Building Custom Facebook Fan Pages: A Dogpatch Labs Demo

I write a lot about Facebook and the importance of fan pages and engaging with those fans. Just as the content on the Facebook Pages is critical to the interaction, so is the page itself. Facebook allows brands and page-owners to customize the pages with:

- custom layouts - content modules (called 'boxes') - applications - and custom FBML If you put all of those together, you are able to create highly engaging, rich experiences that maintain branding and messaging while on Facebook.

For Dogpatch Labs, we are using the Dogpatch Labs Facebook Page to manage content, events and (of course) fans. We used Sprout (a Polaris portfolio and San Francisco company) to build our custom Facebook page. Sprout has a tool to create and manage pages efficiently and within the FBML environment. The page pulls in dynamic content from Twitter, our blog, the event stream, etc.

You can learn more about Sprout's Facebook solution on their Fan Page. I encourage you to also check out the Dogpatch Labs Facebook page (and become a fan!)

Trialing Videosurf's Video Link Enhancer

I spent last Monday and Tuesday at the TechCrunch 50 conference - a collection of fifty companies that took the stage to launch in front of 2,000 attendees and 1,000s more of online viewers. I was also at last year's conference and one of the companies to launch was Videosurf - a video search engine with a unique way to index, sort and search content. Also relevant, a good friend from eBay and InGameNow was part of the team, Danny Leffel. They have launched a new product aimed at bloggers and web publishers called the Video Link Enhancer. Danny gives an overview below and I am going to trial it on the blog for the next week or so. Feedback is welcome and I have another trial / demo going live once this completes. There is great innovation occurring in the widget, plug-in and publisher worlds - creating rich, contextual experiences that are good for the publisher (engagement, virality) and the consumer (context, visuals, etc). More to come!

We're announcing the release of the Videosurf Video Link Enhancer. When you add the code to your blog or web application, regular hyperlinks to video content become in-line video players. For example, hover over these links to sites like YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo and many more.

The look and feel of the in-line players is customizable using CSS. Developers can also exert fine-grained control as to which links on the page are transformed.

We built this product based our belief that whenever a video is mentioned on a site (whether that's in a Tweet, a comment, etc) the optimal experience is one that allows the user to watch the video referenced without ever having to leave the page.

TGI Friday's Facebook Campaign is Strange... But Somewhat Brilliant

Meet Woody: TGI Friday's clever / bizarre entrance into the world of social media... and in particular, Facebook. Woody has his own series of television advertisements and Facebook page (825,000 fans and growing). And Woody is a covert spokesman for TGI Friday's.

The entire campaign is aimed at getting Woody / TGI Friday's 1,000,000 Facebook fans; and if that happens, all fans who provided their email address, will get a coupon for a free burger.

It is a fascinating approach for a few reasons:

- first, it is the most obvious Facebook / television campaign - and it is geared specifically around becoming a fan

- second, there is a stated goal of the number of fans: 1,000,000.

- third, the marketing spend (specifically their television campaigns) is aimed at creating long term marketing relationships: email addresses, Facebook fans, etc. This is about engagement and sustained relationships.

- finally, it is a bold move towards free samples and yet another example of consumer goods giveaways on Facebook

Woody's TV commercials:

More about Woody from Facebook:

About Woody: Woody was born at the stroke of midnight one Thursday-to-Friday morning along the Arizona/California border. From that moment on, he has dedicated his life to spreading his love of T.G.I. Friday's and all things red-white-and-meaty. Through the years Woody has become one of the leading online flair collectors in the world, and made many friends along the way. His love of Friday's is second to none, only to his own. And Woody would do anything to prove his passion for his home away from home - T.G.I. Friday's Restaurants. As luck would have it, someone pretty high up on the totem pole at Friday's hears of Woody. Long story short, they decide to take Woody up on his claim with a little bet: If Woody can get 500,000 fans on here by September 30th, they can all get a free Jack Daniel's(R) Burger! In Woody's words, "It'll be friggin' Octo-Burgerfest!' So become a fan of his, and help make free burger history. It'll be a dream come true for him.

