In this day and age, it's a good idea to ensure your business is reaching potential customers on every platform possible. We've already discussed the importance of social media on this blog, but today we'd like to get a little more specific and focus on how to use Snapchat for business. 

Image and video messaging platform Snapchat has been mentioned in a lot of news stories lately due to Facebook and Instagram's newest features, which some argue bear a lot of similarities to the Snapchat app. Of course, Snapchat is hardly new - it was first introduced in 2011 - but it still has a huge user base, and it should probably be your first choice when it comes to building your social media following through video.

If you're wondering how to effectively use Snapchat for business purposes, don't worry - we've put together some simple yet very useful tips for you to follow. It may seem daunting, but video content is the future of content marketing, so it's definitely worth getting a handle on the likes of Snapchat sooner rather than later.

Here are our 5 simple tips for Snapchat success:

1) Offer Sneak Peeks and Discounts

One great way of gaining engagement and revenue through Snapchat is to offer special discounts and sneak peeks of your latest products via your business's Snapchat account. As you can see above, WeRateDogs has taken advantage of this feature by promoting their new range of merchandise. Snapchat is a superb social media platform for this kind of promotion because it allows users a literal 'peek' at forthcoming releases. If you were to post on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram instead, the post would be much more permanent, thus undermining the 'sneak peek' element.

Many businesses also use their accounts to provide 'secret' discounts to those who follow them on Snapchat. This is a great way to gain more followers on the platform - if you tell people about the exclusive discounts available through your Snapchat account, people will inevitably follow you in the hope of bagging a bargain.

2) Snap Contests

Snap contests are one of the most engaging ways in which you can use Snapchat for business. The beauty of Snapchat is that as well as using the story feature (which allows everyone to see what you post), consumers are also able to send you snaps directly. This feature makes snap contests a great way of utilising the platform.

Back in 2014, GrubHub displayed a great example of how to use snap contests to promote one's business. They created a week-long campaign called a "snap hunt". Every day of that week, GrubHub posted a new challenge for their followers to complete and send back to them. Whoever they chose as winners would gain a $50 voucher to spend on takeaway food. This competition was a big success, and Grubhub found that over 30% of their followers engaged in the contest, with their account gaining a 20% increase in followers in just one week. This proves that a well-thought-out contest (and the promise of freebies) works wonders when using Snapchat for business.

3) Inside Looks at Your Company

In any business, it is easy for consumers to forget about the human aspect of the company. This is why an inside look at your office, products, and workers is a great way to use Snapchat for your business. Many studies have found that people buy stories before they buy products, which is why displaying your company's story through a modern platform like Snapchat is one of the best ways to encourage customer engagement. 

Take Justin Kan, for example - he is an American entrepreneur and co-founder of Justin.tv, Twitch.tv and Socialcam. Kan uses Snapchat frequently to take his customers on a guided tour through his companies and the new venues he visits. He also shows snippets of himself mentoring young entrepreneurs, which really displays the human side of his businesses. Taking your consumers on a backstage tour has never been easier, so take advantage of this when using Snapchat for your business. 

4) Utilise Influencers

Social media influencers are popular accounts that have a substantial amount of influence over their followers. Gaining the approval of one of these influencers can benefit your business greatly. A valuable way to use Snapchat for business is by asking influencers to promote your business on their own account - you can ask them to rate, review or even try out a freebie from your company.

Above is an example of how Beth Norton, a popular lifestyle blogger, has promoted Zoe Griffin Photography through Snapchat. Promoting the use of this photographer through her Snapchat not only displays her approval but also encourages others to use this particular photographer.

5) Keep it short and snappy!

With some studies stating that the average human attention span is only 7 seconds long, you'll want to ensure that your story is kept short and snappy. Snapchat limits videos to just 10 seconds, and it's not a good idea to post too many of these onto your story in one day. Snapchat works in seconds, not minutes - so always ensure that the entirety of your story clocks in under the minute mark.

Snapchat users can flick through your story with just a movement of the finger, so make sure you get all of your good content into the first few seconds of the video. Spending 5 seconds setting the scene could cause users to flick onto the next snap before they even see the main point of your story. If you take one thing away from this blog, remember that on Snapchat, every second is important!

