“Your website is an amazing branding tool!”

How many times have you heard that? Hundreds, if not thousands of blog posts, start off this way, but often trail off when it comes to the details. It’s true though, a successful business is fueled by a great web presence. Unfortunately, the brand of a company website or personal profile is often times lost in the clutter of the web. In today’s Web 2.0 world, your message must balance informational web pages with a viable and exciting social media identity.

The Office: A Case Study

Although there are only around 23 episodes of NBC’s The Office per year, the show has become far more than just 30 minutes of weekly airtime. In fact, these half-hour installments have proven to be the axis for a very extensive and enthusiastic leap into new media.

The Office’s years of sustained success stems from its documentary-style format, taken from Ricky Gervais’ original version of the show running from 2001-2003 in the United Kingdom. This hand-held camera angle makes the characters come alive in an authentic way and makes them perfectly transferable to social media.

Even though I know Michael Scott is a fictional boss of a fictional branch for a fictional company, there’s a lingering feeling that I could drive over to Scranton, Pennsylvania and ring his doorbell. As mentioned earlier, much of this “realness” comes from the way the show is filmed, but it is reinforced by the bevy of blogs, Flickr accounts, character Twitter handles and many other media devices associated with the show.

A sample of the discourse The Office characters exchange on Twitter,
adding to their character development and reinforcing the brand overall.

Brand Loyalty

By giving each of the show’s most beloved characters a blog or social media account, The Office is able to interact with their audience and provide additional mediums to create a fanatic connection. It’s a marketing tactic focused on building brand loyalty through an emotional connection. Viewers tune in because they care about the characters, and understand the essence of who they are.

Traffic Boosters

The Office and the NBC fat-cats didn’t setup all this content for their health though. No sir. The Office homepage on NBC.com is both a forum and a billboard. The new media devices act as a magnet, bringing devoted fans to the site. Even though Season 6 wrapped up last month, fans are still getting engaged with the show through the website. Advertisers spend great amounts to acquire the coveted ad space on this site. It’s a win-win for everyone.

But I’m Not In Entertainment…

So where does your business fit in? This case study on The Office’s new media usage is an example that businesses of all types can follow. Even though The Office is a hit network TV show, the themes of the show and the social media campaigns tied to it are modeled around the personnel within the the fictional company. Your social media campaign should try to do the same. Of course, your company (probably) shouldn’t name their blogs The Diabolical Plan or The Halpert Baby Blog, but the point is that you can make fans out of your customers by providing insight into the things that make your company tick.

Where to Get Started

Tweeting for Fun

During our latest round of networking and public events, we heard the same question over and over – how do I get started? If you’re getting into social media for personal use, I always recommend starting with friends and then moving on to your passions. Connecting with friends will help you learn the ins-and-outs of networks like Twitter and Facebook. If you make a mistake, who cares! Only your friends will see. Then start following your passions by following major brands and important people within your area of interest. I found the following instructions to be helpful as I built my Twitter account (@MetaCase):

1. Start with what you know…or what you want to know
2. Stick to it! Devote between 15-45 minutes a day to building connections and posting content.
3. Show, don’t tell. Make sure you keep credibility in mind when Tweeting. It may be therapeutic to complain, but you won’t win followers that way.

Tweeting for a Company

Starting a Twitter or Facebook account for your company is a bit trickier. Although social media accounts are generally operated by the marketing/PR teams, corporate social media usually start with the Legal Department. Work with your legal department to see what kind of interactions you can perform without getting sued. Then, start listening and providing customers with interesting content that starts a conversation.

Sharpie, the permanent marker giant, is pretty nimble when it comes to using social media to increase brand loyalty and advocacy. Their campaign entitled, Sharpie Uncapped, focuses on the thousands of ways Sharpie customers use their markers to express themselves. Need new detailing on your motorcycle? How about some new sneakers? These ideas and many more are chronicled across their blog, YouTube, and Flickr.

Choices, Choices: Twitter or Facebook?

