Jessica Ziegler

Facebook: Convert your Static FMBL to iFrame – It’s not as painful as you think!

February 21, 2011 by Jessica Ziegler

Facebook recently put into action the long anticipated change from Static FBML to iFrames, requiring all new custom content on Facebook Fan pages to be built as a Facebook iFrame application.

This new update will be forced though on March 11^th but you can (and should) get a jump on it now. This is actually a really good thing for Page owners and developers. It means that you can use standard html, css and javascript becuase your content will be calling a page directly from your site. You will still need to plan and build for the limitations of 520×720, the depth/height limitation is new, but you can figure ways to work with it).

The previous Tabs we are all used to will be gone, but you could create your own tabs within your 520×720 framework, if you want a more multi-page feel (check out Trailsherpa’s facebook page here to see how I solved for that). Again, this is a great thing because you will have full control over the length, appearance and style of those tabs.

Alright so how do we do this thing?

I create and implement your new iFrame app you’ll need to do 3 things:

1) Create a Facebook iFrame application and associate it with your Fan Page

2) Create a PHP page on your website that you will call from your iFrame application

3) Upload that PHP page and its related assets

Step 1: Create a Facebook iFrame application and associate it with your Fan Page:

1) Login to Facebook and go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/createapp.php to create your new app

a. Give your application a name (this name will not appear on your Fan Page) and agree to terms

2) Add an icon and or logo, contact email and privacy policy links (if you don’t have those policies, just link to the main page of your site). Add an icon, it will show up next to your app in the left nav of your Fan page. The logo is more for if you intent to share this app with others (think Farmville). Save changes.

3) On the Website Tab, add your site url (not actually neccesary).

4) Go to the Facebook Integration tab. This is where things get mildly complicated.

a. For Canvas Page select a folder that makes sense as the base url for your application. This will need to be DIFFERENT for each application you create and can only contain lowercase letters, dashes, and underscores.

b. Canvas URL: this is going to be the FOLDER on your site where you create your PHP page and its related assets. MUST HAVE TRAILING SLASH (i.e. be a folder).

c. Select iFrame and autoresize (not that it will resize) or show scrollbar if you have a page deeper than 720. They are pretty unpleasant looking, avoid them if you can.

5) Scroll down to Page tabs at the bottom.

a. Create a page name, limited to 16 characters. This is the name that will appear on your fan page as a link on the left and at the top of the iFrame “page” .

b. Tab url: this is the actual page that you will be calling for the iFrame content. Where is says CANVAS_URL, once you save that will change to the name of the folder you designated above. This page can be called whatever you want, as long as it’s .php (.html will not work). So in effect, based on my current inputs, my new iframe content will be pulled from: http://www.vestorlogic.com/my_awesome_app_folder/index.php.

c. Save changes. Your app is set up!

6) You are now on your applications main edit page. Associate your new application with a Fan Page

a. Click the “Application Profile Page” link on the right.

b. Now you are on your apps public page, click “Add to My Page” from the left nav. This will bring up all the pages you admin. Select the correct one and add it.

That’s it for the Facebook integration!

STEP 2: Create a PHP page on your website that you will call from your iFrame application

1) This is where things get a lot more standard. You’ll want to create a page on your site in the folder that you designated in your app. In mine it was: http://www.vestorlogic.com/my_awesome_app_folder/index.php.

2) If you already have a Static FBML tab, you can go to that tab, copy the code and paste that into a new .php file, save and upload. In the above example my file would need to be called index.php and it would need to live in the “my_awesome_app_folder” folder.

STEP 3: Don’t forget to upload this page and its related assets!

Now you will see your new app listed as a link on the left nav of the fan page you related it to. You can see ours here.

See that little Welcome link on the left with the icon? Awesome!

Special shout out to Paul Kortman’s great post that helped me figure it out.