Need help harnessing the power of social media to benefit your business? Our social media experts can help!

When presented with a sparkling, brand-new website that looks great and functions perfectly, it’s easy to assume that you’ve done all you can for the online side of your business. Your customers can find you, they can buy your products from the comfort of their own homes or even on the go using their smartphones - what more is there to be done?

But setting up your company's site is really just phase one! Now that it's live, you need to come up with a plan of action that centres on how to get the most out of your website.

Falling into a rut with your website is not only damaging for the website, it could potentially impact your business on a larger scale. In order to guide you past this pitfall, we’ve put together a few tips to help you get the most out of your website.

Update Your Blog Frequently with Engaging Content

If your website includes a blog, you should ensure that it is updated frequently with engaging content. If your blog is left stagnant or updated less than, say, once a month, it will not drive traffic like it ought to and it may even end up harming rather than helping your online success.

By creating new and engaging content on a regular basis, you will be able to draw in new customers and rank for new keywords.

Stay Active on Social Media

Similar to your blog section, if you have links on your website to company social media accounts (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), make sure these accounts are updated frequently. Social media is a vastly important tool for any online business, so by neglecting it, not only will you certainly not get the most out of your website, you may also damage people's perception of your brand in the process. Just think about it - if someone spots that your last tweet went out nearly a year ago, they may worry that you've gone out of business and cease to feel confident enough to buy from you!

If you want to learn more about why social media marketing is so important for modern businesses, you can read all about it in our recent blog post on the topic. 

Use 301 Redirects Intelligently

Updating your pages and products frequently is a great way to keep customers/visitors interested and your business running smoothly. However, if you decide to delete a page, you should consider adding a 301 redirect to ensure that anyone trying to access that page in future is redirected to a relevant page that still exists (rather than seeing a 'page not found' 404 error notice).

All you need to do is get in touch with the people who built your website and ask them to redirect the old URL to a different, still-live one. However, you shouldn't just use 301 redirects to ensure that nobody ever sees a 404 'not found' page - here are some good rules of thumb:

• If you have moved a piece of content from one URL to another, use a 301 redirect so that anyone who enters the old URL will automatically arrive on the new one.
  
  
• If you have deleted a piece of content outright, but you have another page that meets the user's needs equally well, you can redirect the old URL to that page - although, technically speaking, a 404 'not found' notice is the correct response when someone tries to access a piece of content that no longer exists. That being said, if you delete an old product that you no longer sell but you have a newer version/model of that product in stock, it's a good idea to redirect to the new version as this will improve user experience on your website.
  
  
• You should never redirect to a page that isn't relevant to the piece of content the user is trying to reach - it makes for a poor user experience (more so than if you just showed a 404 page) and may put you in line for a rankings penalty on Google.

Use High-Quality Photos

Whether you're selling products or promoting your company's services, it's important to use good-quality images - and continue to use good-quality images when you upload new products or content. Nothing will put a potential customer off more quickly than a blurry, cheap-looking image. Producing your own good-quality photos is easy to do, and the best part is that you can be certain your images are 100% royalty free.

If you want to get more from your website (whether through blog posts, search engine optimisation, or a whole-site redesign), get in touch with Designer Websites today to find out how we can help.

You may have heard about movie Easter Eggs or video game Easter Eggs before, but have you ever heard about Website Easter Eggs? The internet is filled with copious amounts of weird and wonderful things, so it makes sense that there may be a few surprising features hidden in the depths of numerous different websites. If you're prepared to go on a different kind of Easter Egg hunt this holiday, you will find that websites all over the world incorporate these hidden gems and they are just waiting to be discovered. 

To give you a brief history of where website Easter Eggs came from, it all started back in the late 70's with a game designer. Feeling slightly bitter about the fact that back then game designers were not provided with any credit for their work, this particular game designer decided to hide his credit in the game Adventure, which was made for the 2600 Atari. He designed the game so that when a player performed a specific action at precisely the right moment, the screen would briefly flash the designer's credit. 

