The Importance of Being Social (And Good at It): A Random Musing

Perusing the interwebs, blogosphere, and twitterglobe(?) today, I came across several postulates that I felt I should share concerning why a business needs to be active in this social world of ours, and why content, appearance, and overall quality matter.


Web. Not just for Spider-man.
We'll look at basic websites first. When I come across a business' website, it's hard not to throw up certain judgements right away. Does the website look professional? Is their information displayed in a clear, concise manner? How long will I hover on this site before boredom takes over? These are all subconscious questions I ask myself within the first few milliseconds I'm on a website.

We got a promo sheet from a prepress company (to remain nameless) today and I was admiring it before I threw it away. The design was nice. The choice of colors were pleasing to the eye. Photos were great quality and well-composed shots. I was intrigued and was drawn in to look at their website, which was placed neatly at the bottom of their piece.


Oh boy, was I ever underwhelmed. A plain-Jane background under an even plainer-Janer web layout. The graphics from the site were totally inconsistent with the printed piece! I was expecting something of greatness here based on the physical handout! Obviously they put more towards the promo rather than their website. The high-school level layout and overly-simplified buttons ruined the web experience for me.

Sample shot of described website. Blurred and edited for their protection from further scrutiny.

I promptly threw the piece away.


Tweet Your Heart Out

Yes I'll click you. Only if you're deserving.

Next, let us move on to Twitter. I usually allow about 15-20 minutes a day looking on Twitter for interesting people or business to follow. I go through my main list of who I'm following already and see if there are any decent re-tweets. I then follow a said re-tweet and look at that person's page. If I find other tweets worth reading, I'll go ahead and click that little "Follow" button.

Sometimes I'll take a leap of faith and see who Twitter thinks I should be following. Most of the time their suggestions are rubbish. Sometimes they're absolute gold. But I mostly disregard most of who they send my way.

Now on to the importance of having a Twitter page. You want your business to get noticed, right? You want more traffic to your website? Or you're just wanting to be heard? Let me tell you right now a few reasons why I won't follow you:

1. You haven't tweeted in months - I have a 3 month rule. No tweets in 3 months, no follow.
2. You have a low tweet count - Come on. 4 tweets in the past year? No dice.
3. Your following to followers ratio is really off - You follow over 1,000 folks, but only 7 follow you? Count me out.
4. You use a generic Twitter supplied background - Or you don't even try to be different. I want to follow interesting people. Not lame sheep. 

In Conclusion...

Now, I'm not trying to sound pretentious or elitist, but these are the facts people. In order to engage and be noticed in the ever-swelling world online you have to give people a reason to look at your stuff! It's simple when you think about it. We are sensory-prone creatures. If it's not pleasing to look at first and foremost, be prepared to get skipped over.

Mmmm?

I know our Twitter page isn't the best, our tweets are always great, and our website isn't too flashy, but at least we do our best. In the immortal words of Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try."

Be well.