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured, Social Media Tagged With: create a facebook iFrame app, facebook fan page, Facebook iFrame application, facebook tab, iframe app, iFrames, static fbml, static fbml to iframe

WordPress – The Ultimate Web Development Tool

February 2, 2011 by Jessica Ziegler

There was a time when developing your web presence meant finding that socially sequestered brainiac hiding in his basement who could actually write executable code to create your website. The irony of finding a geek to help you become popular! Today it is much easier to maintain control over the look and content of your website and to easily update it as your brand evolves.

You’re likely familiar with WordPress as a blogging tool accessible through WordPress.com. This is an excellent starting point for many bloggers who don’t need to utilize a custom url. All blogs on wordpress.com have a “mysite.wordpress.com” url. However, this is unacceptable for most businesses.

WordPress also offers a free, open source, easy to use content management system (CMS) through WordPress.org, which allows the user to create a custom-looking website, using their own url, without starting from zero.

Vestor Logic believes in the power of WordPress and its ability to power the social web for companies in any industry around the world. There are many benefits to using WordPress as the content management system for your website:

By eliminating the complicated build process, WordPress allows you to bring your brand online faster, saving design time and money.
Because WordPress is web standard, Google recognizes it quickly and gets you listed on the most used search engine in the world in only a few days.
WordPress is an open source project, which means interested users contribute to its creation by recognizing what works well in the industry, adapting to it, and solving problems often before most users knew they were there.

The WordPress CMS is highly customizable through a multitude of outside vendor “themes”. At Vestorlogic we often use themes based on the Genesis Framework from StudioPress.com. These themes are well written, extremely customizable and boast top-notch support. With the right knowledge you can make intricate changes to these available themes for true customization. For most businesses, this often requires the help of a web designer who knows .css and .php.

Because WordPress is an open source project anyone can develop themes or plug-ins to add “custom” features to WordPress websites. Plug-ins run the gamut from extensive events calendars to simple Facebook like buttons. The right plug-ins are imperative for creating not just a great site design quickly, but a “social web design”, a design that integrates social sharing features for Facebook, Twitter, Linked In , etc. seamlessly. Enabling users to easily share your content with their friends is what social web design is all about, and is a Vestor Logic core offering.

Our social media clients cover numerous industries but one thing remains constant: they all want to use their website and other social assets to engage with the right crowd. This may be the root of why we love WP as much as we do. Flexibility in the design process, a head start with StudioPress’s Genesis Framework and Child Themes (saves design time and money), easily integrates with other platforms and apps via plug-ins, and a very dedicated development community that is constantly raising the bar.

Your search for a geek is over! Contact Vestor Logic today to discuss creating your social web presence.

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media, Web Design, WordPress Tagged With: building a wordpress blog, studiopress themes, wordpress blog, wordpress CMS

The Santa Experiment (Facebook communities, donations and Wepay.com)

December 15, 2010 by Jessica Ziegler

I have a friend from High School (pictured in action on the left) who, although he’s only 39, makes an exceptional Santa. So much so that each Christmas he is paid to be a Santa for various stores and parties. This year he decided to go big time and make a road trip from Ct to Tupelo, MS to take a Santa Thanksgiving-to-Christmas gig at a giant mall.

Unfortunately, the trip has not been good. He’s gone through contract drama, he’s had items stolen from his car, and he’s endured crime scene-esque living quarters. He’s been posting his frustrations on Facebook for the past few weeks, since the trip began right before Thanksgiving.

Now this is a good guy, a really good guy. He’s a firefighter, a Mason, he’s involved in several charities, and even has plans to start a non-profit of his own. He still lives in the town where we grew up and is practically the unofficial mayor. Suffice it to say, friends of this guy were not too happy to hear about the treatment he’d been receiving.

So being the internet-y social media chick that I am, I decided to do a little something about this, albeit remotely. I started a Facebook community called Save This Santa and added a donation component on Wepay.com. I began imploring our former classmates and friends on Facebook to turn this into his “Best Christmas Ever” to help replace some of the items that were stolen, and generally restore his faith in humanity and his Christmas spirit.