Some companies, like Sharpie, like to use all forms of social media as they attempt to canvas the web and fill every niche. But there are still other companies that choose to focus on one network. Jerry Kozak, Owner & Marketing Director at the Ann Arbor T-Shirt Company, explained why his organization devotes much of their marketing energy on their Facebook page for products like Screen Printing & Custom Shirt Design:

When we get a Facebook fan page to adopt one of our designs, it is presumably there forever. New members see the design indefinitely. Twitter is more like someone standing on a corner announcing something…If you weren’t there to hear it, it’s unlikely you’ll get the message at all.

He goes on to explain the disconnect between Twitter and his image-based designs. All Twit-pics aside, Twitter is mostly text based. Additionally, Twitter is more-or-less a publishing platform, whereas Facebook is a sharing platform. “If your goal is to get your product to go viral, the path is much more fluid on Facebook,” Kozak explains. Whether your company chooses Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc., make sure the network represents your brand effectively.

Get Going!

We’ve talked enough about what other people are doing. It’s time to make sure your company is branding effectively through its online presence. So get out there and make sure to let us know how you’re doing!

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “if you build it, they will come,” but as many web startups know – this is very often not the case. The vast and saturated state of the web just doesn’t allow for it – content either can’t be found or doesn’t rank high enough over the competition. So, web startups must turn to various forms of web marketing in order to get their brand out to the target audience. A savvy web marketer will combine concepts from a few different fields such as branding, search engine optimization, social media marketing and advertising to create a complete marketing package.

In this carnival, we’ve collected posts from around the web that reflect this concept in fresh and unique ways. Much thanks to all those who participated!

Crisis Planning: Prepare Your Company for Social Media Attacks

A lot of people spent some time this week monitoring the deforestation and sustainability debates taking place on Nestle’s Facebook fan page. Whether you participated or not, this situation has plenty of lessons to offer the web marketing community.

Jeremiah Owyang, notable Customer Strategy guru, pointed out that any web marketer must be ready for attacks on their brand through social media. By adding transparency to your brand (via Facebook & Twitter accounts), you’re inviting the consumer into your world, but don’t be surprised if a few critics show up too. As the post suggests: “Prepare for the worst, live for the best“, a task best accomplished with a documented community response strategy.

Seven Golden Link Building Strategies

Link building is no small part of web marketing. Getting your links in the right place and seen by the right people can help your site rank better for keyword searches, and can also drive valuable traffic to your site.

The folks over at Cemper.com posted a great guide to building links recently. And with the millions of “Best Link Building Guide Ever” posts out there, that’s saying something. Link building is hard work and even harder to get started. These 7 strategies help you do both. I find #3 (Compare Competitor’s Backlink) and #6 (Build Trust) the most important to follow. How about you?

How to Best Measure Social Media Marketing ROI

At this time last year, marketing managers were asking for, nay, demanding a way to measure their return on investment (ROI) for social media marketing. Well, ask and you shall receive. There are many tools online these days that can help you to measure the ROI of your social media presence. But it all depends on how you plan to turn Tweets to dollars, so to speak.

The Web Marketing Group of North Yorkshire, England, posted some interesting data recently – revealing that only 16% of those engaged in Social Media Marketing worldwide measure their ROI. The survey also points out that these marketers only measure the “vanity metrics” like traffic, page views and click through rates. Try taking it a step further to see if these metrics turned into sales.

Your Social Media Success Will Be Defined By What You Ignore

Social Media is a field of intense noise and clutter. As a web marketer, it’s very beneficial to implement a social media strategy into your campaigns, but your success will depend on how well you can organize the noise.

Our friends at Simply Zesty, an Online PR & Social Media firm, are at the forefront of web marketing, dealing with social media services every day. If there’s a new strategy or web tool out there, they’ve heard about it – but that doesn’t mean they hop on the early adopter bandwagon. Author Niall Harbison proves why it’s important to say no to the latest social media fads in favor of paying attention to the audience you’ve spent hours and hours building on Facebook , Youtube, or Twitter, etc.

Notes from a Newbie: From PR to SEO

SEOmoz posts great web marketing content to their blog daily, but some of the most fascinating posts come from their YOUmoz blog. YOUmoz is a creative way of adding user generated content to SEOmoz that facilitates discussion and allows for users to promote themselves.

