I’ve had a little play with Facebook’s Rooms app this morning. It’s pretty simple to setup and add some fun customisations – creating your own Like button graphic, setting up moderation off the bat etc.
Obviously the big discussion point has been around users being able to sit behind a nickname, rather than using a real name, as required by Facebook itself.
However, what caught my eye was the entry mechanic to a “Room” – with a cheeky little QR-code dropped into the invite. Will this return the QR code to the mainstream… ok probably not, but it will be interesting to see how “invites” appear both around the Internet and also offline. In the Help section of the app it indeed refers to invites being “printed out on paper”. Will they appear in shop windows, secretly inserted into publications… only visible on Google Earth…
(If we see one, we’ll definitely add it to our OfflineSocial Instagram feed).
Backpack Diaries – the first room we entered
So how might brands use this new platform? (social media managers frantically scribbling on their “investigate” list under “get Ello invite”)
Good question.
The tone and style of the whole thing feels quite fun, so a standard branded approach doesn’t sound very applicable, although I think we might see some nice brand stunts appearing.
However, longer term, will social listening tools be able to search through “open” Rooms? Will it become just another place for brands teams to key an eye on?