By now you’ve probably seen coverage of the major changes being implemented by Facebook. When Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement that the first big initiative was called Timeline, I confess that my initial reaction was like being punched in the stomach. You mean Facebook is rolling out the original vision of Dather?!? Our original direct-to-consumer offering included many of the same features and our tagline was ”Timeline Your World“. Then the shock turned to “This is awesome, we’ve been validated!”
After taking time to digest Facebook’s Timeline and Open Graph initiatives, I’m absolutely thrilled about both concepts because they open the door even further for Dather to become the foremost Facebook application for events. Dather is a social media marketing application for event sponsors and organizers that expands brand awareness, builds communities, and increases revenue. Dather’s an online hub for all of the social media activity surrounding an event that can integrate with any brand’s Facebook page or website.
Let’s take a closer look at how Dather can extend the power of Open Graph. Open Graph is exciting because it takes sharing to a much higher level. Now rather than simply “Liking” something, a whole range of user activities can be shared. The key for marketers is creating activities that drive user engagement, which will drive a whole new breed of Facebook apps. Dather is a perfectly suited app because it supports community sharing around events. As a result, Dather will drive the kind of engagement that will explode via the Open Graph.
For example, the Glee Live Tour fans were encouraged to demonstrate that they were the biggest “Gleek” by sending in their photo from the shows. In the new Facebook, every photo added would appear in a user’s Facebook Newsfeed and Ticker. These posts would in turn trigger others who attended the event to view the photos which could then trigger more posts and comments. The viral possibilities are unlimited.
Now let’s examine how Dather can leverage the Facebook Timeline. As previously mentioned, the timeline concept is core to Dather’s vision of how content should be organized – we always felt it was logical that timelines were the way to organize the history of content. The Timeline on Facebook becomes more valuable if to marketers if they can capture more details of users’ favorite live events.
So how does a brand or business focusing on live events step up to the new marketing challenge? By leveraging Dather’s ability to brand live experiences of customers, brands will live along with their memories forever via our application. Talk about a powerful way to increase the ROI of your live event budget!
For Dather, quickly integrating with the new Facebook tools is incredibly important. The first movers will reap the biggest rewards as consumers are looking for the newest ways to capture their attention and drive the creation of their ongoing Timelines. We have more to come on our recommended strategies for leveraging Dather, but in the meantime please contact kieve@dather.com with any questions.
In the end, it is nice for the Dather model to be validated. But now we want to take what we’ve learned and take your business to a whole new level. Exciting times!
