Social Media Marketing

Is Responsive Web Design the best solution for Social Media Marketing?

The debate is on. There’s been a lot of hype about Responsive Web Design - RWD. With the emergence of multiple media devices creating techniques of flexible web design that is liquid, elastic and scalable is vital for today’s Social Media Marketing.

There is definitely a need for RWD. Whether it’s the best solution depends on what you are trying to achieve at what cost. Is it worth the time and effort?

With RWD, elastic layouts put a maximum and minimum width to create a dynamic look. Understanding of how all elements interact with each component, content, visual elements including CSS media Queries are important in the creative and marketing strategy.

For instance in sites that reconfigure from Web (1680 x 1050) to a tablet (1024 x768) to a Smartphone (320 x 480), there is a need for responsive web design that sets parameters for designers to follow. It’s important that the designer build items that are sustainable.

RWD relies on CSS media queries for media device compatibility. Unfortunately, most mobile devices aren’t compatible with CSS media queries and some don’t support scripting or plug-ins.

It becomes problematic to create one design that adapts to every emerging media device. There are compatibility issues, image size consideration, and memory limitations, processing time and network adaptation problems.

There are a lot of considerations in this process including more code and continuous updates. Mobile internet-speed is slower than desktop speed.

From a clients’ perspective, it is important to note there is a cost and time issue to resolve compatibility issues. It takes more time to create multiple designs for the content and it requires an App interface to Social Media Sites.

Clients should understand that there’s a greater emphasis on amount of content and the way it’s presented in RWD. What works for desktop web design may not work the same for mobile devices. In the mobile sense, more is less and less is more, more or less.

An argument can be made to eliminate unforeseen problems by designing separately for mobile and desktop. Perhaps this should be a consideration of the RWD.

Yes, there is a need to set known variables to present information in a logical manner that makes sense to the end user. As CSS helps manage document content from presentation and accessibility, the future will provide a new vehicle with rules that manage and regulate how competing manufacturers design their media devices.

Is RWD the best solution for Social Media Marketing? It’s the best way to understand the medium and content in various configurations. Hopefully, it will provide guidelines and help define how people connect with information.

In the end, the value-added of RWD is the end-user experience.