The recent change to their “Pages” format, to reflect the “timeline” format now present in individual profiles, have many organizations scrambling to both understand the changes and figure out how to best exploit them. (remember the term “pages” refers to what we often refer to as “Fan pages” or “Business pages” and not individual profiles). As of March 30th 2012, the ‘forced’ changes will be complete and the manner in which business’ can display their wares will be changed forever. Whether the new format is an improvement or not remains to be seen but regardless, it is the concept of having to take a step back on the learning curve that has many people frustrated.

I’ve always touted that we need to embrace these changes and keep in mind that Facebook offers a free marketing tool and complaining about how they provide us with that tool is akin to looking a gift horse square in the chops. But with a change like this you have to take into account the many dollars that organizations may have spent on programmers and designers to get their pages to look their best – that is to say that the “use” use of Facebook is free to even the largest and best-resoursed companies, but the “set up” of their pages, at least if they want to be competitive, can be quite costly. Facebook provides a free canvas but companies still need to pay for the paint and the artist.

Here’s what I mean. Look at this great page that Kraft foods set up by clicking here. I can’t imagine what the expense was to produce this page was and I can imagine, based on the traffic, that it has been quite popular and likely effective for Kraft. Under the old format, Kraft could have this display as the first thing a new visitor would see… not anymore. Kraft could still have that fantastic page but it would need to be buried and would not be the first thing that a user sees.

So what does a user now see and how can an organization take full advantage of Facebook for marketing their products? I will use one of my FaceTracks Artists, Tom Taylor to best illustrate the changes.

The first peek of a new page now features a large dramatic image similar to what we have on the timeline of our personal profiles only bigger (click on any of the thumbnails of Tom’s image to see the actual page). Automatically embedded in the lower left of the image is the page’s profile picture – again, similar to what we are now doing on our own timelines. Below the new big picture and to the right we see a row of “tabs” which used to be listed vertically on the left side of the page and you can see that for Tom we have added “Music”, “Videos”, and “Events”. The photos and Likes are there by default and the order of the tabs can be moved around (except for the photos which stay pinned to the left). Important to note that with the big photo, Facebook has now placed some rules on what can be included. They are listed as:

Image cannot include

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or other information intended for your Page’s About section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”

If you click on the “music” tab (click on the thumbnail if you do not already have the page open) you will see that this is where Facebook lets you take over and do pretty such whatever you want (much like what Kraft did above). For Tom we have a CD graphic where you can sample music as well as a music e-store below. What we are doing here is pretty much pasting in a web page and, as such, you can do pretty much anything that you want to do on a web page with just a few exceptions. This is actually a big jump from the old format because the page is much bigger (810 pixels wide compared to the old 520) and can go as long (deep) as the creator wants.

The new pages have a few clever tricks that happen below all of the new dramatic stuff at the top. In the pages timeline you can choose to “highlight” an item and have them display the full width (look down the page a bit to where I have done this with one of Tom’s videos). You can also “pin” an item so that it remains at the top of the news feed which is handy if you want to display a new product and have it stay in a prominent position.

So are all of these changes good or bad? I’m not sure how companies like Kraft will feel about it based on some of the backtracking they will have to do but I think most will feel that this gives a a better platform to display an organizations products or services – Once you figure it out!

While we watched our YouTube video explode in popularity and we learned about the opportunities that would present themselves, we knew it was going to be important to get a solid grip on our digital and on-line presence.

• We needed a website that was both beautiful and also had the functionality to build our  growing list of fans and keep them entertained and updated.
• We needed our site to reflect our personalities but also have a professional feel to impress future advertisers and other professionals.
• We needed a Facebook landing page that could also engage people and encourage them to sign up for our updates.
• We needed to get an understanding of how tweeting, Facebook and blogging today was going to really help our business tomorrow.
• Most importantly we needed someone to help us to tie all of this together.

While our professional future was starting to open up in front of us, we were also preparing for the most important day of our young lives – our wedding. Neither Ginny nor I consider ourselves to be very technical and the last thing we wanted to was worry about was all of this important stuff that happened to be going on just as we were trying to focus on our wedding.

Working with Alex at faceTracks really helped to take off the pressure and allow us to focus on our wedding preparations. In no time we had a website that not only looked great, but also engaged people and captured their information for when we have big announcements down the road. Our Facebook fan page was also set up to grow our “likes” and allow us to better communicate with our fans. Alex guided us in the right direction when we weren’t sure what to do and also responded very promptly when we requested changes. He even posted to our blog for us daily while we were on our honeymoon based on little snippets and pictures I sent him from my phone!

