“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!

Hello and Welcome! to the second issue of the MetaSpring Blog Carnival! This month’s topic focuses on Web Design, for which we received many great submissions, so a special thanks to everyone who participated!!

Here at MetaSpring, we pride ourselves on being well versed in all things internet, but web design is our bread and butter. While web designers are often comprised of many quirky traits and characteristics, one thing is for sure: they know how to communicate extremely well. Whether it be through their designs, a Twitter dialogue, or an email, valuable information is constantly being passed from designer-to-designer. In that spirit, may we present to you the wisdom of our peers.

What Makes Your Website Stand Out?

Fellow SEO experts, Jacob Brown Designs of Novi, Michigan brought us this great guide on the basic principles of web design: design, SEO and marketing. Whatever your business be on the internet, it’s likely that you’d like your website to stand out in terms of creativity and originality and these helpful tips can help you design just that with characteristics that actively work for you. Read the post…

Realizations of Rounded Rectangles

This post comes from Keith Lang and UI&us and focuses on the rounded corners that are woven into our everyday life. Where did they come from? Why are they here? What can we learn from their permanence? Keith and his team write about User Interface Design, User Experience design, and the cognitive psychology behind design in general – so their answers to the questions above have ramifications for web design and beyond. Read the post…

Choosing the Right Colors for Your Website

In many design attempts, color selection is often overlooked for the sake of a certain style or design concept which often to colors that might not be entirely representative of the concept of the site. Robert Bravery of Integral Web Solutions in South Africa helps you discover the right colors to set the mood in your next project. Read the post…

Build: Single Handedly the Best Web Design Conference of 2009

To add to our international flair, we welcome Paddy Donnelly all the way from Belgium (originally hails from Ireland).

Paddy made the trip to Northern Ireland for Buildconf on November 5th, which he called, “one of the most prestigious and kick ass conferences of the year”. In this fantastically creative and originally styled blog post, Paddy recounts the talks of the six conference speakers Tim Van Damme, Andy Budd, Mark Boulton, Ryan Sims, Wilson Miner, and Eric Meyer. Topics covered include font embedding, seductive design, freelancing, pixel perfection and developing a hybrid between design and development. With the savvy inclusion of Twitter reactions, this post gives a thorough analysis of the conference for those who weren’t lucky enough to see it in person (us!). Thanks Paddy. Read the post…

5 Essential Document Templates for Freelance Designers

This post comes from our friend, Lee Munroe. He, and the aforementioned Paddy Donnelly, won the W3 Award last year for their work together on Big Word Project – many belated congratulations gentlemen.

Its not uncommon for designers to develop a keen sense of communication through many rounds of correspondence with their clients. Lee Munroe is a well-known freelance designer who, in order to facilitate better client discussions at an efficient pace, compiled these five, ready to use document templates. Read the post…

Profitable Website Ideas – In Just One Click?

Brian Terry sends this post to us to help those seeking profitable websites. If you have an idea for a revenue generating site, make sure you cross reference it with this seven point checklist. Read the post…

How to Create the Best Landing Pages for Google Adwords

Our friends at Digital Products Review offer their assistance in using Google Adwords. As we have experienced with a number of clients, Adwords is a powerful tool when implemented intelligently. Creating properly titled ads marketed to proper keywords can generate real results for your business. This post looks past the initial ad telling us, “The success and failure of your Google Adwords campaign depends completely on the success and failure of your landing pages”. Make sure your landing pages are properly formatted and designed for click-through success. Read the post…

10 Key Tasks For Your Next Web Site

Wondering where to start your next design project? This post from Smiley Cat Web Design establishes 10 goals any designer can set forth before them at the starting line. As you navigate through the checklist, personalize each point to your project at the fundamental level. Read the post…

Next Month’s Issue: Web Development

This wraps up the second edition of our MetaSpring Blog Carnival – be sure to check out next month’s issue Web Development. If you’ve written or know of a great development-related post, please send it our way! Submissions will be accepted through December 20th.

If there is a specific theme that you’d like to see covered, email us with your request at media@metaspring.com

Welcome to Part 2.5 of our Ultimate Ecommerce Reference Guide: Increasing Site Traffic. In Part 1, we discussed maximizing your store’s usability to provide a smooth and intuitive shopping experience; in Part 2, we went through some of the various ways in which you can make your online store more accessible by search engines.

As you may have noticed, we’ve broken our second post up into two MetaParts – Part 2.0 looked at making structural changes to increase traffic; Part 2.5 (this post) will look at the various marketing tactics and additional site features that can be employed to draw more visitors. All of the techniques covered in these two parts can help to generate site traffic – but that doesn’t mean you need to use them all. Doing your research and determining your targets should start you off in the right direction.

