The Social Path

Facebook Timeline: 10 changes your business should prepare for.

This morning, Facebook announced a dramatic and long-awaited chance for business pages: the Timeline format. Social media marketers who are excited for the switch can jump to the new look right now, otherwise you'll be forced to change when Timeline becomes mandatory on March 30.

While the most obvious change is the sprawlingly wide new "cover photo," there's more to the media-rich pages than just a swank new header image. There are some exciting - and frustrating - details that Facebook admins need to keep in mind as they prepare for the switch.

Luckily, it's easy to get started by clicking the "Preview" button at the top of your page and setting up your Timeline in a private environment. Then you can simply hit "Publish now" whenever you're ready.

So why wait? We've been playing with it all day on our agency page, and we've put together this checklist to help your business embrace Timeline today:

A new metric for ad success: Keeping eyes away from apps.

This past Sunday, I once again had the pleasure of being the "voice of AdFreak" on Twitter, as I live-tweeted about the Super Bowl ads for Adweek's blog. (I also made occasional contributions to the magazine's Super Bowl liveblog itself, which you can read a transcript of here.)

Amid the frenzy of tweeting about ads in real time, I became hyperaware of how the game and its celebrated commercials kept or lost my attention. When the game grew dull, I was able to cram in more online updates. When a great ad surfaced, I stopped typing and stayed glued to the screen.

I wasn't alone, as you can see in the chart above from analytics service Flurry, which tracks data from more than 160,00 iOS and Android apps. The graph shows how many mobile apps were being opened during every second of the game.

For example, during downtime, smartphone users would fire up the Twitter or Facebook apps to see what friends were saying. When the game got intense (or Madonna took the stage), phones went dark and the TV took hold.

Certain ads obviously drew in viewers. I was one of the millions who couldn't look away from the mysterious movie trailer that ended up being for the board game-inspired "Battleship." Coke's polar bears kept people away from their phones, as well.

There's so much insight to be gleaned from this data, though mostly it just illustrates two points:

• Major television events have become national social experiences, giving us all something specific to talk about. Short of major world events, what else these days brings together so many diverse voices into the same conversation? Whether it's the Grammys or big game, TV's biggest moments are unparallaled in their ability to get people talking in real time.

• Attention comes at the cost of discussion. This creates a tough challenge for the entertainment industry. You want your TV show to be a nationally trending topic on Twitter while it's airing, but you also want viewers paying attention, right? A viewer's natural inclination will be the chat during commercial breaks, which means there's never been more pressure on advertisers to keep eyeballs on the screen and off the phone for just a few more seconds.

Which leads us to another fascinating implication of this data: We might be witnessing a new metric for TV ad performance. Most advertisers simply look at a program's audience size and claim the impressions as their own. But this chart clearly shows that attention waxes and wanes, even if the audience never leaves the room.

Will your favorite brand's next TV ad be enough to keep people engaged, or will audiences find their eyes drifting down to the dreaded second screen?

David Griner is the Director of Digital Content for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

The Super Bowl Ad Awards: Honoring the most memorable commercials.

It's awards season and Super Bowl week, making it the perfect time to present our own honors for Super Bowl ads! In an effort to get the most out of their millions of dollars, companies go to great lengths to win the Super Bowl ad wars with most suggestive, adorable, heartfelt, and funny  commercials they can produce. Many of these are so good (or bad) that they stand head and shoulders above the rest in their respective categories. Join me as we honor the best the Super Bowl has to offer.

Most Innuendo-Packed Ad

Ahhh, the '70s. Arguably the first famous Super Bowl ad, this Noxema commercial starred the one and only Farrah Fawcett and possibly the most charismatic football player ever, Joe Namath. There's very little script, mostly just Farrah and Broadway Joe saying "creamed" over and over again. No obscenity, no skin, just enough creepy dialogue to give you the giggles. Simple, suggestive and effective. Go Daddy can only dream of being this brilliant.

