Lastly, if it is within your company’s financial position to do so, consider creating a position specially designed to create, develop, and maintain your company’s social media marketing presence. More and more colleges are offering degrees specifically tailored to social media marketing, and graduates of these programs are trained and ready to help utilize the powerful marketing tools social media offers to increase the exposure of your brand and the sales of your products. If your company is not able to afford a dedicated in house position for social media management, be sure to hire a third-party service provider that specializes in social media marketing. It is much easier and effective to hire a trained expert in this field instead of attempting to figure it out on your own or task one of your other employees—whose training and expertise are better used elsewhere—to try to manage your social media marketing.
Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network). Web development can range from developing the simplest static single page of plain text to the most complex web-based internet applications, electronic businesses, and social network services. A more comprehensive list of tasks to which web development commonly refers, may include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development. Among web professionals, “web development” usually refers to the main non-design aspects of building web sites: writing markup and coding. For larger organizations and businesses, web development teams can consist of hundreds of people (web developers). Smaller organizations may only require a single permanent or contracting webmaster, or secondary assignment to related job positions such as a graphic designer and/or information systems technician. Web development may be a collaborative effort between departments rather than the domain of a designated department.
THE IMPORTANCE OF IT
Web development is not just about making a website look the part; web development is what makes a website functional. Web development should always be approached with the user in mind. A website is a way for a business to gain customers by promoting what the company is all about. Other websites go one step further and have products available to buy. Web development is not just simply about displaying information; interaction is also a big part of it too.
The term ‘web development’ also includes the creation of web applications. In recent years, the internet has been evolving dramatically. Many businesses now not only require a desktop website, but also a mobile website, along with web and mobile apps. Web development involves an understanding of the needs of the business and the customer. Quality web development can now be the difference between the success and failure of a business.
Effective web development is connected to search engine optimisation (SEO). A website should always be developed with SEO in mind. The groundwork of SEO can be laid in the development stages of a website and then continue to be built upon after the website is complete.
Don’t just settle for the first web development agency that you find. Web development will make or break your website so it is always advisable to go with a web development agency who have a talented team of web developers with plenty of experience.
Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.
Much of the criticism of social media are about its exclusiveness as most sites do not allow the transfer of information from one to another, disparity of information available, issues with trustworthiness and reliability of information presented, concentration, ownership of media content, and the meaning of interactions created by social media. However, it is also argued that social media has positive effects such as allowing the democratization of the internet while also allowing individuals to advertise themselves and form friendships
Social media technologies take on many different forms including magazines, Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, social networks, podcasts, photographs or pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. By applying a set of theories in the field of media research (social presence, media richness) and social processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure) so we can create a classification scheme with six different types of social media: collaborative projects (for example, Wikipedia), blogs and microblogs (for example, Twitter), content communities (for example, YouTube and DailyMotion), social networking sites (for example, Facebook, myspace, linked in), virtual game worlds (e.g., World of Warcraft), and virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life). Technologies include: blogs, picture-sharing, vlogs, wall-postings, email, instant messaging, music-sharing, crowdsourcing and voice over IP, to name a few. Many of these services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms.
The importance of Social Media and the Developing Role in the Modern Business World!
Social media, although a relatively recent phenomenon, is becoming an increasingly important part of any business’s marketing and client base development platform. The perception of social media marketing has shifted quickly—no longer viewed as a trendy or passing fad, having a flexible and well-managed presence in each of the “big three” (Facebook, Twitter, and Google+) has become a must for any business seeking to secure a place in both the traditional and digital marketplace. What could once be accomplished by a traditional website now needs to be supplemented by a robust and responsive utilization of the tools social media offers. Navigating this strange, new world can be quite confusing at first, so here are some tips for those looking to bring their business up to speed.
Here are some quick facts about the role social media is currently playing in the business world, courtesy of the 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report:
- 94% of all businesses with a marketing department used social media as part of their marketing platform
- Almost 60% of marketers are devoting the equivalent of a full work day to social media marketing development and maintenance
- 43% of people aged 20-29 spend more than 10 hours a week on social media sites
- 85% of all businesses that have a dedicated social media platform as part of their marketing strategy reported an increase in their market exposure
- 58% of businesses that have used social media marketing for over 3 years reported an increase in sales over that period