This came to be known as an Easter Egg because Atari then had to go on a type of Easter Egg 'hunt' to find the secret message hidden in the depths of the game. From this point onwards, you will be able to find multiple examples of Easter Eggs hidden in games, movies, and websites - mainly to amuse those who are now 'in the know'. Just think of Stan Lee's famous cameos in all of the Marvel movies. The Marvel follower base now awaits these cameos and rejoice whenever Stan Lee's couple of seconds appear on the screen. Website Easter Eggs offer the same effect. They outwardly show that the company has a sense of humour and are willing to go above and beyond to entertain their followers. 

And so, with the Easter holiday upon us, we went on our own website Easter Egg hunt and put together our top 8 favourite website easter eggs hidden on the internet:

Konami Code on Digg.com

If you know a bit about gaming, you may have heard of the Konami Code before. This code was created by Kazuhusa Hashimoto when developing the notoriously difficult arcade game Gradius. To have enough time to test the game, Hashimoto created a code which would provide power-ups whenever needed. That code was up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. This code was allegedly designed only for Hashimoto, but he happened to 'forget' to remove the code when the game went live. Once players got wind of this cheat code, the age of the Konami Code began.

This is why Digg's website easter egg has great comedy value. They understand that the Konami Code is designed as a cheat code, but have managed to turned that on its head by Rick Rolling users whenever they attempt it. We recommend having your sound right up when you enter the Konami code on the Digg website!

Google Search: Do A Barrel Roll

For our second website Easter Egg, simply type 'do a barrel roll' into google and watch as it follows your directions. This is one of our favourite google Easter Eggs, and google has quite a few. It should come as no surprise that Google has the monopoly when it comes to website Easter Eggs. Google is featured a couple of times on this list, but for a fully comprehensive list of all the google Easter Eggs, you can find hidden in the search engine here. 

Youtube Search: Use the Force Luke

Although the Star Wars hype may have died down, YouTube still has a nifty website easter egg stashed up its sleeve. Simply type 'use the force luke' into the youtube search bar and watch as everything on the page becomes controlled by 'the force'. By moving your mouse you can attempt to control the force, too. Another quirky website easter egg happens when you type in 'do the Harlem shake' in the search bar. We recommend headphones for this one too! 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them on Google Maps

Hold on to your hats Harry Potter fans, for Google Maps can now take you back in time with their website Easter Egg. Google maps have partnered up with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to provide you with an inside tour of the 1926 wizarding world. All you have to do is type in 'Fantastic Beasts, New York City' and google maps will take you to all the focal points of the movie. You will be able to explore and have an inside look at MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), New York in 1926, The Blind Pig and Tina and Queenies home. It's pretty fantastic if we do say so ourselves.

Wistia's Dancing Team Page

A great example of a company using a hidden website easter egg to display company personality is Wistia. On the Wistia 'about' section, you will find the 'Wistia Class Photos'. On this page, type 'DANCE' and click enter then watch as the team proceeds to dance to some classic jazz music.

Google Search: I'm Feeling Curious

If you're ever feeling bored, just remember that google has this clever little website Easter Egg just waiting to provide you with entertainment. All you have to type into google is 'I'm feeling curious' and google has a widget installed to provide you with a multitude of interesting trivia, ready for you to whip out at all the parties you're invited too. Find out what a heard of unicorns is called or the book the statue of liberty is holding with this useful website Easter egg.

Inspect Source on Coca-Cola Website

Some companies also have website Easter Eggs embedded into the very code of the website. This is because they are aware that many website developers will look at a website's source code to see how specific features were done. With this knowledge, coca-cola has inserted a little nod to anyone who may be looking at their code by inserting the coca-cola logo directly into the source code. To see this, just go onto the coca-cola home page, left click and click 'view page source'. 

Konami Code On BuzzFeed

As you can see, most of the biggest websites have got in on this website easter egg craze. Even Buzzfeed have incorporated the Konami code into their own website. Just press up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A and enter on the homepage and all of the text will change to 'Wilkie!' with a picture of BuzzFeed's chief of technology officer, Mark Wilkie, eating Cheetos with chopsticks. We think this one may be more of an in-joke, but it still shows the great company culture BuzzFeed have.

So, we hope you enjoyed our website Easter Egg hunt. If you know of any others or want to let us know your favourites, either tweet us or leave us a comment on any of our social media platforms. Have a great Easter!

Ecosia

Blackle