The Most Annoying Trend Caused By A Super Bowl Ad

Admit it, you've said it. We've all said, and it was hilarious for roughly 15 minutes. Since it's been awhile since we've heard it, maybe it's poised for a comeback ... "WASSSSSSSSSUU..." Nope. Still annoying.

Ad Most Likely to Ruin A Company

What was once one of the largest athletic shoe retailers in America met a swift death thanks to one ill-fated Super Bowl ad. A short 11 months after this disastrous 1999 ad from Just For Feet, the company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed their last store in 2004.

What I learned from my social media hiatus. | Guest post by Javacia Harris Bowser

Today, we're excited to be joined by Javacia Harris Bowser, a blogger and founder of the Birmingham, Ala., women's writing group See Jane Write. Javacia shares the lessons she learned from taking a three-week break from social media.

Each January my pastor encourages all his parishioners to fast something for 21 days in an effort to grow closer to God. Many church leaders totally abstain from food for three weeks, while some members fast certain types of food (such as sugary treats) or give up something like television. I decided to give up social media.

I wrote and scheduled “See You Later” posts for my two blogs and alerted Facebook friends and Twitter followers that I was taking a social media sabbatical. I also gave up Foursquare (at the risk of losing all my hard-earned mayorships) and Pinterest. This fast also meant I wasn’t allowed to read any of my favorite blogs either, as that is honestly how I spend much of my free time.

When I started the fast a part of me wondered if I would reach the end of the 21 days and realize that I no longer wanted social media in my life. I admit that when I announced my hiatus I felt this strange sense of relief. For three weeks I wouldn’t have to worry about updating my blogs or feel compelled to check Twitter every hour to make sure I wasn’t missing a link to some life-changing article.

But that feeling quickly dissipated. Social media makes everyday life better. Seriously. Foursquare turns a dreaded visit to the grocery store into an exciting game as I battle local residents to be crowned as mayor of the places I frequent around town. I’m an English teacher and, therefore, spend hours grading very bad essays, but those moments aren’t as torturous when I can take occasional breaks to browse my favorite blogs. And while some people “veg out” after a long day at work by flipping through channels, I’m not much of a TV person and I would much rather relax by clicking through beautiful photographs on Pinterest.

Coincidentally, despite my hiatus I found myself talking about social media more than ever during my fast. While teaching Fahrenheit 451 to my students we spent most days discussing the pervasiveness of technology and the role social networking sites play in their lives. When the electricity went out in my apartment one evening my husband and I found ourselves having a conversation by candlelight about Twitter. (How romantic!) And speaking of Twitter, when storms hit the Birmingham area before dawn one Monday morning I felt lost without being able to track tornadoes through my favorite meteorologist’s tweets. The thought never crossed my mind to just turn on the television. (I told you I’m not a TV person.)

I did realize, however, that I need to make some changes regarding my social media behavior. First, I need to rekindle my love for blogging. That sense of relief I felt at the beginning of my fast was triggered because somewhere along the way blogging has stopped being fun. I need to fix that. I don’t want blogging to feel like a job, especially since I’m not getting paid to do it.

Second, I need to stop letting social media make me a bad friend. When I wrote about my return to social media on my blogs I decided to craft the post as a love letter because I realized that I’m just like the girl who ditches her friends for the new man in her life. I’m always so busy trying to update my blogs and read all the interesting articles being posted on Twitter that I don’t make time to have real conversations with my friends. And I use Facebook as a crutch. I figure, "I know that this friend is pregnant and that friend got a new job because I checked their status updates. No need to call them; I’m all caught up, right?" Wrong.

And finally, I have to make time for myself, to read books that have nothing to do with becoming a better blogger and, yes, perhaps even watch television. There has to be some reason so many people are into that thing.

Javacia Harris Bowser is founding editor of GeorgiaMae.com and she also blogs for The Writeous Babe Project. She can be reached via email or follow @writeousbabe on Twitter.

Photo credit: Leo Reynolds on Flickr