Search Engine Optimize

An SEO campaign is a great way to get visitors to your site, residually. While advertising campaigns only last as long as you can afford to pay for them, traffic generated from search engine optimizations can be much longer lasting.

Not to be confused with search engine friendliness – which is a set of methods used to make websites more accessible by search engines and users, search engine optimization is the process of increasing a sites search engine rankings for individually targeted keywords. The higher a site ranks for a given keyword, the more likely someone will find the site using a targeted term.

For a more detailed look at SEO and how it can benefit your site, check out out our SEO Services page or SEOmoz’s Beginner’s Guide – What is SEO?

Set up landing pages for targeted content

Landing pages are web pages created to target a specific keyword, topic or user group. These pages can be a very effective conversion tool in an ecommerce application because they allow you to focus the content of a page on a specific market or product. Once a visitor reaches the landing page, you have the ability to direct them to the section of your store that most closely suites their interests.

Anthropologie highlights their large assortment of jeans and their Denim Decoder.

For a more detailed overview of landing pages and their utility, check out SEOmoz’s article: Landing Pages for SEO

Personalize your brand with a blog

Create a blog and MAINTAIN it! An active blog can increase your site traffic and add countless inbound links to your website. Additionally, blogging can give your brand a personal voice and allow your visitors to more easily identify with you.

Of course, the next question is then – what exactly do you write about? Today, more and more businesses are approaching their blog as a way to offer greater transparency to their customers. People like to know whats going on behind the scene, so as a business with some sort of product, you could write about everything from product development details to events in your industry. You could also post job openings, case studies, or new reports and statistics. Ultimately, you should just try to produce a well thought out and relevant article.

Socialize with your customers

Take blogging one step further – if you’ve got a lot to talk about or would just like to enhance direct customer communication, social media sites are the perfect solution. A few of the more popular networks are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. While these are all very open networks, it’s likely that there are more specialized networks targeted more closely towards your industry.

Creating a dialogue with your customers is a great way to bring traffic to your site. As more and more people begin to follow the conversation, your brand becomes more reputable and people will become more interested in what you’ve got to offer.

For a few ideas on how to utilize sites like Twitter, you may want to check out 6 Twitter Marketing DOs and DON’Ts.

Gain credibility through syndicated articles

There are a ton of online websites that offer free articles available for syndication. Adding some of the more captivating articles to your site could help to establish your company as a thought leader in your industry. This credibility can lead to increased trust and higher conversion rates.

As you add interesting content to your site, you also increase the likelihood that people will naturally link to this information. Attaining these links can help your site appear closer to the top of search engine results. This is because a large portion of Google’s ranking algorithm is based on how many inbound links you have pointing to your site.

Build community with a forum

People love to socialize and it’s likely that they’d appreciate the opportunity to interact with others about your product. Adding a search engine friendly forum to your site adds user driven, unique content and provides a valuable service to your customers. And if you don’t yet have a lot of traffic, it’s generally okay to create a few ghost-conversations to get things moving.

If your product is in too small of a niche to generate a large community, consider starting a forum with a more generalized theme within your industry.

A good open source forum to check out is phpBB. If you decide to setup phpBB, you should also customize it to support search engine friendly URLs. Instructions can be found on phpBB’s website – SEO Modifications

Help customers understand product specifics with a glossary

Adding a dictionary or glossary to your store can be another value added service for your customers. If you have a complex product or service, it can help to define important terms that your visitors might encounter while browsing. It also adds additional content for the search engines. Each term added can then act as a gateway for people to find your store.

Home Depot features a great visual glossary for door and window terms.

Reach out to similar niche markets through Satellite Sites

Lastly, another way to drive traffic to your site is by creating smaller, niche websites that target markets related yours. We employed this strategy with one of our clients, an Amish furniture retailer, by creating an Amish recipes site. Since “Amish recipes” was a niche term, their Amish recipes website only took a few months of search engine optimization to reach the #1 spot in Google. The site now gets over 500 hits a day and sends a few dozen of those over to the main Amish furniture site. You can also monetize these satellite sites directly through Google advertisements.

Do your research! It’s the strategy that really matters

When putting together a good marketing plan, it’s important to remember that you can’t target everyone – it just doesn’t work to spread yourself so thin. That’s why you need to research your market, the competition, your users, and even current internet trends. To make it to the top, you’ve got to be one step ahead of your competition – so find out what they’re doing wrong and do it better! If your competitor spews sales ads to their Twitter followers, step it up by having ACTUAL conversations with yours.

So far we’ve helped you increase the usability of your shop, enhanced its search engine accessibility, and finally how to convert visitors to customers. In Part 3 we’ll look at how to incorporate these tips and techniques into a marketing strategy to increase sales from your new visitors and keep people coming back for more.

Check back soon or subscribe to our RSS Feed for the Part 3 conclusion!