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15 Ways to Add Social to Your Business Website

partyfreeparkingMany of us would agree that adding social to your business website is important for connecting and networking with your customers.  But how exactly do you make your business website more social?  Here’s some ideas – some are specific and some are more general:

  1. Add comments to your posts.
  2. Add reviews to your products and services.
  3. Add ratings to your products and services.
  4. Encourage customers to comment on your posts.
  5. Allow customers to create a profile on your website.
  6. Add a discussion board.
  7. Add badges/links to your social network profiles – encourage people to connect there.
  8. Add a twitter RSS feed to your site.
  9. Add a delicious RSS feed to your site.
  10. Encourage customers to link and blog about your posts.
  11. Read customers blogs and add your thoughts.
  12. Write posts about your customers.
  13. Link to posts your customers write.
  14. Add your own social network.
  15. Encourage customers to connect with each other.

How do you add social to your business website? Please share in the comments below.

(photo by freeparking @ Flickr CC)

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Why Use Social Media?

socialkevindooleySocial media seems like just a buzzword to many business people.  Why should you consider using social media for your business?

  • Your customers are probably already using social media.
  • Lower costs for market research.
  • Lower risk for new products.
  • Deeper insight into customer wants.
  • Tap available collective wisdom.
  • Reduce customer dissatisfaction.
  • Decrease marketing costs.
  • Increase purchasing information to customers.
  • Increase brand loyalty.
  • Increase customer engagement with your company and brand.
  • Reduce customer support costs.

Are you using social media for your business?  What business reasons do you have?

(photo by kevindooley @ FlickrCC)

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Are your FAQs Questions your Customers Actually Ask Frequently?

question-bastWhen was the last time you went to a website looking for some information about a product or service?  Did they have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)?  Was the information you were looking for actually there?  A lot of times FAQs are only marketing driven – trying to cover any doubts a customer may have about purchasing a product.  But there is a real opportunity to provide useful information for your customers by providing answers to questions they actually ask frequently.

Obviously listening to your customers is one way to find out what types of questions they may have – and the best way –  support and sales people often are a good source within your company.  Another source of information is the search functionality on your website (if you have one).  What searches are people performing on your website?  Those may be the types of questions that are worthwhile to provide answers for (and make easy to find).

If you don’t have search on your website, or don’t have a good way to tell what people are searching for (both I would recommend remedying), take a look at the searches (keywords) that people use to come to your site from outside search engines.  This is information that the search engines feel you are good at answering, so it may be a good idea to make sure your answers are well rounded and provide all the information your customers (or potential customers) need.

The best source of FAQs really should be your customers.  Provide contact forms and periodically poll your customers (both in-person and online), to make sure you really do have all their frequently asked questions answered. By providing FAQs that your customers actually need, you’ll provide more support information for current customers and more purchasing information for potential customers.

(photo by -bast- @ Flickr CC)

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