One of the things that appeals to me about Twitter is that they seem to be regularly changing and making upgrades to appeal to their users. And their users have been incredibly creative too. When I originally heard the concept, I was a little puzzled and thought “140 characters?”. I mean, really, what can you do with 140 characters. (I never did do well with the short answer questions in school, if you are wondering.) However, time, patience, and watching have proven that you can do a fair bit with that many characters: conversations, customer service, and business promotion are all happening at top speed on Twitter.

Let’s just say that I can admit that I was a little narrow-sighted on the matter.

Last Tuesday, Chris Crum let us know about another new feature Twitter is playing with in his article, “Twitter Tests In-Stream Photos and Videos”. Twitter has introduced to a few people a feature that gives users the ability to post videos and photos. Twitter made the following statement about it: “We’re constantly exploring features and settings. What you saw was a small test of a potential consumption setting for inline media. We show inline media on our own iPhone and Android (Android) apps.”

Now, not all of us who tweet snippets of our lives and businesses have had the opportunity to explore this new feature, but for the accounts that had photo and video capabilities for this test, Twitter gave a descriptions that said, “By default, you’ll only see images and videos shared by people you’re following, and reveal those by people you’re not. Check this box to see media from everyone on Twitter.” I didn’t have it myself, but I have similar features on other social media sites and they are fun.

In the end, we don’t know if Twitter is going to make this a permanent feature or whether they are testing it out just for now and will end up deciding to shelve it. But my personal bet is that this isn’t the last we hear of this particular feature. It expands the capabilities of this particular platform, allows users to expand their creative expressions, and, like I said before, it’s just fun to use photos and videos.

This time, instead of scratching my head I am eying up the possibilities. If I’m already thinking about the possibilities, you can bet that businesses are already beginning to ponder great new ways to use this feature to appeal to their customers.

Just like updating your haircut and wardrobe, your website is another good place to do some regular updates. We all know of businesses that never do any updates, some that rarely do them, and then the small percentage who update on a regular basis. Since your website is essentially the first impression many people will have of your business, do you want them to arrive and think that it is still 2001 on your site? Or worse, find broken links and incomplete work? It’s not a great impression, and even worse, it could drive traffic away from your site.

Erica Charney was talking about just this issue in her article “5 Website Tips To Keep Your Brand Image Fresh”. Her main five tips boil down to the following:

1. Fix broken links.
2. Do regular traffic analysis.
3. Do your own site crawl.
4. Keep your keyword list up to date.
5. Continually freshen your web copy.
Some of these tips seem fairly obvious to me, like making sure to fix links, but I know that I find broken links on my own daily run through the internet, so it is not obvious enough to everyone. But a frustrated customer is not a returning customer, so it bears repeating.

Doing regular traffic analysis is another tip that seems obvious to me, but some businesses may need the reminder. The more you know about where your traffic is coming from, the better you can understand what is and is not working in your online approach.

A site crawl can prevent issues from cropping up. Pulling old pages and getting visibility for the newer pages is important. Visibility on the internet is key, so updating your sitemap file and submitting the XML version are important too.

Keeping your keyword list current and freshening your web copy are pivotal activities in SEO. These are the haircuts and new clothes of the web world. Fresh copy gives your clients something new to look at (think about that haircut), but also a good way to get search engines to recognize your site, if done properly. While the keyword list is a bit like your clothing pile: it’s okay to keep some of your favourites, if they still work for you, but new content on your site will need new keywords. Plus, there are tools that show which keywords are being used frequently, so you can align your site’s keywords with popular thinking, allowing better access by the average person using search tools.

Really, search engine optimization boils down to maintaining your image on the internet. You wouldn’t go to an interview in ratty old jeans and a ripped t-shirt, so letting your website’s “clothing” wear out won’t help your business either.