Untukmu Para Pengunjung

1,170 square feet (26 ft x 45 ft) - This intimate event space can seats up to 70 people.

1,350 square feet (30 ft x 45 ft) - This delightful room seats up to 70 people.

500 square feet - This cozy space seats up to 35 people.

300 square feet - This room can be configured conference style to accommodate up to 25 people.

With its sleek black and white décor and rock waterfall, the V.I.P. Room at Abe’s is an intimate dining venue - from corporate events to birthday parties.

Reserve your Rochelle Illinois hotel meeting space by calling the hotel directly at 815-562-5551 or visit us on line at the Comfort Inn & Suites Rochelle web site on our meetings page.

This is a guest post by Emily Copeland who is the Strategic Integrations Manager for Channel V (MCN - Music) and writes the music marketing blog, OMG with Emily which also has a radio segment on FBi 94.5 - Thursdays at 8.15am.

This week will forever be remembered in musical history. After 7 weeks at number one on the ARIA album charts, we saw Michael Jackson’s reign toppled by an Australian emo band from Budgewoi called Short Stack.

Not only did Short Stack push Michael Jackson into second place, but this release was their very first album, and it debuted at #1!

So how did a group of kids from the coast overthrow the King of Pop?

Back in the 80s, before the members of Short Stack were born, bands kicked off their careers playing in pubs. But in 2005 Short Stack were still too young to tour the pub circuit, so they began placing their tracks on MySpace and entering band competitions such as Youthrock.

As their popularity on MySpace began to grow, the band extended their online presence to include Short Stack TV on YouTube, Facebook fan pages, Bebo, Absolute Punk and Twitter to name just a few.

Short Stack now have almost 60,000 friends on MySpace, and over 10,000 followers on Twitter. They have fan pages for not just the band, but for each individual band member. And back in 2008 they had so many views of their videos on YouTube that they beat Britney Spears to have the number one video of the day.

But lots of bands use social media to promote themselves… how have Short Stack managed to become one of the most popular Australian bands on MySpace, without having released an album until this week? What have they done differently to garner so much support online? How have they turned fans into fanatics?

Graph source

Short Stack used the power of community, credibility and accessibility. And they used their link to a geographic community to strengthen their online community presence.

Community - Embrace Multiple Communities, Real World and Virtual
Short Stack’s home town of Budgewoi, is on the NSW Central Coast. It’s not a large place, but there are a lot of teenagers living nearby – and not a huge amount for them to entertain themselves with. Short Stack used the power of geographic community to initially harness this local young and somewhat-isolated crowd, and make them feel a part of something bigger. They tapped them into the emerging Short Stack online community, and gave them something to get behind when there wasn’t much else for a teenage emo to do. And from it's beginnings on the Central Coast, Short Stack’s music began to spread via online communities around Australia.

Credibility, Credibility, Credibility
The typical emo fashion is to go against the grain, disobey parents, ignore mainstream media, and not get sucked in by large commercial corporations – so Short Stack’s low budget marketing and the fact that they weren’t backed by a major record label at first, made them even more attractive to their fans. The band never discouraged illegal downloading of their tracks – understanding that getting large numbers of people to hear the music was more important initially than trying to push a small number of sales. They boys seemed ‘real’ and relatable which all added to their credibility.

Accessibility - Identify, Understand and Interact with your Audience
Short Stack were lucky that with their long hair and somber emo looks, they appealed directly to teenage girls. The band put their efforts into online communities where their demographic were already spending a lot of time, and tailored their messages directly to this audience. Short Stack have also made themselves accessible – and their fans love them for it! Fans can see the effort that Short Stack go to in responding to comments online, posting regular videos, and releasing free tracks, and they are happy to reciprocate.

It was this reciprocity that saw Short Stack take out Channel [V]’s Oz Artist of the Year 2008. According to lead singer, Shaun Diviney "Our fans are very, very rabid and really into what we do. If we ask them to vote for us they'll do it furiously and really get behind us," (source). Those fans got behind them in 2008 to the tune of 400,000 votes – to see them beat Silverchair and The Presets for the award. Those aren't just fans... they're fanatics. And it is fanatics you need if you want your debut release to topple the King of Pop.

After my post a year ago on 12 historical Social Media Marketing moments, I thought I would follow it up with historical moments of Youtube.

1. LonelyGirl15 and Heshey’s (June 2006)

In the Lonelygirl15 episode "Truckstop Reunion" the first branded integration on Youtube happened, it featured the characters eating and displaying Hershey's Icebreaker's Sours Gum.

