Be Social Media Savvy If Launching a Website for a New Business

If you are launching a website for a new business, it is important to make that website social media friendly.

As I wrote in the blog post “Facebook Has Forever Changed the Face of Small Business Marketing”:

Thanks to repeatedly seeing personal profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media sites, we expect names, photos and bios of the owners of the businesses we’re considering for the purchase of products or services.

And if we don’t see this information, we may decide to take our business elsewhere.

Because of this, I was surprised when I checked out the websites of two people, each switching from their current business to a new business. Each person’s photo was nowhere on the site (or at least not anywhere that I tried looking).

As social media more and more impacts how consumers make buying decisions – and especially in businesses where the personality of the business owner is very important (true for both these businesses) – including a good headshot of yourself is absolutely essential.

And that headshot should probably be on the home page or at least on another main page and definitely above the fold (viewed without the need to scroll down the page).

If you really, really, really do not want to put your own photo on your site, then have an artist create an interesting graphic for you to use on your site and on social media sites. (For an example of an excellent personal graphic, see http://twitter.com/CathyGoodwin )

Check your own website now to see if your photo is prominently displayed on your site. And even if you are the CEO of a very large corporation, if you are active on social media sites under your own name, the same photo you use for social media profiles should be on the company website.

You do not want people to experience a disconnect going from your social media activity to your company website, where they are met with faceless corporate promotion.

If you’d like to know what other important social media friendly website elements are missing from your website, check out our Miller Mosaic website review. You might be amazed to learn what your site is missing.

(c) 2011 Miller Mosaic LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is the co-founder of the social media marketing company Miller Mosaic LLC.

Tagged as: social media