Dogpatch Labs San Francisco Office Hours: Wednesday Mornings

We are excited to announce office hours at Dogpatch Labs San Francisco starting Wednesday, September 23rd. Office hours will be held on Wednesday mornings from 9am-11:30am and include coffee, bagels and good conversation. Come by to meet Polaris, Dogpatch residents, solicit feedback on your latest project, get a tour of the Lab, etc. Office hours are entirely open and drop-ins are welcome (but you can also feel free to let us know ahead of time).

Dogpatch Labs San Francisco is located at Pier 38 on Embarcadero and you can learn more here. For more information on Dogpatch Labs, follow us on:

- DogpatchLabs.com - Dogpatch Labs on Facebook (events, news, etc) - Dogpatch Labs on Twitter (@dogpatchlabs)

Seeking a Senior Marketing Maven at Ice.com

Love jewelry and fashion?Looking to join an industry leading company and team? Are you a talented marketer excited about e-commerce, user acquisition and social media?

Ice.com, a Polaris portfolio company and the leading internet jeweler operating both Ice.com and Diamond.com, is searching for a VP of Marketing. Reporting directly to the COO this critical role will be responsible for developing and executing acquisition plans to drive profitable, new customer growth.

Contact me directly if interested or if you have great referrals.

Description and Responsibilities:

This critical position is charged with increasing online recruitment for the jewelry sites Ice.com and Diamond.com The VP of Marketing must develop a recruitment strategy that:

- Optimizes current acquisition programs through achieving the right mix of quality advertising partners: ad networks, portals, paid search, affiliates and shopping comparison sites

- Increase the profitability of our online marketing programs through a mix of investment analysis, offer testing, creative messaging, and user interface recommendations.

- Accelerates our move into emerging areas of social marketing: blogs (e.g. sparklelikethestars.com and blog.ice.com), Facebook, Twitter and continue to build out our natural search practice

- Lead the company's efforts to improve our natural search rankings through better site architecture and content

In addition to online marketing skills, the candidate must possess strong managerial/training experience in order to build out a world class acquisition team.

Facebook Introduces In-Feed Tagging (ie @username)

Facebook continues to roll out new features. Today, you can now tag friends directly in your Facebook feed (and through posts) with the '@' symbol that is so common on Twitter. You will notice it when entering content into your feed:

- Facebook alerts you with an eye-catching graphic that you can link to friends using the '@' sign

- Once you have typed '@', your friend list auto-fills much like when writing an email or tagging a friend - Once you select a friend, his / her name is automatically hyperlinked (creating a more Twitter-like experience)

- Friends who are tagged get a notification and are driven back to Facebook

- Facebook and your newsfeed / post all benefit from increased attention and engagement

Facebook's official blog post is here.

Multi-Image Facebook Feed Posts Get Bigger, More Frequent

Last week, I wrote about the growing trend of large imagery in the Facebook feed... moving from single images to now multi-image portraits. Well it is getting more prominent and the graphics are as bold and, as they get more ostentatious, it becomes tougher for other posts to standout in the feed. This is particularly important for individuals and for text-only feed posts.

At TechCrunch50

I am TechCrunch50 today and tomorrow. If you are around the conference, please drop me a note. For those unable to attend, here is the live broadcast from Ustream:

Live Broadcast by Ustream.TV

Rockstar, 7-Eleven and Facebook Ads: Become a Fan, Get a Free Sample

Just last week, I wrote about Facebook and Chick-fil-A's new direct response ads. Other units are starting to pop-up and this example is particularly interesting.

The ad is for a "Free Can of Rockstar" Energy Drink by becoming a Facebook Fan and inputting your address. A couple things are of note:

1. The free Rockstar drink is tied to becoming a fan on Facebook. The fan acceptance actually is done in the background (when you click 'Get Free Sample', you are automatically a fan) 2. Facebook knows enough about you that the registration process is super easy. My city, address, name, etc are all automatically input. 3. You can virally share the free Rockstar drink... and this is a natural act as people love to gloat about savings and goodies! 4. This is done in conjunction with 7-Eleven... so the relationship and promotion are still significant for 7-Eleven, but the Facebook relationship is entirely with Rockstar