John Raymond

Today insidefacebook.com had an article about a new flash web site that promotes a new ABC TV show called FlashFoward.  Upon visiting the web site, you are asked to use Facebook Connect.  The application then pulls your data (images, current status, relationship)  and your friend data from facebook and compiles a unique movie with your content.

It’s a very cool interactive application.  The techology itself has all kinds of potential.  I got really excited because I’ve build interactive flash applications that plug in user information and make it completely unique.  I would highly encourage you to check it out.  This combined with learning how to build custom facebook pages leaves all kinds of potential for interactive and customizable contests and trailers even more viral.   In the meantime, check out http://www.flashforwardexperience.com.

Facebook seems to change every single day. Lately I’ve turned my attention to the relatively new facebook fan pages. The facebook fan page is definitely the way to go if you have a business and need a presence on facebook for several reasons. Lately I’ve been experimenting with designing custom facebook fan pages. My inspiration was the Gap Facebook Fan page. I saw that they had all kinds of flash video and a nicely designed custom page. I took to the task of designing one for my uncle’s business Bruening Glass Works.

I just tried to use whatever was on his homepage.  The result is pretty cool.  If you look at the design I’ve added to the post, you can see that I have incorporated his contact us form and also his youtube video.  So if you find him on facebook or just by googling him, you can contact him from facebook. I think the youtube video (which I shot and edited) helps bring out his personality and allows him to demonstrate his expertise.  After all, if you are going to ship him your priceless glass item, you would want to trust him.

A custom facebook fan page can help you stand out among your competitors and impress your customers.  If you would like to know more about the process, please leave a comment or contact me.  In the meantime, I’m looking forward to more expermenting with facebook fan pages.  Please check out the Bruening Glass Facebook Page.

Yesterday, facebook came out with this breathtaking widget release called “Facebook Live Stream.” It’s extremely easy to use and allows the people who visit your site to communicate with each other and send out the word on facebook. They used it during the Obama inauguration and for the NBA All Star Game.

Here’s the link to the blog post about it – http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=258. I’m actually testing it out in this post: see below and feel free to roast me .

When I tell my friends I’ve been doing a lot of research on facebook, I usually get harassed. “Sure you are researching facebook, Sammon” they say. “I’m sure updating your status with a quote from Step Brothers counts as research.” As much as doing that has it’s own benefits, the reality is that facebook is constantly changing. The audience is evolving along with the features on the site (like them or not).

I believe you really need to get to know a product before you figure out the best way to use it. I’ve been on facebook since late 2004 so I consider myself a veteran. However, with all the changes made to the overall site, fan page and growing popularity of the applications, I needed to take some time to play around with these things and figure out how to utilize these features. I wrote off the fan pages and the group pages and emphasized using a profile in a previous post a few months ago. So I’m taking time to explore these things.

In my brief time researching this, I would encourage you to start a fan page rather than a profile now for a business. Facebook has incorporated a lot more features to get your more exposure in the regular news feeds (which is huge). I would create a page and start to build up a following. Use it like an email list and update your fan page with pictures and stories relevant to your business. Try some contesting!

The application section is interesting. I tend to avoid them because initially they cluttered up your page and most were annoying (with the exception of the “Which Golden Girl are you application”). And of course why would I look to something as a marketing tool if I couldn’t stand it. I discarded this impression and took some time to add a few applications and play around with them. After reviewing a few, I’ve actually warmed to them. I’ve found ones that I’m interested in such as “Athens (Ohio) gifts” or “Cleveland Browns Fan” applications. Developers are actually encouraged to create applications with features that facebook hasn’t incorporated.

Overall, I came away feeling better and thinking more about how I could utilize facebook to help market a product or organization. I would encourage you to do the same. At the very least, you can take a survey and know which golden girl you are and proudly showcase it.

