A look at what the rise of social media will mean for web designers in the coming year.
In 2008 we saw the rise of social media to new heights. Utilizing a variety of tools for both the internet and mobile devices, social media changed the way people communicate, gather information, and find out about new music, artists, businesses, trends, and more. Even the newly elected President, Barack Obama, successfully used a range of social media tools to help him stay connected to voters during his campaign and continues to do so as a way of giving the American people a voice and feeling of inclusion in his government. With all of this popularity, social media seems to be here to stay and is likely to continue to grow in the coming year.
So what does all of this mean for web developers? The rise and success of social media has not only changed the way in which web designers can market themselves and their services but is also changing the way in which web designers will have to work and the new skills that they will need to possess in order to have a successful 2009.
How Social Media Changes the Way You Work in 2009:
Traditionally, web developers have had to know the basics of design and coding. Then as the internet grew, their job skills had to grow along with it so they had to become familiar with how search engines and meta tags work, how to implement the variety of multimedia now available to make more dynamic web sites, and now, they have new skills they have to add to their developer's tool box.
Bands, artists, businesses, and even politicians are utilizing platforms such as MySpace and Facebook to reach out to a wider audience and to promote themselves or their causes and to do so they need unique, professionally designed profiles. This means that web developers have to become familiar with these medias and have the skills to deliver attention grabbing profile pages that these clients are looking for. In addition, there are existing sites, organizations, and communities around the country looking to utilize the communication tools available with social media on their own sites in order to stay connected to their visitors and to build an online community. Web developers who are not familiar with these elements and who can not deliver community integrated web sites may soon find their opportunities quite limited in 2009.
Social Media and Shameless Self Promotion:
While the introduction of social media means you may have to work a little harder to keep your skills up to date; it is not all bad news. Just as your clients see the promotional value of social media, web developers to can benefit from the opportunity to promote their talents and services by using social media web sites. You can show case your previous work, describe your services, enlarge your circle of network contacts to help keep you in the know, and find new clients using social media sites. So with this new year you have a chance to take advantage of an amazing advertising opportunity without having to shell out half of your yearly budget for an ad.
Love it or hate it, social media appears to be here to stay and web developers will have to adapt to this new challenge just as they have evolved to master the technologies and trends of the past.