Make a Great First Impression: when it comes to designing for social media, first impressions can help you or hurt you. Keep the design minimal and clean, well balanced and the experience pleasant. Try to evaluate your site from the perspective of a first-time visitor. Would the page increase the chances of getting your vote, or would it make you want to leave and visit another site.
Click Click GO: How fast the information is accessible to the user, is the key for any social media website success. If you plan to market heavily with social media, it’s a good idea to design your site to load as quickly as possible. This doesn’t mean that no slow-loading pages will have success with social media, but it can help you out if visitors are able to get to your content very quickly.
Readability of Content: If social media users are voting for content that they like, they need to be able to easily read the content in the first place. Most visitors that come from social media will be scanning the page rather than reading word-for-word, so make it easy on them by using short paragraphs, plenty of whitespace, bulleted lists, bold text, etc. A San Serif font is easier to read online. A comfortable line length enhances readability. Black text on a white background is the easiest to read. White text on a colored background or colored text on a colored background reduces contrast and, therefore, is difficult to read. Take the time to consider the layout of the page and how it will affect readability.
Content is always the King: If you hope to impress social media voters with your content, make sure it is front and center and impossible to miss. Are there other distractions in the design that will keep emphasis away from the content? Sometimes you will see content that is filled with advertisements not doing very well with social media when it could be doing much better with different ad placement.
Great content is something that will always be appreciated and it’s effects and benefits can last indefinitely. When you create something great, people will want to see it, they will want to share it and you will win. Want some more great content from us? Subscribe to our monthly email newsletter on the sidebar for more tips and talks about design and business.
Implementation of Buttons/Widgets into the Design: Most social media sites provide buttons, widgets or links that you can use on your site to encourage visitors to vote. These can be very helpful, especially if they are effectively incorporated into the design. When designing with these in mind, you’ll want them to be located where they will be noticed, but not in the way.
Branding & Identiry: Creating meaningful experiences is the innovative strategy to build and brand Social Media websites.
Navigation: Typically, social media traffic will average a low number of page views. You can improve this by using effective navigation that leads visitors to other content that they are likely to be interested in. From my experience, the most effective way to encourage social media visitors to look at other pages is to include internal links within the body of the content. With this strategy, you may be able to drastically increase the amount of traffic that older posts receive.
Effect design should also include navigation bars or menus that lead visitors to other relevant content. In my opinion, this can help to increase page views, but not as much as links within the content itself.
Subscribers: If you are attempting to gain subscribers through social media marketing, be sure to design your pages so that your subscription options are clear and easy to see. Typically, you will want to keep them high on the page so they are noticed right away, and you may want to use standard icons that are easily recognized by potential subscribers.