I had some great experiences at Ohio University while in grad school filming and editing video. Here are a few things that I filmed for athenshub.com, a free classifieds website that I built and own. I inserted keywords into the descriptions and titles of the videos along with the link to the site. I did this with three other video segments and used tubemogul.com to post them on about 15 different video sites. These help create more options for people searching on google as well as create links pointing to your site.

Videos for Athenshub.com

Facebook Campaigns and Campaigns on Facebook are new ways to promote your Columbus Ohio business. If you don’t have a presence on facebook, I would encourage you to create one for your business. But John, what’s the most effective way to utilize facebook? That really depends on the type of business you are in. Let me address a few questions that you may have:

Why should I start one? Who should I befriend?

Treat facebook as another email list. As you build your following of friends, you can email them and update them on any happenings or events with your business or product.

By now some of your real life friends will be on facebook. Go ahead and befriend them and possibly befriend employees (depending upon if they feel comfortable) These people will help you build your companies friend list.

But what’s the best way to start? Should you create a facebook profile or a fan page?

This is a tough question to answer. In the summer of 2008, my intern Danny Cox and myself both debated this question when working on internet marketing strategies for athenshub.com. We decided to go with a profile. The reasoning is that it’s more likely that you will appear in a “news feed” section. Sure, when “fan” profiles make updates, you will see an “update” notice on the news feed page but that’s about it.

What kind of exposure did you get by creating a facebook profile?

We would appear on our friends news feed when we were invited and chose to attend people’s events. You can also show up by befriending other people, posting pictures, and posting a status. These are all great ways to create awareness of your company and increase your following of friends.

Another advantage of creating a profile rather than a fan page is that you can join groups. Research groups on facebook and identify which groups would contain your target audience. Athenshub.com is a free classfieds site and in the Summer of 2008 we were targeting students looking for rentals for the 2009-2010 school year. We wanted to show students that we were a resource to find information on rentals. We did some research on groups and found groups of students that would be looking for rentals. We then joined the group and then emalied the group administrator and asked that they would pass along a message to the group (1000 + members) that the website was a resource for them.

This strategy paid off huge dividends as these admins passed along word to group members via facebook email. We saw large spikes in traffic both on the days the email went out and in days going forward. And there’s nothing better than having the group admin market for you.

These are a few tips to get you started. We plan on doing some more great interactive things with athens hub and for my new coupon website. Happy facebooking!

This is another commercial that I wrote and directed for Playhouse Square. It was to help promote their 2007 Broadway Series website. More details on the contest to come.

Mr. Clean promoted their Magic Eraser with a contest back in 2007. They challenged you to create a commercial to help promote their product. I wrote the commercial and had friends act and film it. I didn’t win the grand prize but sure got a lot of enjoyment out of the piece I produced.

The Education Department at Playhouse Square asked me to come up and produce a commercial to promote their lunch-time “Speak Up Classes.” These classes help working professionals with public speaking. They wanted something outside the box and funny. So we shot this in the winter of 2007.

In the fall of 2006, I was charged with coming up with some kind of interactive contest to target a “younger audience.” The typical target audience for Playhouse Square is women age 60-65. We felt that Spamalot was a great show to test out this sort of contest.

After doing some research, I came up with a Viral Video Contest. This was a relatively new thing at the time. I carefully studied some of the successful campaigns and broke down the elements that got the campaign off the ground. With no budget, I had to get creative and wrote and starred in an edgy viral video to help promote the contest.

We launched a mini-site (which I designed and constructed) along with the video. The video got over 1000 views in the first four days of launch. We utilized html email blasts, myspace and facebook to help promote the contest.

The contest lasted a month and got 5 submissions. Here’s an archive page that contains some of the submissions from the contest: http://www.playhousesquare.us/spamvideocontest/.

Playhouse Square’s upper management saw the potential in the work we had done with no budget. The non-profit organization committed over $5,000 for a high end digital video camera and an internship to help us continue to do more of these types of videos.