Web Design Barnstaple: 10 Ways to Brand Your Business Using Twitter - Updated for July 2016

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Web Design Barnstaple

Twitter is a social media and micro-blogging site where you send out short ‘tweets’ to all of your followers. With over 65 million tweets going out every day among its 160+ million users, your business needs to be there. Here are 10 ways to use Twitter to brand your business.

1. Follow the Experts
Find experts in your field and follow their tweets. This shows your followers that you know what’s going on in your industry and you can also learn how to market yourself on Twitter by watching what they do.

2. Be a Subscriber
Don’t just subscribe to the experts, but also to anyone that’s active in your industry. Twitter is the only social media site where users often follow more than they’re followed. Follow lots of people and comment on their tweets.

3. Mark Favorites
When you find a tweet that you’d like to save for later, you can mark it as one of your favorites by clicking on the little star. Your followers can see your favorites listed on your profile. Your favorites list shows everyone a bit about who you are.

4. Ask Questions
Get discussions going on Twitter by asking questions. They don’t have to be anything earth-shattering but can be about anything. Just throw them out there and let your followers respond. You not only get some activity going, but also learn valuable information about how your target market thinks.

5. Comment on Links
When you like something you see online, you can tweet it. It gives you the option to comment on your links and you should always do this. Just sharing without saying anything about it doesn’t do anything for your branding; it only directs people to the link.

6. Make it Personal
People want to know about your brand but also they like to learn about you. Sometimes, it’s good to tweet something purely personal as long as you don’t do this too often. Twitter users love these tweets and they’ll show the human side of your brand.

7. Post Pictures
You can post pictures on Twitter and you should be doing this often. Choose pictures that are related to your brand and take your own photos showcasing your goods, your employees or the way your business works.

8. Value and Relevance
Whenever you get ready to post something, ask yourself these two questions: Is it relevant to my brand? Does it provide value to my followers? There are lots of tweets that don’t deliver either relevance or value, so make sure yours do.

9. Don’t Self-Promote (Too Much)
Once in a while, it’s alright to show off your products and services, but don’t be the type of user who shares it every time something good is said about your brand anywhere online. Focus on benefitting your users and not yourself.

10. Make the Most of Your Characters
Since Twitter only allows you 140 characters on less in your tweet, you need to learn the art of concise writing. Check out magazine and newspaper headlines to see just how much you can pack into one short sentence. And make sure you use a url shortener so that you don’t waste precious characters.

The most important thing to remember is that Twitter is supposed to be enjoyable. While you should be professional and realize that everything you do reflects on your brand, whenever possible offer something that’s just plain fun. Show your sense of humor and be personable. Twitter is all about human interaction and that’s what Twitter users want to see.

What Next?

We’re a local web design company based in Barnstaple, so we are experienced in helping our customers attract business via their website or by using Social Media.

When it comes to building your brand and getting customers, Social Media is a powerful marketing tool.

Whether you want to attract local business through your door, trade nationwide or internationally, we help our Clients master Social Media.

Just one way to help is by linking your website to Social Media so that when you post to website it automatically updates your Facebook page.

You could also have your Twitter feed on your website keeping people informed and uptodate with what is happening in your business.

We create these tools and services to make it easier for YOU to control Social Media.

If you have been thinking about making more of Social Media call us on 01271 324 841 or get in touch with us without any obligation at http://rightclickseo.co.uk/company/contact/.

We’ll do our level best to answer your questions without resorting to complicated jargon and industry-speak and then you can decide for yourself whether this service is something you would be interested in.

Web Design Barnstaple: 10 Creative Ways to Use Social Media for Your Business - Updated for July 2016

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Web Design Barnstaple

Social media sites offer a way for people to communicate online and interact with their favorite businesses. Sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are among the most popular and most visited on the Web, and many of their users check theirs every day. Here are ten ways you can use social media to better connect with your fans and boost your business.

1. Improve Your Customer Service
These sites give your customers direct access to you. This gives you a chance to listen to what they have to say and learn how they feel about your business. By being responsive and offering them access, social media works wonders for your customer service.