A recent post from Tom Mcloughlin chronicles a very important lesson learned as he transitioned from the traditional Public Relations world into the realm of Search Engine Optimization. He expected a harsh learning curve and tons of nerdy data crunching, but what he got was a field that wasn’t all that far off from his roots in PR. The fundamentals of SEO aren’t that different from PR, again reminding us that web marketing has many elements that blur together the traditional fields of advertising, branding and marketing.

Are You Sending Your Clicks to the Right Place?

Another important part of web marketing, and one we’ve dealt with in the past at MetaSpring, is Affiliate Marketing. Many of our projects involve a focus on Ecommerce, so we understand the importance of presenting the consumer with a call to action that works.

As this post by Ion Interactive clearly points out, there are two important questions you should answer in any pay-per-click campaign: “Where should I send the clicks, and are the clicks ‘ready to buy?’” In order to help you sift through the various options, Ion Interactive presents five places you should consider sending these clicks right off the bat.

Next Month’s Issue: Web Design

Thanks again for joining us and reading the great posts from this month’s Carnival. A special thanks to all those that put the posts together. We enjoyed connecting with you and discussing some of the Web Marketing trends out there today.

For next month’s Carnival, we’re going to revisit the our first topic: Web Design! Designers are always coming up with new and interesting ideas, so we’re sure to have some great posts. If you have a Web Design post or a suggestion for a topic that you’d like to see discussed, make sure to let us know at media@metaspring.com.

Valentine’s Day was more than a week ago, but we’re still feeling the love. We’ve been fortunate enough to get a bit of press attention recently and were thrilled to share our thoughts and ideas with the community.

Business Innovations with Larry Eiler

Last week, MetaSpring’s own Casey and JP were invited to record a podcast with Larry Eiler, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Eiler Communications. The podcast is part of a weekly series entitled Innovative Business Results. Guests on the show discuss their organization, as well as other business-related issues in the news.

We were very excited to join Larry on the podcast and thank him for the invitation. Topics discussed include:

• MetaSpring Company News
• Our recent exploration of Web 2.0 in the Academic community
• Ann Arbor’s Tech & Innovation Community

You can listen to our segment here: February 23, 2010 Podcast

And, you can find the full archive of shows at the Business Innovation website.

Job Searching in a Tough Economy

As many of you know, the MetaTeam has a pretty extensive online presence. Whether you’re on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or other social networks, you can usually find someone at MetaSpring to connect with. That was the case when a student at the University of Oregon was recently looking for job-searching advice from recent college grads through Twitter. This sort of crowd-sourcing technique was one of the skills Casey discussed in his last post about Web 2.0 and its role in career preparation.

Casey was happy to answer the call and bestowed upon her the knowledge that he’d gained from his job search last summer. The student, Paige Landsem, was able to condense Casey’s thoughts into a very helpful blog post for her class entitled Gateway to Media. The post is intended to help students combat current economic conditions. Well done, Paige!

Upcoming MetaSpring Appearances

We’re continuing our publicity run next month with another local engagement:

Lucy Ann Lance Business Insider – March 16

Lucy Ann Lance is one of the most ardent supporters of the Ann Arbor business community, emceeing events and chairing several local advocacy groups around town. She also hosts a daily (Mon-Sat) radio show called The Lucy Ann Business Insider, 9am-12pm on 1290AM WLBY in Ann Arbor. The show can also be found streaming online on 1290AM’s site or archived on Lucy Ann’s website. We start our day listening to her show co-hosted with Dean Erskine.

After a few conversations with Lucy Ann on Twitter, we were fortunate enough to receive an invite to appear on her Tech Tuesday segment on March 16th . This pre-St. Patrick’s Day show will be a lot of fun and we invite you to listen along.

Contact MetaSpring

As you can see, MetaSpring loves to talk. Usually we let our web designs do most of the talking, but we love to chat in person too. Most of our staff is on Twitter and we maintain an active Facebook presence. If you’d like to get in touch with a member of our team for an interview, networking event, or speaking engagement, email us at info@metaspring.com or check out our staff pages for social networking info.