In short, Alex and FaceTracks took something that was quite daunting to us and made it easy and fun. I really look forward to working with them as we move into this new phase of our lives.

Thanks Alex!

Matt (and Ginny) Still
www.mattandginny.com

Aside from an original idea, a well produced video, and a cute-as-a-button couple, the Youtube video contains many values that so many feel have been lost. The popularity exploded and went fully viral landing the couple in such places as the Today Show, CNN, the Ellen Degeneres show and countless local and regional media.

At the time of this being published, Matt and Ginny are just finishing up their Jamaican Honeymoon (courtesy of Ellen Degeneres) and talks with a major television distributor are in the works to produce a show that will help them bring the magic they found to others. Stay tuned!

http://www.mattandginny.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Matt-Ginny/111731842249243

https://twitter.com/#!/MattandGinny

Undaunted by the setback Tiger has committed to pursue his dream of making music his full-time career and quickly turned around to launch www.tigerbudbill.com through Facetracks. His first release of the Michael Jackson classic, Billie jean is presently available on his site and finishing touches are being put on the first original works and a supporting video. You can reach Tiger through the following channels.

http://www.tigerbudbill.com/

https://www.facebook.com/tigerbudbill

https://twitter.com/#!/tigerbudbill

OK, the cloud. “Cloud” services are a bit of a buzzword in the digital world these days and for good reason. If they work the way they should (and most do) a cloud is a convenient way of storing data and sharing it amongst all of your devices. The cloud “rains” your data (music, pictures, contacts, appointments, etc) down onto your computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone etc. Anytime you add or change anything in one place it changes in all.

As is often the case, Apple is out in front of the pack when it comes to this type of technology (on the consumer level anyway) and I can attest from personal experience that while their new iCloud service is not perfect, it’s pretty damn great. Mac-heads like me who may have been using Mobile Me to do similar tasks before see an expansion of “cloud” features and the elimination of the expense. Mobile Me offered less and cost about $100 year. iCloud offers more and is free – my favorite price! (You do have to have upgraded to the Lion OS to have access to iCloud so let’s call it “mostly free”). In the Mac world, Mobile Me has been providing cloud type services for things like email, contacts, appointments and bookmarks for a while now. iCloud effectively adds images (iPhoto) and music (iTunes) to the mix. They have also added documents but really messed it up so I’m going to withhold comment until they fix it, which they surely will.

So if I have this iCloud thingy working then my music that I have on my computer will also be on my phone, iPod, or wherever else I may want my music right? Weeeeeeel, sorta kinda but almost not quite. What Apple will do is sync all NEW purchases FROM iTUNES to all of your devices through iCloud. With a few clicks you can also recover anything you may have bought through iTunes in the past as well. Effectively you can “cloud” just the stuff that you bought through iTunes and not stuff that you may have added from a CD, another music purchasing platform, or *gasp* stolen through file sharing.

But wait! iTunes is also offering something called “iTunes Match” which will allow you to cloud absolutely everything, no matter where you bought it, to all of your devices. The catch? $24.99 a year. I think I will probably go ahead and do that for one year just to consolidate anything and everything I have collected over the years and then just do a better job of keeping track of it all going forward and save myself the annual charge. I imagine a lot of people might think of that and Apple may come up with some clever way to make it worth while to do it more than just once.

In summary, the FTR (FaceTracks Recovery) program that we will be launching will do the same thing as what iTunes is offering in terms of being able to perpetually own and have access to your music even if you lose track of it. Like iTunes we have a record of what you have bought from us and are happy to just send you another copy should you lose the first one.

Just trying to stay up with the big guys - Stay Tuned!

Don Stevenson

When Gerry Garcia and David Crosby suggest you pull up roots in Seattle and move to San Francisco – That’s what you do. Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson were wise enough to heed that advice from Garcia and took their talents south to round out what would become Moby Grape. An act that both dazzled critics with their brilliance, and puzzled with their lack of a breakthrough to true super-stardom. Moby Grape became an essential thread in the fabric that was the generation-defining San Francisco Bay area music scene of the 1960′s. The fact that the band’s debut album was ranked at 121 on Rolling Stone’s “500 greatest albums of all time” and that Miller-Stevenson works have been covered by such acts as the Black Crowes and Robert Plant, speaks to a group that may have been strangely under appreciated in it’s time.