Was he embarrassed? Yes. He felt extremely undeserving of this attention and outpouring of donations. I suggested he could always donate the overflow to charity, or put it towards some crazy Santa-related caper like showing up at a hospital with a bag full of new toys.

This process allowed me to really dig into creating and promoting a Facebook community as well as the chance to thoroughly explore Wepay.com, which is establishing itself as a competitor to Paypal. It allows you to accept donations, request payments and sell tickets. The fees are passed directly to the buyer, as opposed to the payee covering the fees as with Paypal, which is ideal for a donation.

Another cool element to Wepay.com is that it is a group based payment system, you can create groups and hit up those people directly for one-time or recurring payments. I can see a lot of personal scenarios where this could come in handy: splitting a vacation rental, collecting funds for a group gift, a school fundraiser, club dues or fees. It also ties seamlessly into Facebook and Twitter to make sharing painless.

So far, the Santa Experiment has been a big success. We’ve raised quite a bit of money, and definitely changed our Santa’s outlook this season. This may also help our Santa launch the non-profit that he has in the works. Gotta feel pretty good about that.

Update:

I have a writer friend in Chicago who became aware of Save This Santa via my Facebook updates. She decided to write up the story and pitch it to some newspapers and magazines. She also published it here.

Check out the facebook group here: Save This Santa

Filed Under: Facebook, Featured, Social Media Tagged With: best christmas ever, save this santa, social media campaigns, the santa experiment

Have You Forgotten About Email?

September 29, 2010 by Jessica Ziegler

We’ve all gotten pretty excited about social media, business spending on social media is set to reach over 2 billion dollars in 2011. We’ve got our Twitter accounts and our Facebook pages, maybe you’ve even tested the waters on location-based services. Hopefully you are being thoughtful: executing on or at least developing, a solid social media strategy. In the flurry of social excitement, have you forgotten about email marketing? Newsletters? Spreading your message and promoting your events to your hard won list of subscribers? Building upon that subscriber list? Asking for the email address?

I know, I know, social media is your new girlfriend. And she is fun and exciting, there’s no doubt. Everyone loves her… I’m going to stop this metaphor right here before it descends into disturbing wife/sister jokes.

But email. Trusty email. No, it’s not perfect, but it is super direct. You have a better chance of seeing a subject line in your inbox than any one of the bazillion tweets that flitter by each hour.
Email remains one of the most direct ways to reach your customers. And while everyone is busy ogling their new social media followers, isn’t this the best time to take a look at that under-utilized email list? Maybe there’s a bit less competition in your customer’s inbox now than there was six or twelve months ago.

This isn’t about making a choice; I’m going to insist that you keep moving forward with your social media strategy. But, take a moment to figure out where email can fit in with what you’re doing today, how you can tie the two together and let them support each other.

No-brainers:
-          Promote your Twitter and Facebook accounts on any email you send out.
-          Add an email sign-up form to your Facebook fan page.
-          Tweet links to your newsletter sign up.
-          Tweet or Facebook links to some of your best newsletter content (with sign up link, of course)
-          Create newsletter content that links back to your Facebook page or Twitter acct.

These are just off the top of my head. What else could you be doing or are you doing to tie these two marketing strategies together?

Filed Under: Email Marketing, Featured Tagged With: email and social media, email marketing, email signup form

The Day I Knew Marketing Was For Me

September 22, 2010 by Jessica Ziegler

Years ago, I worked at an internet company as the Creative Manager. Initially this company was pretty content focused, (hey it was 2000!) but eventually we hired a CEO who was a marketing genius, had years of proven experience and knew what he was doing. Many of us transitioned from content producers into the newly created marketing department. Until that point we didn’t even have a marketing department.

This transformation was fine with me, I’d always loved the idea of marketing and advertising, the creativity, the teamwork, the problem solving, and according to Mad Men, the gin-soaked lunches. The only problem was I didn’t have any actual training or education in marketing. I felt I had an innate sense of what might work or inspire people to action, my creative background helped me create visual representations of these ideas, but really I was guessing. Could I actually do this job?

