Mediaura

Facebook Timeline

Like it or not, Facebook's Timeline is here to stay. The reaction to the social media giant's new interface has been met with mixed reviews. It may have not had the public reception Facebook expected; but those that now use it have accepted the inevitable change, while those that would have preferred things to say the same are trying to hold on to their current design as long as possible. However, soon enough, Timeline will eventually find its way to their page.

Timeline Review

At Mediaura, we have been experimenting with the new design since it was announced at last year's F8 Tech Conference. As we sat listening to Mark Zuckerberg discuss all of the exciting changes coming to Facebook, there were many things we loved (i.e. the Spotify integration) and there were other aspects that made us a little more hesitant (see: Timeline). Yet we opted to reserve our judgement until it became available for developers to experiment with and try out. Much like us, the developer (and user) feedback has been almost universal. The benefit of Timeline is that it allows you to get information about a person at a quick glance. Almost everyone has been thrilled with the customizable aspects of Timeline, because anytime you give users the opportunity to express their creativity, amazing things usually happen. Graphic designers were undoubtedly the first to embrace the new template, and a quick Google search will send you to many websites showcasing some of their finest work. And I highly recommend you do so, because many of them are quite impressive.

However, below that top section, things get a little tricky. There seems to be no real rhyme or reason to how information is displayed. Is it the most recent? The most popular? Sometimes it varies. Do I really need to know what a casual acquaintance was doing on May 12, 1999? Probably not. But it can also be nice to see where I was three years ago in my life versus where I am today. Is the constant update in the chat bar window a good idea or is it just cluttering up my Facebook page? Now you can start to see why the reviews have been mixed.

Customize The Template

But as I said, we all are thrilled with the ability to make our pages a little more unique. The ability to assign a "cover" image gives your page a little more personality and can set the tone for what the reader may learn below. If you're a photographer, perhaps you'd like to show off your work. A musician? Showcase your band. There really is no limit except your imagination and the dimension of the space.

We have created a blank template for you to use in order to begin working on your own design. The grey box is where your default Facebook profile image will appear, and the white area is yours to Photoshop until your heart's content!

Download the template file here.

Feel free to share whatever great designs you come up with at our Facebook page.

In the meantime, we'll be waiting to see what other tricks Facebook has up its sleeve.

Ten years ago the common suggestion for all businesses was to put their website address on all of their promotional materials, advertisements, and correspondence with customers. This made perfect sense, but it often turned into a more complicated discussion with my clients. They had the misconception that people would generally want to visit their website. Unless they were a business that had a real purposes for a website, driving existing customers to browse your page to find information about your store location, hours, and to see a photo of you staff was kind of silly. They were already a customer, after all. 

Some businesses thrived thanks to their online traffic, and these clients made it really easy to show ROI for their websites because they had things like E-commerce that could directly measure traffic and subsequent sales. Measuring traffic on a non-E-commerce enabled website was easy, but tracking that conversion to sales has not always been an easily calculated number.

So then about five years ago, thanks to social media’s explosion, advertisers and businesses started to realize that instead of spinning their wheels to get people to come to their own website, the easier option was to target people where they were already interacting. Facebook started to edge out MySpace, not only because it was easier to use, cleaner, and had less spam and false profiles, but also because it was easier for advertisers to get involved and track their dollars. Creating your own Facebook page opened up new opportunities instead of buying a banner ad on MySpace to point to your actual website.

So now every business has a Facebook page. And if you look at almost every advertisement (ours included) you’ll see the familiar Facebook badge, probably accompanied by a Twitter badge and a few others. My long-standing belief is that this is generally a good thing, but lately I’m starting to question that. Why are we all going out of our way to promote other platforms and services that everybody is already on anyways? Showing your full Facebook URL is perhaps not the easiest thing to do on an advertisement, especially a TV spot. So we resort to the badge. Are we becoming badge happy? Adobe made fancy badges for all of their products years ago. Now, thanks to Apple and the iPhone, apps all have badges. Every new website from a startup has a badge. I could go on…

But the real question is – are we really doing ourselves a favor by putting all of those badges on our advertisements, or should we just focus on the ad itself and leave the badges for the web, where you can actually click on them and go directly to the page or app? Food for thought. 

Did you know that there are 60% more active global Facebook users than there are people in the USA?

With more than 500 million (yes million) active users, many companies have had to start discovering ways to stand out from the crowd.

Customized Facebook pages can be very powerful when effectively implemented, and can operate as the “Headquarters” for your online marketing or social media activities. The ability to integrate all of your social media, is a valuable tool for driving traffic to your website, increase brand awareness, and raising the profile of your organization.

Customized facebook pages are also allowing companies, organizations, and individuals to connect and engage with their fans on a deeper level than ever before.