With the Bay area 60′s nested as nothing more than fond memories, Don presently lives in Whistler, BC with his wife Janice and applies a vigor to both his life, and his music, that belies his years. the 2010 release of  ”King of Fools” is presently available through Don’s Facebook page via FaceTracks and there are new singles to be released shortly. Please sign up for our newsletter or subscribe to our blog in the sidebar to get updates on Don’s releases. You can also “like” Don and access his music through his Facebook page by Clicking Here

image by chanpipat - click for link

The response was always the same. “Please sit tight, I have called the police and they should only be a few more minutes. They’re usually quite prompt”

My reaction the first time I heard that was probably quite similar to the people who had actually been hauled in for the offense. “Really? You’re going to involve the police in the matter of somebody sneaking onto a ski hill?”

I will never forget the response she gave me and it happens to be pretty similar to the response that she gave to people unfortunate enough to be sitting in front of her. “A lift ticket here costs $75. Would you walk into a department store and take a $75 pair of jeans without paying? If you did take them and you got caught, would you expect that you might get a chance to meet a policeman shortly afterwards? How is this different?”

My friend is still waiting for an answer to that question that I have not been able to provide. The reality is that there is no difference, it’s stealing.

Seeing as how this is a website about downloading music from the internet then you probably can see where I am going with this. When the idea first popped into my head I remember talking to my teenaged niece and she suggested it was a silly idea because she, and most of her friends, have over 1500 songs in their computers that they got absolutely free*. She seemed puzzled (much like our skier friends) at the notion that she had stolen over $1000 worth of merchandise so I asked her “how is it different?”. Now I am the one waiting for an answer.

I remember my sense of glee when, as a young kid, I watched my mean old sister (yes, the mother of that same teenaged niece) get dragged home one day after getting caught shoplifting some cheap cosmetics. What could be better for a tormented younger brother than to watch the consequences unfold at the hands of my old-school parents? She somehow avoided the gallows and went on to be a pretty impressive person so no harm done but what would she think if a cop showed up at the door tomorrow, with her daughter in tow, and the news that she was the subject of an ongoing investigation with evidence that she had walked out of the local record store with over $1000 worth of CD’s?

I will be the first to admit that a good chunk of my iTunes library contains music that I either “shared” from another user, or “ripped” off of a CD that I did not actually buy. As an FYI most legal rulings have determined that it is OK to convert(Rip) a CD that you own to digital files, but not one that you don’t. That is to say that “CD sharing” that results in “File Sharing” is a no-no. I guess what allows me sleep at night is that I don’t do it anymore. It took a while for the old moral compass to spin around to “wrong” on that one but it’s there now and today I buy all of my music fair and square. Any other way would be stealing. If you disagree…

How is it different?

See the chart below for greater detail but the basic cultures of FaceTracks are designed to make downloading music through Facebook economical (both for the Artist and the music-buying public), trustworthy, and hassle free (again for both the Artist and the consumer).

It is important to to pay attention to what FaceTracks is not

To better understand what FaceTracks can do and if we are right for you, it is important to understand what we are “not”

We are not an “app”

Consumers do not need to load anything special onto their Facebook in order to use FaceTracks. They do not need to “grant permission to access information” and they don’t need to download anything (other than your music when they decide to buy it). How many times have you been intrigued by something you see on Facebook only to come across the dreaded “xxxxxx will need access to your profile…”. FaceTracks strengthens shopper retention by not making them jump through hoops or ask them for access to their profiles.

We don’t just provide a link

Often Artists will have an impressive presence on Facebook offering a great interactive experience for their fans but when it comes time to buy music the user is transferred to a site like iTunes. That is fine for the user but the Artist is still faced with paying the high commissions to iTunes. It’s your Fan page. You attracted the buyer. Don’t just pass it onto iTunes for them to rake in a huge commission.

We don’t use templates

Many “sell your music through Facebook” options leave it to you to fill in the blanks. Aside from it requiring a level of expertise and/or frustration, it leaves you with a “templated” page that may not really reflect your identity. With FaceTracks each page is custom made with materials you provide. We provide you with a simple and effective method to send us your music, images, and artwork and we take it from there.

Please visit our Get Started page for more information, visit our helpful hints from our home page or contact us with any questions.