One day, as we were preparing to move offices, I came across a box of old mouse pads* featuring our old logo and design scheme. I didn’t really want to throw them away, but they were old and everyone already had perfectly good mouse pads. So I typed up of few sentences of what I considered to be a mock-ad email touting the glory and value of owning one of these “vintage, pieces of X company history” ending with the obvious “hurry, supply limited!”.

I fired it off to the coworkers around me, expecting to hear a few snorts. Within seconds my coworkers were popping up, literally running over to the box to grab handfuls of these old mouse pads. I watched in stunned silence. Wow! I couldn’t believe my email had had that sort of effect, people jumping out of their seats, following my directive. I was moving mouse pads, and quick. That was the moment I realized the power of marketing and a halfway decent spin campaign. I was hooked.

Granted, that was an easy one: targeted market, engaged audience, free product, immediate gratification. I’ve spent the 8-9 years since that day learning how to deliver a message to the trickier marks.

Today I am immersed, not only in my work but also in passive exposure. Monitoring marketing trends and social media is part of my job, but it’s hard to remember a time when I went hours without being exposed to marketing input and opinions. I personally love it, it feels like a rapid fire tennis match of ideas and creativity. I know many find it overwhelming, but I’m in there looking for ideas, analyzing what I see and hear, plotting ways to twist and transform this input for the benefit of our clients. That makes it fun for me, and amazing. The conversations we can have with people we never would have met 10 years ago. The instantaneous reach we now have.

May I humbly suggest taking a moment to be amazed, at how far we’ve come in such a short period, how these tools allow us to precisely target a message or campaign and monitor the results. Are you amazed?

* Youth of America! Once upon a time we had to use a thing called a “mouse” to move our cursor around a computer screen. They had to be plugged in, with a cord. They only really worked if used on top of a small, foamy pad, usually besmirched with a logo or bad advertising. They were dark times.

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: marketing

Micromanaging at a Social Level

September 16, 2010 by Jessica Ziegler

Yesterday Valerie Bauerlein at the WSJ.com posted this article about Gatorade’s social media listening and engagement efforts. According to the article, Gatorade is attempting to regain market share it has lost in recent years to products such as Coca-Cola Co’s Powerade. One way they are attempting to gain a foothold with their customers is in the social landscape, utilizing Twitter and Facebook as well as other social media platforms.

Interestingly, Gatorade is owned by Pepsi Co. who gained tons of press and social media credibility with their Pepsi Refresh Project which launched during the 2010 Super Bowl. Clearly Pepsi Co. learned some important lessons about the value and reach of social media, so much so that they are willing to fund a social media team whose sole purpose is to support a single product within their family of products. They see the importance of individual brands, and the importance of treating them differently. They even go so far as to state that this approach may act as a model for other brands within the Pepsi Co. family.

It makes perfect sense. Different marketing for different products; therefore, different social strategies for different products. Think of it this way; there is a reason that Johnson & Johnson doesn’t try to feature Tylenol, Splenda and Visine in one TV spot.

How does this relate to your business? Do you have different brands that should perhaps be monitored and promoted as single entities as opposed to pieces of a whole? Would it be easier for you? Better question: Would it be easier for your customers? If it’s easier for your customers, doesn’t that automatically make it better for your business?

Update: This year Pepsi will be back during the Super Bowl sponsoring a user-generated advertising contest featuring Doritis and Pepsi Max. The the top finalists’ spots will run during the Super Bowl.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Facebook, Featured, Listening, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: gatorade social media, social engagement, social media listening

Social Media and REAL Crisis Management

September 14, 2010 by Jessica Ziegler

Last week there was a massive, multi-day fire that began in Four Mile Canyon just to the west of downtown Boulder, CO. It started around 10:30 am on Labor Day and due to high, erratic winds that day it grew quickly. I live about an hour southeast of Boulder and could see the gigantic, fast-moving plumes of smoke from my back deck.