Organizations are quickly recognizing the benefits of interacting with clients, customers, and fans within the realm of social media. And with a wide-variety of applications available, companies are now able to offer coupons, games, and solicit feedback through polls directly to their consumer base.

It’s an additional way of maintaining interest in for your brand or capturing the attention of the hundreds of millions of users online.

Customized Facebook pages are a great way to promote deals, call attention to new products or services, or to simply welcome your visitors with an attractively branding splash page.

To learn more about the various ways to customize your social media, contact us today at: (502) 554-9649.

Recently we’ve been discussing the various ways (and why it’s important) to customize your social media.

For this entry, I will try to explain why there is still value in having a customized Twitter page representing your brand in cyberspace – Although it admittedly may take more than 140 characters.

Do I Even Need Twitter?

I frequently come across clients who have mixed opinions on the use of Twitter for their business. There are those who see  the potential of Twitter but don’t fully understand how to maximize its use, there are others who vow by its effectiveness, and yet there are still a minority out there who don’t see any benefit from the social media micro-blogging site whatsoever.

For the most part, I can somewhat understand those who are a bit reluctant. I remember wondering when Twitter was first introduced, “How is this going to factor into branding initiatives?” and “What purpose will this serve?” However, once I fully began to understand the full scope of opportunities presented by Twitter, I was sold.

These days I often find myself having to bring clients “up-to-date” on the overwhelming benefits of marketing through social media. I have done this by illustrating the strategic worth of building relationships through social media, and now most clients have started to see the value of Twitter for themselves. Not only is Twitter a fantastic way to share insightful tips, raise awareness for your organization, but it is a critical tool in helping to establish a brand as a viable commodity.

Twitter allows companies and/or their leaders to position themselves as experts in their industry. With over 175 million (yes million) registered accounts on Twitter, it’s not difficult to begin seeing how beneficial a tool it can be for reaching out to a wide demographic audience. Not only that, but companies can also learn a great deal from their fellow users as well, through comments, suggestions, and reviews. Companies are able to receive feedback in “real-time” and in a way, it’s like having an entire marketing research team on hand 24/7.

Twitter also affords you the opportunity to find out what people are saying about your company – the good and bad. This type of commentary undoubtedly serves as a fantastic way to help improve strategy, improve customer satisfaction, and demonstrate to your customers that their voices are heard.

That is the tip of the iceberg as to why Twitter is an effective tool for marketing and advertising, but like all things new and cutting-edge, Twitter itself has been making some changes.

By now, you’ve probably seen the updated layout which Twitter keeps promising that it is completely transitioning to any day now; and while there has been much said since its release, the one thing that has been greatly affected by the new design is the “real estate” available for customization.

So Is Customization Relevant Anymore?

While there are many new benefits to the updated Twitter layout, one thing is for certain – the background images are now even less visible. Which means, customizing your Twitter design, while not impossible, has become even more restricted. Formerly, the Twitter layout was much more narrow, affording designers quite a lot of space to show off their creativity. Historically, organizations were able to include a great deal more information within the left and right side, but all of that has since changed.

Nowadays you only have a guaranteed 41px for content on Twitter backgrounds, with that number fluctuating up to 312px depending on the width of the monitor.

Amount of Free Space you can now use to make a Twitter Profile:
(100%*) Always Visible: 41px on each side
(72.7%*) of Modern Computers: 108px on each side (Requires about 1280x800px Screen Resolution or Higher)
(28.8%*) of Modern Computers: 200px on each side (Requires 1440x900px Screen Resolution or Higher)
(4.6%*) of Modern Computers: 312px on each side(Requires 1920×1080 Screen Resolution)

Even after taking that information into account, there is still more discouraging news:

•     Mobile Devices use applications instead of the Twitter.com interface, and will never see backgrounds.
•     The new Twitter.com interface will open a user’s profile in the new sidebar, instead of linking directly to their profile page. So unless you specifically click their Full Profile link, you will not see their background.
•     Desktop clients such as HootSuite and CoTweet will never show you a user’s background image.

However Twitter users, hope is not lost.

Background images are still important. Customization is still important.

Why Should I Customize?

The benefit of a Twitter background image is that it is yet another way to uniquely tie-in your branding to your other social media or website properties. A professional design, no matter the size, demonstrates to viewers that you care about everything – down to even the smallest details. Even with the diminished design area, companies are still finding unique and creative ways to stand out amongst the crowd. So it can be done!

Remember, customization serves many purposes, not just one. It promotes brand consistency, marketing effectiveness, and demonstrates to viewers that your organization recognizes the value and the power of  enhancing the social media experience.

How to Customze Your Design

Download this handy template to begin giving your Twitter page some personality or give us a call today 502-554-9649.