Archive for October, 2009

Best Practices: The Importance of Facebook Profile Images

23 Oct 2009

Room 214 recently did a major overhaul of all of the Travel Channel’s Facebook pages. We added a poll app, Youtube functionality, a live Twitter stream, and all sorts of great new tools. However, there was one area that we could still improve upon. After taking a look at the profile images on all seven of the Travel Channel Facebook pages, I realized that there was a way for us to improve the look and feel of our pages. Take a look at a few of the profile images that were displayed at the time: There were a few issues with each profile image: The formatting was inconsistent. The use of Travel Channel’s logo and brand style was inconsistent. There was room for the images to look cleaner and more official. Why is the profile image so important? A profile image is the most used part of any Facebook page. It is…

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Personality in a Social Media Campaign: Phish 3.0

20 Oct 2009

When the size of your audience gets too big, it’s very difficult to interact with them in a personal manner anymore…and it’s upsetting to the band[Phish], but they all have their ways to try and stay in touch.” – from the Clifford Ball DVD All too often we see companies ‘interacting’ with their customers by merely posting brief status updates with words that include ‘buy now,’ ‘click here for 10% off,’ ‘NEW!’ Although these call to action items may briefly increase visits to their website, and may even generate a few sales, where is the personality? What else is that company doing online? Since launching your Facebook and Twitter pages, how is customer retention and repeat business? Who are your fans and followers? How do you keep your personality when launching a social media campaign? In this example, I use Phish (not just for my love of their music, but because they…

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Realtime Web is Coming, is your Brand on Board?

17 Oct 2009

[Disclosure: Buzz Room is a Product of Room 214.] What is realtime web? The early adopter crowd has been joining in the choir filling our ears with realtime web, an way to get instant feedback and encourage participation in web applications. Not so long ago, all content on the web was old, research papers, thought out articles. When you searched, what you looked for was most relevant, tested information. Boy, how things change, now its all about instant feedback. With tremendous adaptation of smartphones by everyone from heavyweight business users to teenagers, mobile access and easy publishing of geo/event-enabled information is more accessible than ever. Enter Buzz Room, a way to follow live conversations and start your own. It’s Room 214′s premiere product to answer ever-growing need to attract the realtime web crowd. What does Buzz Room do? Buzz Room is a social network enabled chat room with provided commentary…

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YouTube Promoted Video Campaign – How to Make it Work

16 Oct 2009

A few months ago, Room 214 worked with one of our clients (I’m not naming the company for competitive reasons but they are in the real estate industry) to create a series of promotional videos to be used on their website, blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Since we also manage a Google advertising campaign for this client, a logical place to utilize a small advertising surplus was with a one-month YouTube advertising “test” campaign. I call it a test because no one at Room 214 had ever tried a Promoted Video campaign on YouTube and, while we were optimistic that the campaign would work well given the visual nature of real estate, had no real benchmark in mind for what the results would be. It went well – we decided to allocate 20% of the monthly advertising budget moving forward to YouTube – and I walked away with a few learnings…

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