Not sure if all of our partners and clients have had a time to check-out Google Analytics new Real-Time stats beta feature. You should definitely check it out because its great! Basically Google Analytics can now provide you with a Real-Time report on traffic going into your application. Because, by default, we have Google analytics support in most of our applications, this mean you can watch fans interactive in real-time. This is actually more fun that it sounds. This feature is great for us as well, because it allows us to make real-time decisions about provisioning or fine-tune application sharing functionality. We usually monitor all large or important applications at important milestones of the launch cycle to ensure everything is working well and fan interaction is at a maximum.

The new Google Analytics real-time report actually provides some very useful pieces of information including:

• Real-Time Traffic: How many fans are using the application right now
• Pageviews per Minute: running indicator of pageview activity by the minute
• Page Activity: If you application has multiple pages, we how traffic is distributed across those pages
• User Location: See were your fans are coming from to better understand what is going on and if your marketing efforts are working
• New vs Return Users: Good indicator or application “stickiness”

More Reading:

• About Google Analytics Real Time
• Advanced Users of Google Analytics Real Time Features

What better way to promote a movie soundtrack by working with movie distributor and partners to stream and highlight it on their Facebook pages! That was the idea behind the marketing soundtrack for The Last Ride: The Story of Hank Williams by Curb Records. Different partners have different needs, so our flexible Metablocks Facebook application network feature (that allows you to run the same application on multiple Facebook pages, each customized for that specific Facebook page).  This is the same feature we use in our radio applications for Facebook.

You can check out the different version on the following pages:

• CMT (Partner)
• Reeltime Creative (Producer)
• The Last Ride Film (Movie Page)
• Curb Records (Record Label)
• Demo Page

 Curb Records Version:

Partner Version:

Built on our photo booth application platform, this Facebook application allows Neon Tree fans to upload pictures of themselves (directly or via webcam), and add the icon sunglasses from the band’s Everybody Talks single cover to create and share a cool photo of yourself that supports the band and hopefully get’s “Everybody Talking” on Facebook. This is a less complex (and less expensive) implementation of the full-blown platform that we used for example with One Direction.  Popular with fans, the application also got some great press from news outlets like MTV.

 Application specific features and functionality include:

• Photo Upload and Webcam support
• Mini-gallery of recent submissions
• Ability to publish photos into your Facebook album and post it to your wall
• Links to single and video
• Comments and discussions

Another basic photo booth applications that involves baseball cards (see NBA example..). Sometimes simplicity is the key to success! This 3 step application allowed users to upload their photos to create a custom baseball card that also promoted their favorite band!

Also see:

• The New Facebook Photo Booth
• Basic Photo Uploads Applications

Awarding fans badges has also become a key component in the “gamification” of the online social media experiences. Social media companies such as Foursquare, GetGlue, and others have popularized badges as a way of rewarding, engaging and motivating users. In the context of online social media, badges can be considered “virtual goods” – digital artifacts that have a visual representation. Badges can be awarded to users who complete specific tasks or activities, or reach a certain score or level of participation, or they can simply be given away as means of spreading your marketing message.

Social Media Badge Applications:
Over the last year, we have built a number of badge applications for Facebook and Twitter applications that enable fans to promote their favorite artist with a dynamic music badges (see below) which get posted on their Facebook wall.

Newsfeed Badge “Player”:
Once posted on a fan’s Facebook newsfeed, viewers can interact with the dynamic music badges. Once expanded in a viewer’s newsfeed, the badge can play one or more tracks and allows the viewers to purchase the album or click by including links to iTunes and/or Amazon.

Comprehensive Campaign Component:
It is also possible to integrate badge marketing into other, more comprehensive marketing campaigns. For example, this Nirvana Nevermind 20th email subscription application adds a marketing badge to make it more interesting and interactive on both Facebook and Twitter.

Ideal for music artists with an upcoming remix album or EP or a successfully remixed single. Metablocks’ Remix Widget allows fans to create (and share) their own multi-track mashups or re-mixs online using a simple point and click user interface and then share their creations with friends. Available as a Facebook application or stand-alone widget, the Remix Widget supports mixing of individual tracks or can simply be used as a remix player. Features include:

• Volume controls and visualizer
• Multi-track support (up to 12 tracks)
• Color-coding, tracking locking and other features
• Saving and sharing capabilities on Facebook, Twitter, email, i.e. (optional)
• Unique links for each link (http://2mix.es/tobymac-26)
• Demo track and help support
• Tracking capabilities (optional)

TobyMac: Dub Your Own Remix – Facebook Application

 Kaci Battaglia – Facebook Application

Recently, Facebook rolled once again out a major overhaul of their Pages – introducing Cover images and timelines to Facebook Pages. Here are a series of posts that explore these changes in more detail – the good, the bad and the ugly. You can check out our best practice and examples posts below:

• Facebook Cover Examples
• Appliation/Tab Icon Best Practices
• Music Label Cover Page Examples
  

The advent of Facebook’s new covers gives fans the opportunity to express themselves by supporting or promoting their favorite music artists.  Our Artist Cover application simply automates the process by making it easy for fans to use “official artist covers”. By allowing music labels to promote official artist covers and by making it easy for fans to transform their covers, the Artist Cover application is both cost-effective and efficient! You can checkout some examples at: Sony Nashville and Interscope.

