The Well-Tentacled Brand - 6 Essential E-Brand Assets & 25 Valuable Web Extensions

Without failure, I am asked the question of why a particular client brand should have yet another microsite or digital address. My answer - why not?

I understand the traditional brand purist argument that wants to pool of its assets in one place, and the IT argument of wanting to have all your intellectual property secured down  and the accountant's argument that wants to minimize non-working costs, but if you follow this route you're dramatically underserving yourself online by not tentacling yourself.

By limiting yourself to one face on the internet, you will lose out on a gold mine of search engine optimization, topic-specific links, outreach to different communities, crowdsourcing insight and user generated  support, creativity and funding.

The best web-savvy companies understand this and are branching out from Web 1.0 mycompany.com into many different addresses where they have an increased chance to be noticed, talked about and advocated. For a company that has the resources, this is my recommendation for their web assets (this list may vary pending type of brand/audience/objective):

Web Assets

- A Corporate Website - this is the official broadcast centre of what's going on in the company i.e. Dell.ca/Dell.com
- An Online Community - this is the rallying forum for fans, advocates and influencers who exist inside and outside the company Dell Community
- A Corporate Blog - this is the conversation starter for employees to engage and broadcast their messages more effectively in social media i.e. Direct-to-Dell
- A Cause-Related Site - this is a support mechanism for the charity initiated drives that a company gets involved in i.e. Reconnect
- A Support-Related Site - if the brand requires after-market support/advice for its customers or users, this is a consumer-generated, xpert-moderated forum for servicing those questions i.e. Dell Support
- A Crowd Sourcing Developer/Idea Site - this is the bulletin board for customers to submit their best ideas to improve your brand i.e. Dell Ideastorm

Options may also exist for an: employee site, an e-commerce site, a promotion site, a word of mouth advocacy site and promotion & sponsorship microsites

Web Extensions
- these web areas are not owned by the company themselves but operate on other social media/network platforms - a full guide of what specific areas are out there was brilliantly put together by Dkumar M at InstantShift

My base recommendation for most brands would be to establish the following extension tentacles (in order or priority):

- A Social network page, group, identity or application - Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Live Journal, Tribe.net, Xanga,
- A Niche Social Network - Linked In, Plaxo, Club Penguin, Cafe Mom, Club Penguin, Etsy, Flixter, Ilike, Eons, Black Planet, Faithbase, Glee, Piczo, Last.fm
- A Video Sharing site - YouTube, Revver, MetaCafe, Viddler, Blip
- A Picture Sharing Site - Flickr, Picasa, Fotolog, Smugmug
- Link Sharing Site - delicious, Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Technorati, Yahoo Buzz, Propellor
- Microblogs - Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Identi.ca
- Slideshow Sharing: Slideshare.com, Slide.com
- Brand Fan Club Sites/External Brand-focused Blogs
- Customer/Shopper Forums
- Selling Sites - Amazon, eBay, Threadless, Craigslist
- Social Aggregation Site - FriendFeed, Socializr, Lifestream.fm
- A Community Outsourced site - Ning, Crowdvine
- A Blog Outsourced Site : Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger
- A Solution Outsourced Site: Innocentive, Innovation Exchange, Fellow Force, NineSigma
- Product Feedback Sharing sites: Crowdstorm, Stylehive
- Expert sites:  Squidoo, Hub Pages, Knol, Yahoo Answers
- Goal setting sites: 43 Things, 43 Places, 43 People
- Instant messenging sites - Yahoo, AOL, MSN, Meebo
- An Event site - Meetup, Upcoming, Eventful
- A Merchandising Site - Cafepress
- Wiki - including management/oversight of their company's Wikipedia entry

Opportunity for web extensions also exist for:  a VOIP address (Skype), a Virual Life address (Second Life), a gaming platform (Pogo), a mobile address (Dodgeball).

Now you're ready, go spread your brand tentacles. For an expert use of them, go here, here or here.