Posts Tagged ‘customer communities’

Benefits of Using Social Networking Website Developers

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

In recent years social networking has become a popular advertising method for many major corporations and public personalities. With millions of individuals world wide taking setting up free profiles on various social networking sites business have been able to reach a wider audience than ever before. In fact, many professionals have found that investing in a professionally designed social networking profile is even more profitable than running a traditional website.

In response to the need for professionally designed social networking website profiles a few firms have started to provide professionals with experienced social networking website developers. These developers are comfortable with the coding restrictions that some social networking sites have in place to protect their security. By using these professional designers people are able to use social networking sites to reach new customers, connect with old customers, and even start brand new careers.

There are many reasons to use social networking website developers instead of attempting to customize a profile yourself. First of all, many long time social networking website users can tell the difference between a professionally designed template and one that has been designed by an amateur. Hiring a professional will show people that your business is a legitimate one. Secondly, designing an impressive social networking website profile takes time and skills. While you might have some website design savvy as a business owner you probably will not have the time to spend designing then testing different layouts. Lastly, a professionally designed social networking website profile will be able to more accurately target your businesses chosen audience while reflecting the corporate image.

Once you have decided that investing in a professionally designed social networking profile is the right move for your company it is time to approach a developer. Before you begin contacting various social networking website developers it is important to have a few design ideas in mind. This will help you choose a designer that is experienced with the look or layout that interests you and will avoid future misunderstandings or miscommunications. Also, have a completion date in mind since most developers will need this information in order to provide an accurate quote.

Setting up a professionally developed social networking profile might seem like a lot of initial work and investment but in the long run it will be well worth it. By investing a bit of time and money your company will be able to reach, and communicate with millions.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Social Networking Services, Social Networks, Web Development | No Comments »

What is an Online Community Developer?

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Do you have an online community developer on staff? Do you need one? If you are trying to move towards creating your own social networking site that is going to promote your business or be a stand alone product for your business then you probably do need someone on staff that can work full time on developing your community site.

An online community developer is someone whose job it is to make sure that everyone related to your community website runs smoothly. The community developer is responsible for letting the technicians know if there is a technical problem with the site, and also is responsible for making sure the day to day running of the site goes smoothly. More importantly, this person is also in charge of posting new content, organizing the site, keeping discussions going in the forums, policing and moderating the forums, answering any questions that new members have and much more.

In addition to the running of the site the community developer needs to be a forward thinker that is on top of the trends in the industry and can help the tech department plan out new features and site improvements that will help the community site run more smoothly and meet the users’ expectations. A good way to think of the online community developer is to think of that person as a liaison between the community site and the users of the site and the community site and the technical designers of the site.

Why do you need a community developer to do all this? Because chances are that you don’t have time do it and neither does your IT department. Wouldn’t you rather have your IT techs working on the next product release than on the community site? Most companies would. Plus, a professional online community developer has spent a lot of time on social networking sites and will know how to make the site run smoothly and be a fun, interesting, and exciting site that other people will want to join and come back to often to participate in discussions or network with other people.

So when you’re ready to get your online community site up and running it’s time to find a community development professional to run it. Where do you look for someone with the skills and experience to make your community site grow? On a social networking site of course. Many professional site developers can be found by doing a resume search on MySpace or Facebook.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Social Networks, Web Development | No Comments »

How to Build an Online Community Site

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

You might have thought in the past about building an online community site to help you promote your business or to become a new business for you. But many people are not really sure what makes a community site attractive to new users or how to build an online community site. It can be confusing to figure out what makes a community site successful, but once you learn what you need to have on your site to attract visitors and users it gets less confusing.

When you’re learning how to build an online community site to connect with your customers or your co-workers, or even as a stand alone business product there are certain elements that you have to have on your community site in order to get people to join. There are a lot of social networking sites and community sites out there and more are coming everyday. When people look at a site they expect that the site will offer certain features to them. Here are a few of the features that people expect to find on an online community site:

Blogs – one of the reasons that people join online community sites is so that they can have free blogs. If you’re going to build your own online community site you need to offer people the chance to have an online blog with their membership on the community site. Many people won’t even consider joining a social networking site that doesn’t allow them to start a blog.

Forums – forums are a critical element of a social community site. Not all social networking sites offer forums but the ones that do have a much stronger community of users and find it easier to attract users. Many new social networking sites are incorporating forums into their sites because users really like the chance to discuss issues in a forum setting. Just make sure that you have at least one forum moderator to make sure that discussion on the forums stay civil and polite.

Multi Media Applications – one of the most important parts of a social networking or online community site is the multi media that is available. When you’re building a new online community site it’s crucial that you give users photo albums that they can use to share their important photos, video galleries that they can use to show popular videos and music players so that they can share their favorite music.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Social Networks, Web Development | No Comments »