2. Manage Customer Complaints
Social media sites let your customers leave comments on how you’re doing. When they complain or criticize your business practices, you not only get valuable feedback, but also a chance to reply and repair your image.

3. Share Real-Life Customer Stories
Social proof is powerful in establishing your company’s credibility, and social media gives you lots of opportunities to get real testimonials. Positive reviews from your customers can be seen instantly by anyone who accesses your profile or theirs.

4. Get Your Employees Involved
You can use your social media sites for idea development. Give your employees a platform where they can share their ideas. You can also use it to keep in touch, offering newsletters, updates and employee incentive programs.

5. Boost Customer Loyalty
You can use your profile to run your customer loyalty programs by offering incentives and rewards. Everything can be done through the site so you don’t need to deal with any more punch cards.

6. Attract New Business
Your social media presence gives you free advertising on the world’s biggest message board. People can find your profile through Web searches and their friends’ profiles. This is a great way to attract new customers.

7. Get to Know Your Market
Social media makes it extremely easy to get to know your target market. You can find out exactly who enjoys your products and services, as well as find out what else they like. Companies have spent millions in marketing research to gather this information and all you need to do is invest a little time.

8. Create a Brand Message
Every company has a brand message, like Nike’s ‘Just Do It’. You can use your social media site to communicate this message to your fans and prospective customers.

9. Connect Everything
By integrating your social media sites with your blog or website, you can generate more traffic and leads. Widgets and apps allow you to link everything together for maximum exposure.

10. Use Multimedia
Most social media sites have multimedia applications. You can make a welcome video showing what your company is all about or offer a streaming podcast to your customers. These help by branding your company and giving it a more personal touch.

The most important thing to remember about social media is that people don’t use these sites to shop. They use them to socialize, share common interests, and generally hang out. Make your page an interactive place where they can get involved and spend time. This keeps your brand in their mind and whenever they’re ready to buy, they’ll come to you.

What Next?

We’re a local web design company based in Barnstaple, so we are experienced in helping our customers attract business via their website or by using Social Media.

When it comes to building your brand and getting customers, Social Media is a powerful marketing tool.

Whether you want to attract local business through your door, trade nationwide or internationally, we help our Clients master Social Media.

Just one way to help is by linking your website to Social Media so that when you post to website it automatically updates your Facebook page.

You could also have your Twitter feed on your website keeping people informed and uptodate with what is happening in your business.

We create these tools and services to make it easier for YOU to control Social Media.

If you have been thinking about making more of Social Media call us on 01271 324 841 or get in touch with us without any obligation at http://rightclickseo.co.uk/company/contact/.

We’ll do our level best to answer your questions without resorting to complicated jargon and industry-speak and then you can decide for yourself whether this service is something you would be interested in.

Web Design Barnstaple: Using Facebook to Build Your Brand – 10 Tips - Updated for July 2016

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Web Design Barnstaple

Facebook is the king of social networking sites and it’s not going to give up the crown anytime soon. There are over 250 million users worldwide and as many as half of them check their profile daily. Your business can use the site to reach out to any demographic worldwide.

Facebook offers fan pages for businesses. This is a mini-site for your brand where your customers can hang out and interact. Here are 10 tips for using your fan page to build your brand.

1. No Selling
First of all, the golden rule on Facebook is no selling. People use the site to socialize, find friends and share interests. Create a fan page where they can hang out and enjoy interactive features, and keep a lid on the sales talk.

2. Create a Vanity URL
When you first create your page, Facebook gives you a long, incomprehensible list of letters and numbers for your URL. Once you have 25 followers, you can make your own custom URL that’s easier for folks to remember.

3. Hold Contests
Your fan page has a feature that lets you hold contests. You can set up a contest through your page and give prizes to the winners. This is a great way to get your customers involved in your brand.