2. Introduce Brand Channels (August 2006)
Companies were given the opportunity to create their own programming. One of the most renowned branded Youtube accounts BlendTec is actually not a branded channel, proving that a sponsored channel is not always needed. Blendtec was set up as just a normal account. Recently Ford Fiesta and Blendtec teamed up to create the monster which is an ad within an ad.


3. Youtube acquired by Google (October 2006)
Google Inc. announces that it had acquired YouTube for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. Advertisers get excited that Google will be able to put a good advertising back end into Youtube.

4. Dove Evolution Video launched (October 2006)


5. Youtube creates the Partners Program (May 2007)
Youtube starts paying their best content creators. A number of top 100 most subscribed now get paid a percentage of the earnings of money made from advertising sold next to their content.

This week they have come out and announced special Partnerships for content creators that go viral, so the JK wedding dance video would now theoretically make money for the newly married.

6. Burger King sponsor the Youtube only ‘Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy’ (August 2008)
It becomes the third most successful b randed channel on Youtube



7. Fred cracks a million subscribers (April 2009)
"Fred" has been sponsored since its inception by the Zipit Wireless Messenger (Z2). He has generated in excess of $100,000 from ad revenue and sponsorship.

8. Youtube puts a halt to third party ads (May 2009)
YouTube put a halt to brand placement advertising in YouTube videos, as they were advertisements that didn’t bring YouTube any revenue. Any partner who was found to do brand placement would lose their contract. This puts an end to Vloggers dealing directly with brands. Example of Vlogger direct deal - starring Lisa Nova


9. Ugly Carl Jnr Burger Deal (June 2009)
Google brokered a deal with Carls Jnr Burger where they would get more than 10 of the top 50 subscribed vloggers to create videos about how they eat their burger. It was a cluttered mess, which made most people resent the stars and Carls Jnr.


10. Still waiting…
I’ve been waiting three years for a proper advertising model which doesn’t require a minimum media spend of $20,000! Take a note from Facebook’s Advertising Model. Get your shit together.

Is there any moments I have missed?

I finished packing (8 hours later), two paintings finally finished for my friends here, cards made for the Leddy family, taxi on it's way at 5:30 am, and I am leaving on a jet plane...USA bound!!! :0)

Using a mixture of Facebook Advertising and a solid content schedule is making Facebook Pages the new killer electronic direct marketing solution for a number of brands. I have just been working on growing the Grinspoon Facebook Page. Using a smart advertising and content schedule, I was able to grow the Page by 8,000 fans in 20 days.

The following are four reasons why most brands should change to a Facebook Page EDM strategy on the proviso their target market are there.

1. Recruitment
The recent Facebook Advertising Page upgrade have made it a very effective recruitment model, they now allow you to create Facebook Ads, with a ‘one click become a fan button’ functionality.

2. News Feed
Pages have now been upgraded so that you can update straight to fans news feed via a status updates.

3. Insights
When were you able to pull insights off the back end of your email database which gave you breakdowns of your audience like Facebook Insights?

4. One click subscription
If you did get insights like this, then you probably made them enter a number of fields and not just a one click subscribe button.

Fall is in the air in Northern Illinois. School is in session, football season is upon us and fall activities are filling up weekends fast!

Ashley Chang has achieved a lot in 22 years. He has run the successful club night WolfGang in Bribane, has been a contributor for Dazed and Confused and a DJ (Audio Arrest). Currently he is the full time Editorial Co-Ordinator for PedestrianTV and in his spare time he's Co Producing the Sydney Bicycle Film Festival.

What makes for entertaining content online? Examples?
As a general rule of thumb any content that I view should either entertain or educate when stripped of all auxiliary marketing messages.
Video content is preferable because (in our time-starved starved society) it’s easy to digest and even easier to pass on.

Do you have a method for selecting what you publish/produce on Pedestrian?
Relevance. If the content will appeal to our audience I will post it.
Timeliness. Fresh content includes things such as new music videos, new film trailers or new fashion collections.
Visual Appeal. People digest information visually

Nuggets of gold that you have learnt from your post analysis
Posts with skin appeal to both men and women, are susceptible to re-blogging, rank highly
Video content also increases onsite time because people can’t “skim”.
Branded content stuff a major learning from the Sprite Truth Hunters video content was to target existing sub-cultures eg. Clubbing culture, skateboarding culture.