Socially optimized websites present a unique set of challenges compared to a static website. I’m not saying one is better than the other. It all depends on the purpose of the website. What I’m saying is personally I like the challenge of creating a website whose content is based around the involvement of its users.

We run into different circumstances and problems in building and maintaining these sites all the time. Sometimes a website owner just doesn’t realize the amount of work involved with running one to going with a social media campaign for a market that just won’t work for it. You never know how these things will turn out but that doesn’t mean you can’t try.

Here are the five most common reasons why a social media website doesn’t last and fails:

• Don’t expect everyone to find and fall in love with it – The online community has less attention span that five year old kid told running unsupervised in a toy store. Worse yet, competition for those quick attentions is getting more competitive by the day. Your website better contain a compelling purpose for those users, but first you need to get them to your site in the first place. We try to do this by gearing as much content as possible to the target audience and then letting them join in on the conversation.
• Don’t be a bad webmaster – People are joining your social online community for two things: to find information on something they find interesting and more importantly, to have fun. You take either of these factors away from your site and expect to also lose traffic and members. There is no quicker way to do this that by being an over-controlling site owner. You want your website to be an environment in which people feel comfortable participating. It creates loyalty to do so. Studies have shown that once people begin participating in a community, they feel a sense of ownership. This is what motivates them to keep participating. What I’m trying to say is, let everyone feel like they are all owners and part of something big.
• Don’t forget about it – You are spending a lot of time, money and effort into building a website. Why do all that and then walk away from it? Owning a website takes hard work. Owning a socially optimized website takes A LOT of hard work. Expect to visit your website regularly for maintenance. By participating constantly, you encourage others to do so as well. If you forget about your website, so will everyone else.
• Don’t make your website overly complicated – It’s a website for people to enjoy themselves on, not an IQ test. If a user needs more than a minute or two to fully understand your website’s organization or flow, don’t expect them to stay. They are bouncing. Stay away from clutter and get right to the interesting stuff. Try to let your social site grow organically through member contributed content.
• Don’t take it too personally – You know that saying you can’t please everyone all the time? This is no where more true than on a social website. I know that you can sometimes be a little protective of your website since after you all you built it from scratch but that doesn’t mean you should let a commenter ruin your day by giving some criticism. My advice is to keep a sense of humor about things and maintain your perspective about the larger picture.

Don’t forget that an online community or a socially optimized website is all about user communication and interaction. Encourage others to get involved and most importantly, have fun!

Use this blog as an example. If you didn’t know the first thing about websites or e-commerce, you’d get a better understanding of it as well as our company just from a few posts. The content of Mystic Liquid is written in such as that it shows our passion and excitement about designing small business websites because after all, it is what we love to do.

No where in the online world does this kind of thinking carry more significance than in the social media realm. In the social websites, it is all about the Web 2.0 and user interaction. You can’t have that without establishing a basis of trust and they trust you by learning about you through your website. This is just another reason why your website should be properly built around the rules of social media optimization.

As you’re beginning to make all of these connections online, more people will be visiting your site. They are drawn to your site through snippets of information in your bio, from comments, or interesting community relevant submissions. It also doesn’t hurt to have an eye-catching avatar.

Avatars are the new buzz in the online world, especially so in Web 2.0. They are how the online community of social networks sees you. The overwhelming success of Second Life is testament enough in itself to what I’m talking about. CSI:NY even wrote their “world” into one of their episodes as the basis of the story’s plot.

Don’t think you can just pick any random one and be ok with it. Sit down and put some thought behind it. Your avatar is you after all. If you have a website selling men’s work boots, you don’t want to choose a picture of a ballerina. I recommend All Avatars as a good site to browse around and find some ideas.

Before you comment on my lame avatar, let me set the record straight…I know. It isn’t the best but honestly, it’s only because I’ve been busy building content for a bunch of different websites among a million other things.

This leads me to the purpose of this post. I couldn’t decide what to choose as my avatar so I thought maybe I’d let all of you choose. Let me know what you think would be a great choice for me or for Mystic Liquid.