I am happy to announce that Bright Digital will be creating interactive event content for a well-known technology company overseas. It's the second time we have been selected for the job so we must be doing something right!

Many technology companies face a problem when creating social media friendly content (blogs, Twitter updates and so on): how do they make it chatty, fun, interesting and useful when frequently the subject matter is very technical (and the majority of the audience may necessarily not be) and therefore potentially complicated.

The problem is mainly a B2C one, but also it can be a problem with B2B audiences; just because a person is operating in a business to business capacity doesn't necessarily mean that they are technically minded, even if they are interested in or already use your products or services.

In my opinion social media is actually an opportunity to make potentially complicated subject material easier to understand. You can do this in a number of ways:

- Encourage your online community to help each other understand stuff

Use Twitter for example to grow your community, then encourage peer to peer communication in that space. This has been one of the greatest achievements of Twitter; the facility for individuals who are all following a certain company or brand to help each other. Just because you are the instigator of the group doesn't mean that the members aren't better than you at helping someone understand a product or service or iron out a problem.

Wikis are also a great way for a community to define their own terminology and also shape their own way of expressing meaning - and avoiding jargon. Encourage people in the community to get involved and create their own glossary of terms - created by the customers for the customers!

- Speak more informally (and avoid using jargon)

Social media provides an opportunity for you to talk informally, in a more chatty way about sometimes very complicated or technical products or services. It is easier to describe what something does or why it exists when you write in this way as it frees you from tone of voice, terminology and sales-led speak - and a limit in characters or words. Allow yourself to become conversational when blogging about stuff that is hard to understand; this will be a big help for people who sometimes struggle to understand your offering.

- Use other media to communicate

One of the best things about social media is that there are lots of different mediums you can choose from. Why stick to words when you can create an animation, or a video, an audio recording, or make a slideshow? Use YouTube, SlideShare, and podcasts to illustrate your offering in a more 3 dimensional way.

Recently Kate blogged about the often overloaded design layouts of social media sites like Facebook. Kate summarised that they are hugely overloaded with information but get away with it because people are prepared to invest more time skimming and digging through piles of extraneous information because of the emotional attachment to the material presented. Following on from that I would like to add that the social media world and its gurus are especially guilty of poor design consideration when creating web pages about events or information about social media. I, as someone who advises brands on social media, frequent these sites and it is quite frustrating to be searching for basic information for 15 minutes through masses of wikis, threads, updates and so on. It reinforces in my mind the importance of good clear, simple design and simple usability - something that ALL site creators, within social media or not, should remember when producing content for the web.

These web site usability / design principles are especially true when it comes to technology companies as they more than others need to convey clarity, due to the often potentially confusing and inherently technical nature of the products or services.

1. Who are you and what do you do?
It should be immediately clear who you are and what you do from just seconds of landing on your site. What you do can be conveyed simply in a sentence or two and who you are can be conveyed by a strong sense of brand through imagery and visuals.

2. Key facts at the fore.
Make sure your key information is either on the homepage or very clearly labelled in the navigation. Dates, relevant news, phone numbers, key products etc.

3. Avoid jargon.
Jargon is only useful for those who know what the terminology actually means! Why on earth would you want to risk alienating half the audience of people who visit your site? Beats me, but many people seem to miss this point.

4. Less is more.
In copy and also in imagery, logos etc, try to hold back and just include what is necessary so the page is uncluttered and simple to scan read.

5. Encourage them to get in touch.
Contact links, email addresses, snail mail, Twitter links and phone numbers: as much as possible encourage them to get in touch for more information. If they need help be clear about where they can go to get it.

There are lots of other, more complex and intricate considerations to expert web design, but if these basic points are covered (and you'd be surprised how many big companies don't manage to cover them) then you will convert more visitors - and more importantly people won't get frustrated and click away with a bad impression of your business.