Sachin Ranchod

5 reasons to Integrate Twitter into your website

As a standalone entity, Twitter is a powerful tool which allows companies to listen to what people are saying about them and actively engage with their community. However, the advantages of using Twitter shouldn’t stop when you leave the Twitter website. By breaking out of the isolation of the Twitter website and extending your Twitter presence to an existing website or blog, you can begin to see some of the lesser acknowledged advantages of an active social media profile.The real benefits of integrating Twitter onto your website don’t come from just having a link to your Twitter profile on your website. The link does show people that you do have a social media presence but unless they click on a link, it doesn’t show them what you are really about. Below are some of the reasons you should make your latest tweets visible on your website:1) It shows that you are realSeeing an active Twitter stream will help give visitors to your website the comfort that there are real people behind your website. Proving your legitimacy is often a make-or-break problem for online businesses. If a visitor is not 100% sure that they can pick up the phone and talk to a real person, then it is unlikely that they will convert from a visitor to a customer.There are many ways in which you can try communicate to the user that there are real people behind a website – you can make the phone numbers clearly visible on the home page, you can use live chat features and you can write an extensive ‘Meet the team’ section. A live Twitter stream with real conversations between real people, is just another tool to help you immediately signal to the visitor that the website and company are real.2) It will help keep your website updatedIt is often very difficult for businesses to keep their website constantly updated with new content. Nowadays, a lot of websites incorporate blog functionality to allow companies to make sure that there is always something new on the home page. However, writing blog posts and news articles can be time consuming and tedious. Keeping new content flowing on a website is important as it shows a visitor to your site that you are still active and more importantly, that you are up-to-date with the latest industry news.Twitter updates provide you with the ability to quickly and easily publish content to your website on a regular basis. However, it is important to note that tweets are not a substitute for blogging – 140 characters is not enough space to adequately discuss a topic and provide in-depth analysis (proving your expertise).3) You’ll get good quality followersShowing your latest tweets on your website makes it easy for visitors to evaluate the quality of your tweets and decide whether they would like to follow you or not. It is often the case that the people who follow you via your website will be your most engaging followers because they have an interest in your business or industry. These followers are therefore more likely to read your tweets, engage with you and syndicate your content for you. Followers who are interested in what you have to say will prove to be much more useful to you and your community than those who follow you because of things like ‘follow our CEO to win’ competitions.4) People can see that you are knowledgeableIf you tweet about your opinions on the latest industry happening or you tweet back to your followers with advice relating to your business then visitors to your website will begin to see that you are knowledgeable about topics surrounding your business and industry.5) Visitors will see that you engage with your communityFinally, people visiting your website will see that you have a community or that you are trying to build a community around your brand. They will be able to see that you take care of them by answering their questions, listening to their complaints and thanking them for their compliments. Companies often assume that their Twitter profile is only there to accommodate people who are already on Twitter but the truth is that the tweets on your website can bring new users to Twitter itself. As the Twitter network grows, your community will grow with it.A professional Twitter profile can be used as a powerful tool when it is integrated into your website – your tweets accentuate the existing content on your website and it will show visitors that you are knowledgeable, community-focused and real.

The real benefits of integrating Twitter onto your website don’t come from just having a link to your Twitter profile on your website. The link does show people that you do have a social media presence but unless they click on a link, it doesn’t show them what you are really about. Below are some of the reasons you should make your latest tweets visible on your website:

1) It shows that you are real

Seeing an active Twitter stream will help give visitors to your website the comfort that there are real people behind your website. Proving your legitimacy is often a make-or-break problem for online businesses. If a visitor is not 100% sure that they can pick up the phone and talk to a real person, then it is unlikely that they will convert from a visitor to a customer.

There are many ways in which you can try communicate to the user that there are real people behind a website – you can make the phone numbers clearly visible on the home page, you can use live chat features and you can write an extensive ‘Meet the team’ section. A live Twitter stream with real conversations between real people, is just another tool to help you immediately signal to the visitor that the website and company are real.

2) It will help keep your website updated

It is often very difficult for businesses to keep their website constantly updated with new content. Nowadays, a lot of websites incorporate blog functionality to allow companies to make sure that there is always something new on the home page. However, writing blog posts and news articles can be time consuming and tedious. Keeping new content flowing on a website is important as it shows a visitor to your site that you are still active and more importantly, that you are up-to-date with the latest industry news.

Twitter updates provide you with the ability to quickly and easily publish content to your website on a regular basis. However, it is important to note that tweets are not a substitute for blogging – 140 characters is not enough space to adequately discuss a topic and provide in-depth analysis (proving your expertise).

3) You’ll get good quality followers

Showing your latest tweets on your website makes it easy for visitors to evaluate the quality of your tweets and decide whether they would like to follow you or not. It is often the case that the people who follow you via your website will be your most engaging followers because they have an interest in your business or industry. These followers are therefore more likely to read your tweets, engage with you and syndicate your content for you. Followers who are interested in what you have to say will prove to be much more useful to you and your community than those who follow you because of things like ‘follow our CEO to win’ competitions.

4) People can see that you are knowledgeable

If you tweet about your opinions on the latest industry happening or you tweet back to your followers with advice relating to your business then visitors to your website will begin to see that you are knowledgeable about topics surrounding your business and industry.

5) Visitors will see that you engage with your community

Finally, people visiting your website will see that you have a community or that you are trying to build a community around your brand. They will be able to see that you take care of them by answering their questions, listening to their complaints and thanking them for their compliments. Companies often assume that their Twitter profile is only there to accommodate people who are already on Twitter but the truth is that the tweets on your website can bring new users to Twitter itself. As the Twitter network grows, your community will grow with it.

A professional Twitter profile can be used as a powerful tool when it is integrated into your website – your tweets accentuate the existing content on your website and it will show visitors that you are knowledgeable, community-focused and real.

We’ve spent the last few weeks discussing community management on the Heavy Chef blog and we decided that it was time to put some of the theory into practice. To do this, we’ve developed a home-page wireframe for Homer Simpson’s community blog.

Wireframes are often described as the stickmen of web design – they are simple mock-ups of a web page that allow us to quickly determine which elements need to appear on a page and their relative priority. The wireframing process is usually the first step after you have taken the time to understand the website requirements from both the business and user perspectives.

The idea for the Homer Simpson community blog was to create a place for Homer and his friends to write about topic which interested them (i.e. beer, donuts and TV). Based on these topics, Homer then wants to build a community of like-minded people (starting in Springfield) with the goal of getting them to discuss the pressing issues around beer, donuts and TV.

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