login feature only this time your users will login in using their social media details such as Twitter or Facebook. This will help create an internal community and will also be a great way to share specialized content as well as connect with your users.

Skip the process of filling forms by asking your users to register or login with their social media details. This will lead to increased conversion rate because of higher user registrations.
Make your website design social media friendly
Designing your entire site, from code to content, in a manner that complements social media user experience will boost your success. Replace the static homepage content with variable content that feeds from multiple sources like blog feeds or social media feeds.
Make your content sharable
When people love something, they almost always want to share it. Make it easy for your visitors to do this by embedding the ability to share on all your pages. Make sure there are social sharing buttons on all your content and product pages.
Incorporate Facebook reviews
User reviews have a great impact on the decisions of new clients. Featuring some of the reviews from your social networking sites will help build great testimonials. However, there will always be negative reviews so keep an eye on what users are posting and moderate the comments that appear on your website and social media page.
Embed YouTube videos
YouTube videos will boost your search engine ranking more so if the videos you use have more reviews.

The bottom line about creating a web design and social media is that it will not make sense if you don’t integrate social networks. While being emphasizing on social media friendly web designs, you must also keep your focus on your business needs.