Social media has been everywhere these days. And it is affecting almost every walk of life.
It is often noticed that social media has its impact on the offline world as well. So, it is quite obvious that the world of the Internet would be impacted the most by social media platforms.
For businesses to be successful these days, creating a social media strategy is a must. And for almost everything they do, they need to follow a process that integrates social media in it. Web design is no different when it comes to this. It has experienced a sea of change since the advent of social media on the Internet.
Social Media Impacting Web Design
Social media has been able to exert its impact on Web design to a great extent.
Almost all the companies these days have their presence on social media. And what can be a better platform to let people know about this than the home page of the business website? This is why almost all the websites have the icons of different social media websites. And a click on any of those would lead the website visitor to the company’s social media page. This is becoming imperative for any website these days.
Attractive Design for Social Media Pages and Profiles
The advent of social media has made the Internet more of a live and interactive marketplace than ever before. It’s no more the same drab thing. In addition to creating an attractive website, it is also extremely important to have a prominent social presence. And for that, you need to design how you want to present yourself in front of your potential customers through the social media platforms.
For example, if you want your business to be present on Facebook through a page, it is important to design the Facebook fan page of your business properly. The same holds true for Twitter and other platforms as well. The profiles that you have on these social media websites need to be designed in such a way that they can grab the attention of the viewers with immediate effect.
Perfect Design Necessary for Ads on Social Media
With social media becoming more and more popular with every passing day, increasing numbers of people are joining these websites. For example, Facebook alone has its number of active users in 2015 at a whopping 1.41 billion. This is driving the companies to use these platforms to reach out to their target audiences. So, they are preparing ads for the social media websites. And the focus is more on design.
The ads are being specially designed for different platforms. The objective is to increase their effectiveness and garner more clicks. The designs of the ads will also play an important role in ensuring that the company is able to gather leads, which should be converted to earn revenues. Moreover, the designers are also required to create different other stuff, such as banner ads, memes, and so on.
Interactive Designs
Social media has helped to create a penchant among people for content that is more interactive and interesting. This is where Web design is expected to play an increasingly important role. Web designers need to shape the websites as well as the social media pages of the companies in such a way that they attract more interaction from the potential as well as the existing customers. This will help them understand what their customers are looking for and where they are going wrong.
Using Images for Social Media Communication
Social media has been able to change the way businesses are run. They are the perfect field to interact with the customers, know what they want from you, and help you decide how you should plan your offerings.
The designs should be planned in such a way that they drive the interaction of hundreds of customers on a regular basis. A picture speaks a thousand words and hence, they are among the best components for communication. So, most of the social media platforms need images. This is where a Web designer becomes relevant. Attractive images need to be created. Moreover, the images should also be resized to meet the requirement of different social media platforms.
Increasing Importance of Web Design on Social Media
Is the importance of Web designing going to diminish with the passage of time?
This is a question that’s haunting the online world after the advent of social media. But that is not expected at all. In fact, the importance of Web designing is likely to increase further soon. This is because the companies will need attractive Web design to keep the audience captivated on their social profiles.
Social Media Photo via Shutterstock
Aira Bongco
Now, it is no longer enough to design a site for a browser. You also have to make sure that it is responsive or it looks good on mobile phones and tablets.
Absolutely Aira. It’s sort of mandatory these days to create responsive design. So that the site looks equally attractive on all devices.
While social media continues to be valuable today for businesses as well as website ranking, it is also important to note that not all types of businesses are suited for social media platforms. The build it and they will come approach does not apply.
Right Pete. But it’s the prudence of an entrepreneur that should help to decide whether social media would be invaluable for his business or not. And if it does, then he can use social media for a lot of things.
Great article William,
I have to agree with you that “The advent of social media has made the Internet more of a live and interactive marketplace than ever before.”
I also think that social media has become an expected thing to see on most websites today. Social media shows to a visitor that the website they are visiting is trusted and is willing to be reached out to if this is necessary. After all you would have a social media account for your business if you didn’t want to be contacted by your customers.
On the flip-side it’s no good just creating a social media account and leaving it to sit there. You need to commit to it and most importantly commit to your customer base. If you’re not constantly posting and interacting with your existing and potential customers then essentially you’re delivering a poor level of customer service.
One last point. I agree with you with what you say about creating an attractive design for social media pages. One thing I would say on this is that the social media account needs to be consistent with the website it is linked to. For example logos or background’s used on a social media account which do not match the website could possibly make visitors question the authenticity of the social media account or worse the website.
Yes Alex, having an account on a social media platform just for the sake of being present there makes no sense at all. So, you need to be active there. And yes, it really gives an extra boost to your business if your social media presence and the website are in the same line in terms of design.
Very interesting article! With the exponential growth of social media, it is incredibly important that all websites include easy to access social media links.
web design changed in many way to utilize the strength of social media. it is like content sharing , community building , social media based discussions. web design re-adapted itself to be social media friendly
With people getting used to the design of social media websites, I think that it also impacts the way they see other websites. In fact, I think that they are expecting a certain aesthetic for something to be considered as ‘modern’.
oyebola
William johnson,pls how can i become a web designer?
Aira Bongco
It really is impacting design for the posts have to be shareable with images nowadays.