4. Mind Your Tabs
Tabs are the boxes that show up next to your business description. They include things like ‘likes’ and ‘photos.’ When people view your profile, only the first 4 are visible. The rest will be collapsed under a down arrow. Make sure that the ones you want people to see are at the top.

5. Feed Your Posts
You can import an RSS feed to your fan page so that your blog posts will automatically appear there as a group of updates. This is not as complex as it sounds; just follow the prompts on your fan page.

6. Your Row of Photos
The new Facebook layout has a row of photos at the top. Use these to show off your best products or services, or other images that help to brand your company.

7. Optimize Your ‘About’ Page
Your ‘About’ page contains your basic information and contact details. However, only a short sentence from the ‘About’ field shows up under your profile picture until people click on ‘About’. Optimize this description with keywords and clickable links, and make sure to put the most important information up front.

8. Where to Send Them
For better branding, you should use your page’s ‘info’ URL instead of your wall. Your wall doesn’t really tell them anything about your company and it may intimidate them to see posts by other followers.

9. Create Custom Tabs
Your page comes with standard tabs like ‘info’ and ‘photos.’ Delete tabs that aren’t relevant to your business and create your own to replace them. Facebook has an app that lets you do this.

10. Offer Something Exclusive
Offer special deals, free shipping or promotions that are available only to your Facebook fans. This gives them an incentive to become fans and also makes them feel valued by you.

Remember that whenever you’re on Facebook, you should be ‘on brand.’ This may also be the case when you stay logged in or ask it to ‘remember you,’ even when you’re surfing other websites. Because you’re on-brand, don’t say anything rude, negative or inappropriate. Be mindful of all that you do because it will reflect on your brand.

What Next?

We’re a local web design company based in Barnstaple, so we are experienced in helping our customers attract business via their website or by using Social Media.

When it comes to building your brand and getting customers, Social Media is a powerful marketing tool.

Whether you want to attract local business through your door, trade nationwide or internationally, we help our Clients master Social Media.

Just one way to help is by linking your website to Social Media so that when you post to website it automatically updates your Facebook page.

You could also have your Twitter feed on your website keeping people informed and uptodate with what is happening in your business.

We create these tools and services to make it easier for YOU to control Social Media.

If you have been thinking about making more of Social Media call us on 01271 324 841 or get in touch with us without any obligation at http://rightclickseo.co.uk/company/contact/.

We’ll do our level best to answer your questions without resorting to complicated jargon and industry-speak and then you can decide for yourself whether this service is something you would be interested in.

Web Design Devon: Application Service Providers and Hosting - Updated for July 2016

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Application service providers (commonly referred to as ASP’s) have quickly sprouted onto the web hosting scene in effort to provide businesses with new and innovative services. The term ASP should not be confused with Microsoft Corporations software application.

The number of applications provided through the ASP model is growing. Accordingly, there is a growing business of companies developing software for the ASP marketplace. What sorts of applications are being developed? As remotely-hosted applications can provide cost-effective access for businesses to unique software, many of the applications are designed to be of occasional use in terms of use. Others are geared towards using group connectivity provided by through the Internet to provide an application that is flexible.

ASP’s have created software programs to handle various business functions as materials management, human resources, financial management, and e-commerce transaction services.

The variety of solutions provided by ASP’s is vast. Many ASP’s are doing great business in meeting operational needs of companies across different industries and business functions. There are a number of technical and business issues currently addressed by ASP’s to develop and enhance system applications.

A major advantage for businesses in seeking ASP services is that they provide an opportunity to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. Companies can have access to a wider-range of software products with the possibility of paying less than an outright purchase through usage charges. This allows businesses to access applications that can service particular business needs so companies can focus on their core operations. Furthermore, ASP’s are developing new software that can provide business solutions to operating issues not previously addressed through PC-based software. ASP’s also remove many of the technical administrative and maintenance issues associated with software by providing real-time upgrades, remote hosting, remote dial in customer support and overall software management.

Web hosting companies are involved in the development of applications — however, many of the hosting companies serve to provide network management and serve the application remotely to users. In providing ASP-related services, these companies are essentially AIP’s (application infrastructure providers.)

