~ Evaluating Social Media Options ~

Hello, everyone!

This entry will explore the social media aspects of the Pod Bay Doors’ website. I will be examining possibilities concerning social media, as well as the implementations of an array of different social media platforms and services based around bolstering the end user interaction with the website.

I’ve mentioned the topic of social media integration in the past; this entry will revisit concepts I’ve already looked at, examining them more in-depth than previously and building upon them. The primary aim of this is to develop a list of suitable social media platforms to use within the website, and a roadmap of how to go about implementing them.

Pros & Cons of Social Media /

Personally, I feel that social media is somewhat of a double-edged sword when it comes to promotion.

On one hand, it’s undeniably useful for reaching out to new audiences while keeping a current audience entertained and up-to-date, but on the other hand, the ease by which users can communicate opinions with one another throughout various social media platforms means that if a website it seen as “bad”, news of this tends to spread like wildfire, effectively destroying the reputation of the site.

So in summary? Managed well, social media can be a great boon to your website’s traffic, but it can just as easily be mismanaged and detract greatly from your website’s status!

To put these words into perspective, here is a band which does social media integration well for their website. 
As you can see, there is a great level of interactivity with the website, and the whole concept of the site’s design is based around social media integration.

And here is a band which isn’t as up-to-date with their social media integration. (Also a bit of a blast from the past!)
This band’s page does have links for social media - including MySpace(!) - but does little to encourage users to interact with it while visiting the website, resulting in a missed opportunity to get some web traffic flowing.

Age Demographic /

The relevance of age demographics and target audiences cannot be ignored when planning social media integration for a website (or really, for any kind of social media interaction relating to a product). 
As such, the eligibility of the following platforms will take into account the median age of their userbases (by targeting social media platforms with age-appropriate/age-relevant userbases):

Twitter /

The main goal with Twitter is to give fans of the Pod Bay Doors a place to both contact the band directly, and also to receive updates from the band themselves.

A Twitter feed belonging to the band will be visible from the homepage of the band’s website, to the left of the page. (One option I’m considering is making a static pane for social media feeds to exist in, which is present on all pages of the website, meaning fans will always have access to the feeds from each page of the website.)

My expectations for the Twitter feed are that its presence will encourage users to interact with the website by posting messages or Tweeting at the band themselves.

Facebook /

Facebook ‘s integration will be much the same as Twitter’s integration, giving fans who do not have a Twitter account the same amount of interactivity with the website as those who do.

Facebook’s feed will also be present in the “social media pane” (which is sounding like a better idea each time I think about it!).

My expectations for the Facebook feed integration are much the same as those I have for the Twitter feed integration; promoting interactivity, allowing the band and their fans a quick and easy way to converse, and to provide updates as to the band’s current goings-on.

Instagram /

The role of Instagram in the website is to allow users to view photos straight from the band themselves, whether they be of recording sessions, live concerts from the band’s point of view, or backstage content.

The integration of Instagram’s feed will, like Twitter and Facebook, be present on the homepage of the band, as well as in the social media pane.

And that’s all for this update!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you in the next post! :)