People live up in that area. Over 3500 residents were evacuated. By the time the fire was finally contained several days later, over 166 homes were lost. Thankfully no lives were lost.

From where I sat it took a while to get any of that information. The TV station websites were on it pretty quickly, but it was bare bones info, a few sentences. The newspaper sites had nothing until much later.

Enter Twitter. Immediately the hashtag #boulderfire was pumping out up-to-the-minute information and photos. The Twitter community in Boulder immediately rallied and began putting residents in contact with people who could help. They kept the information flowing in a constant stream.

By the next day local businesses began using twitter to offer goods and services to residents displaced by the fire: offers of meals, places to temporarily house pets, hotel rooms. Soon messages of encouragement and thanks to the local firefighters and police began appearing.

There was no promotional benefit to any of this. This was pure community outreach. Neighbors helping each other.

Wrapped up in our daily business lives it can be easy to forget how social media tools are perfectly designed for crisis management, to do good in completely non-commercial ways. Intellectually we know it’s all about “connecting” and engaging in the conversation, but sometimes events occur that shine a light directly on what that really means. It means more, a lot more.

You can follow the #boulderfire and #fourmilecanyon hashtags for the latest information or drop by the Downtown Boulder page on Facebook. They are doing a great job of keeping their community updated.

Filed Under: Case Studies, Featured, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: boulder fire, Social Media, Twitter

Will Groupon Kill Gramma? Social Discounters and Small Business

September 8, 2010 by Jessica Ziegler

Today I noticed a website that had enabled a social discount promotion (think Groupon, LivingSocial, Yolodeals, etc.) directly on its own website. An interesting switch, where the retailer owns the deal, eliminating the middle man and their take.

Social discount sites offer a product or service at a deep discount if enough people buy into the deal. A typical deal would be to allow consumers to pay $15 for $30 in food and beverages at a specific restaurant. It’s a pretty good deal for consumers if they are certain they will use the deal.
I LOVE these deals, I have several queued up in my inbox as I write this. But I worry.

Last week I had the opportunity to talk with a small tour company operator who had offered one of these social discount promotions. He said that they had no idea what to expect, but managed to sell over 1000 of their tours during their day-long promotion. This is a LOT for a small, local business, especially when you look at the numbers. They discounted their tour by 50% PLUS the discounter took another not-insignificant percentage of the discounted price. These promotions can be a great way to gain exposure for your business, especially since most of these sites are local-facing, BUT the deal can be a financial killer.

With deals such as this, the business owner is counting on a certain percentage of people not redeeming the deal, aka “breakage”. This particular business owner is looking at about 80% redemption. That is HIGH. In the end they will most likely lose money on this promotion, and only time will tell if they make it back in increased business at full price.

Businesses need to take a close look at their price point and costs before committing to this sort of promotion. Giving away $20 in food and drink to get $10 up-front cash-in-hand can work well, and consumers are more likely to blow off something they only paid $15 for if it’s inconvenient to redeem. If you’re giving away $75 of a $100 item to get $25 cash-in-hand, that might not work out as well AND your breakage is bound to be lower because the consumer would be out $50.

Even large retailers are getting in on the action. The now famous $25 for $50 to spend at The Gap Groupon from August resulted in $11 million in sales on Groupon during the one day promotion. The Gap has yet to figure out what the promotion will mean for their bottom line, but I anticipate a LOT of Gap products under the trees this year.

The question is, how long before businesses start getting killed and back away from these promotions? Or at least start to back away from paying the middle man to run the promotion? Where is the line between paying for exposure and taking a hit? What is the cost difference between running an ad with a coupon, with zero guaranteed revenue and running a social promotion with guaranteed revenue but higher per-customer costs?

I’d LOVE to hear from anyone else who has sponsored a social discount promotion, how have they worked out for you?

Filed Under: Featured, Social Media Tagged With: groupon, living social, social discount, The Gap, yolodeals

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