Recently, Facebook rolled once again out a major overhaul of their Pages – introducing Cover images and timelines to Facebook Pages. Here are a series of posts we have done (and will continue doing) that explores these changes in more detail – the good, the bad and the ugly. The first set of posts focus on the more immediate design needs of some of our clients – what should my cover look like? what should my tab icons look like? How are the new changes going to impact my application.  Most of the changes are good ones! Tab navigation has changed (for the better). Your applications and tabs will continue normally. The notion of a default tab is gone (for better or worse).  The timeline is here!

This is what the new Facebook Page looks like. We have included pixel size as a quick reference to those in the process of in the middle of the redesign process. You can check out our best-practice examples and posts below:

Recent Best Practices and Examples Posts:

• Facebook Cover Examples
• Appliation/Tab Icon Best Practices
• Music Industry Facebook Covers

Other Resources:

• Facebook Pages (Facebook)
• Facebook Pages FAQ (Facebook)
• Facebook Cheat Sheet: Sizes and Dimensions (DreamGrow)
• Facebook Timeline (Facebook)

Not in Music and Entertainment? Then Use This Form!

Those who have had a chance to play with the New Facebook Pages (see FAQ) will notice that application and tabs have moved from the sidebar to the upper right of the page, under the Page’s cover (Also See: Facebook Page)

Page administrators can have as many as 3 tab images featured.  The rest are available via a drop down menu. From a marketing perspective, these new tab images are a big improvement over the small icons in the previous design.  Here are some examples, best practices, and design approaches when it come to the new application/tab icon images:

Key Points:

• The page administrator (not the application developer) is responsible for changing the tab images. You can change the tab icons in the Admin -> Apps (See example) of the page
• You can have as many as 3 tab images (the “Like” is non-functional and can/should be replaced). Click on a tab icon to get a drop down that let’s you change its position (See example)
• Custom tab images can be 111 x 74 pixels (but we have found 110×72 pixels works better and is a little more crisp)

Best Practices:

• Combine icons, photos, or images WITH text to reinforce call to action
• Avoid text-only or icon-only approaches if possible (people don’t like to read text and not all icons are intuitive)
• Take international users/usage into consideration if you are a global brand (consider using icons)
• Consider getting your icons professionally designed (see below)
• Facebook redesign comes with a learning curve! Help users find your application icons through good and perhaps “foolproof” design

Examples:

The Vow: Good use of space, nice balance between icons and text, good choice of icons

Redbull: These guys always seem to get social media right! Really good choice of graphics. Intuitive, visual, boom! You get it.

Toyota: You can tell when people pay to have their tab images designed..because they look so good! Excellent mix of intuitive, visual and communicative icons


Sony Brazil: Strong international icons (plus simple tab names)

UMG: Good use of images and text. Enter to win stuff from Lady Gaga…that makes a world of sense!

Darksiders: Consider sales/marketing “bursts” (New!, Extra!, Updated!) to draw attention to tab icons. Otherwise good use of graphics

Macy’s: Another example where the icons look professionally designed. Excellent use of text, graphics and images!

Microsoft Xbox: Mapping products (games) to tabs is a good way to go for some brands, but images should be immediately identifiable (as they are in this example)

Demos: Use of photo and text where icons don’t make as much sense. “Foolproofing” by reinforcing “Click Here” call to action

Verizon Wireless: Use of photos can work well for some brands, but one needs to be careful not to use generic images (see below)

AT&T: Another professionally designed example

Nespresso: Decent design with good use of logo and products

Not So Good (Bad) Examples:
Here are some less-than-perfect examples that you can still learn a lot from – either things NOT to do or ideas that can be improved on.

Fanta: Repeat of logo, poor connection between images and tabs. What does a can have to do with events?

Good icon/text combination, good contrast (but potentially boring)

Livestrong: Good branding but icons could be improved, would also make sense to add text. B is not universal icon for blogs!

Ford: Poor choice of icons creates for non-intuitive navigation. You can’t tell photos from videos, home icon doesn’t make sense and why put the Ford logo on a pages tab? Counter-intuitive!

Castleville: If you HAVE to use text, this may be the way to go – at least use a big unique font and a background image. Example of “foolproofing” but can be improved

Johnson’s Baby: Wow, any idea what’s behind these tabs? A line-up of similar and generic images defeats the point of good navigation (might as well have images of kittens)

Dove: Same problem as Johnshon’s Baby..can you say “worst practicies”

Chevy Sonic: Example where using a photo (of the same car) is NOT a good idea