For mainframe web hosting applications, ASP service providers are pioneering a new way to host and maintain business applications.

What Next?

If you have been thinking about setting up a new website, or your existing site doesn’t work for you (or just needs updating), call us on 01271 324 841 or get in touch with us without any obligation at http://rightclickseo.co.uk/company/contact/.

We’ll do our level best to answer your questions without resorting to complicated jargon and industry-speak and then you can decide for yourself whether this service is something you would be interested in.

Web Design Devon: Bandwidth Bandits - Updated for July 2016

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Files that are loaded to or from servers uses internet bandwidth to push files along the network at various speeds. Every time you upload a file to your ISP, surf the web or use an audio application, you are using bandwidth.

Bandwidth is a bunch of wires or fibers connecting servers to a network. Depending on the grade of the wire it determines how much data is coming across the network where your web-site is hosted. When someone attempts to get more data than can be handled by the network, the whole network slows down.

ISP’s can put a limitation on bandwidth at certain times during peak periods or charge you a flat fee per month for bandwidth usage. If you go over the flat fee, then they charge you extra for using extra bandwidth. Some ISP’s will shut down the transmissions until traffic is more stable on the network.

You can load most files (images, sound files, videos and flash scripts and other programs) in your web site. This excludes, of course, banners and pop ups and specific documents and images which are supposed to be loaded from a central server.

Bandwidth bandits link to images and other files directly to some other server instead of putting them on their local server. There are various reasons as to why they do this but one reason is to get as much bandwidth as possible to show their links and images. So they “steal” images or audio files each time the site is initialized meaning that they steal the bandwidth.

There’s certain ways that you can stop the person from stealing your bandwidth allocation. If they have an email, I would contact them personally or go through Network Solutions and do an IP lookup which will give you information on the person and who the site is registered to. You can always get in touch with the company that hosts their site too.

Bandwidth can be expensive and the last thing that you want is someone stealing it.

What Next?

If you have been thinking about setting up a new website, or your existing site doesn’t work for you (or just needs updating), call us on 01271 324 841 or get in touch with us without any obligation at http://rightclickseo.co.uk/company/contact/.

We’ll do our level best to answer your questions without resorting to complicated jargon and industry-speak and then you can decide for yourself whether this service is something you would be interested in.

Web Design Devon: Beware of the Cyber Squatters - Updated for July 2016

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Your domain name could be stolen or given up to the evil entity known as the Cyber squatters whose main mission is to steal your web identity and this is how they do it. They could register YourDomainName.org, and do the same thing with YourDomainName.biz, therefore contacting you and try to sell you those names at advanced prices. If that doesn’t work, then the following events could happen.

They will allow your competitor to get a domain that sounds like yours, and allow him to cause confusion or try to steal your hard-earned traffic, business and clients.

Take these steps right now to halt the cyber squatters.

Have people go through you for authorization: Go through your domain name registrar and fill in a form that locks in authorized entities of your claim of other domain names. You can buy these names and keep them under your roof. It will provide you information to include, such as contact information, who should be contacted if someone wants to register your domain, the character string you are claiming (this must be an EXACT match), description of your current products/services, when you began using that domain name.

You have a small window to accomplish filling out an authorized entry form. Check with your domain registrar for time frame windows in filling out an authorized entry form Failure to enter a claim during a certain time frame means the registering entities will not check to see if there is an equivalent .com, .net or .org name. They will not check the IP Claim Service database. Meaning, you could lose your .info or net-version of your domain name.

Don’t let cyber squatters shake you down and ruin what you have built up on the net. Get the rights and the authorization to similar or like names to your main domain name!

What Next?

If you have been thinking about setting up a new website, or your existing site doesn’t work for you (or just needs updating), call us on 01271 324 841 or get in touch with us without any obligation at http://rightclickseo.co.uk/company/contact/.

We’ll do our level best to answer your questions without resorting to complicated jargon and industry-speak and then you can decide for yourself whether this service is something you would be interested in.