Giving your site a social life

Now both those previous core competencies have become expected norms, with social interaction, immediate consumer feedback, and a live and evolving social network and Web presence the new differentiators for cutting-edge online small business best practices.

Advantages of an active social presence include increased user interaction, higher market penetration, optimized advertising revenue, and multiplied audience visibility, to name a few opportunities. Unfortunately, for most small businesses, the options for developing online visibility are diverse and intimidating: How do we design a Web site? Do we need a blog? What is RSS (really simple syndication)? How do we keep users informed with RSS? What if we want to add widgets? How do we protect the privacy of our users?

Facebook and MySpace are the first two names that jump out, given their mass-market appeal and reputation, but they are poorly designed for business needs. There are alternative, less known companies who are developing social publishing platforms and are more specifically addressing the needs of organisation and businesses looking for simple, low-maintenance and integrated solutions.

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