One of the coolest things about working in social is getting phone calls from clients that allow you to geek out on really awesome new sh!t.That’s why when Paramount calls with a request for you to produce a Facebook 360 video to promote the final installment of Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension, you may or may not squeal with excitement and pull out all the stops to make it happen.It should also be noted that this 360 video is the final piece of content that will ever come from the revered horror franchise, so we needed to give it a proper, ghostly disappearance…er sendoff.The video shows a group of teenagers breaking into the abandoned garage of the original Paranormal Activity house. Filled with the dusty remnants of the franchise’s victims, the kids use the garage for a séance in an attempt to experience the paranormal. Things take a quick turn for the deadly.Click on the video below to check it out for yourself. Best seen on tablet or your phone. If you are on desktop, click and drag from left to right to get the full 360-degree experience. NOTE: 360 videos aren’t viewable on Safari or Internet Explorer.

360 Degree Paranormal Activity SeanceContacting the dead is never a good idea - unless you record it on a 360-degree camera.Posted by IGN on Tuesday, December 15, 2015 

Our team endeavored to make this a truly immersive, interactive VR experience that touched on the film’s themes, and included plenty of “Easter eggs” for the viewer to discover. With surprises, frights and delights coming from all angles, viewers are enticed to engage in repeat viewings. As of mid-January, the video has been watched more than one million times.

As a fun, strategic twist, we decided to cast social influencers and fans of Paranormal Activity to star in the video. The cross promotion coming from the influencers helped us to expand our reach and social prominence. We also partnered with gaming and entertainment behemoth IGN to further amplify distribution.Facebook 360, which was initially only available for testing to major brands and publishers, is now available to anyone looking to dabble in VR. And let us just say, if there is any experiential element to your brand or story whatsoever, you better get to dabbling.From places you want to go, to things you want to see or know, the possibilities are truly remarkable. Facebook 360 allows you to become fully immersed in news, brand experiences, entertainment, sports, travel and live events like never before. And it’s just the beginning.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.

Our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide provides the What, Why and How to succeed this year, with a look at the Three Core Pillars of Social Media - Data, Creative & Amplification.Here are some specific topics that we cover:• How Small Data trumps Big Data• Why First Party Data is critical today• Why building your Archetypes is essential• What Shiny New Things you will need this year to survive• What 7 out of 10 brands lack when it comes to community management• Why 2016 is more about Story Starting than just Storytelling

“Content is king” is the most overused, generic statement used in the business of social today. What is Content the king of, exactly? Was this “Content” democratically elected as the ruler or is Content a patriarchal monarchy, or even worse – a ceremonious figure for a larger republic? It’s bland, lazy thinking to say “Content is king” and then sit back in your chair like you just nailed Coke’s new social strategy.I'm aware of just how important video is on both Facebook and Instagram. But, what I like about Facebook’s most recent foray into 360 degree video is that it stops that kind of babble in its tracks. To shoot a 360 video you need hands-on expertise, and incredible amount of planning and, of course, you need to know your way around a video camera. Actually, you’re going to have to be able to navigate six video cameras. That are locked together. And you'll need to know how to use immersive sound. And have the editing capabilities to build a virtual reality narrative. Honestly, I could go on for hours.It’s certainly not the most egalitarian product they’ve ever released, but it does an excellent job of separating the big kids from the talkers when it comes to creative agencies.All of that work is so worth it, too. Just browse this page briefly. How cool is that? You can click anywhere and fully immerse yourself in a video experience from every angle. What brand wouldn’t want something that tactile to digitally represent themselves?The Star Wars 360 example is by far the most famous to date, and rightfully so. But I love the potential that Showtime’s boxing video showed – intent on communicating atmosphere and experience. This is the problem with selfie and selfie culture – they’re an attempt to document a singular moment. The potential for 360 video is to take that an enormous and more interesting step further in communicating everything that's happening during a particular experience.Time lapse and cinemagraphs were a big hit in 2015, but 360 video is poised to be the “it” creative execution in 2016. Shiny new things are always exciting, and more and more brands are flocking to this type of experience. Facebook is certainly paving the way by broadly releasing an ad unit that supports this video type in Q1 of 2016. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of this technology as it begins to appear more in the news feed, but one thing is for certain, 360 video is going to be a game changer.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.

Instagram ads, to quote my favorite movie, are so hot right now. Like a club that had long been closed to the public and then suddenly dropped its velvet rope, brands are flocking to the platform. Now that there is some benchmarking data to work with, the question is…how is it performing?For the purpose of this article we’re just going to talk about 15 second videos. We have the most data on that ad type, and it’s easier to compare apples to apples. You hear that, trolls?CostI’ve read some articles about about how “Instagram is 2X the cost per view as Facebook” and yes, that’s true. But, in reality we’re talking about a 2-3 cent jump in cost per view. Nothing even close to being cost obstructive. Facebook typically comes in at $.02 to $.03 cost per view (assuming there is no crazy targeting). Instagram ranges in the $.04 to $.06. Both offer a value for video that is essentially unmatched in display.Quality of ViewThis is becoming a bigger and bigger deal as auto play progresses. If every social video buy is automatically incredibly cost efficient, how do you mark quality?To answer that question, we’ve been looking at video completions and average percent of video viewed. In this respect, Instagram is actually outpacing Facebook. For 15 second videos we typically see an average percent viewed of roughly 60% - about 8 seconds. Instagram absolutely destroys that with the 11 second average we’re seeing internally. That’s only a 3 second difference, but it’s not a negligible number. Three seconds in a social video can be the difference between your user understanding your narrative or only seeing a fraction of it, making your message moot.That’s not to say that Facebook is a low quality view – especially given its capability to support full length movie trailers. But in the context of this short snippet, Instagram does an excellent job of proving why it’s worth a few extra pennies per view.User ExperienceThis is where Instagram really does an excellent job. The video takes up a huge share of the screen so it’s easy to see why people are watching longer – there is less in their experience to distract them.Facebook goes a different direction, you’re going to share the screen with other content, but if a viewer prefers a more immersive viewing experience, full screen options are available. This is why Facebook and Instagram have similar completion rates (both ranging from 20% to 30%). At the end of the day, don’t get me wrong. I really like both. It’s like being asked to choose between my kids - it’s basically impossible to pick a winner. Unless one of my kids becomes really good at basketball, then it’s essentially a no brainer. Hit that three, Jake, Jr.Both platforms bring a unique video experience to the table, share targeting, and provide the most efficient digital video buy available right now. You honestly can’t go wrong with either.Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.

As a visual communicator, I’m always looking for different ways to tell a story. And as a photographer, I’ve always been drawn to the way time plays a role in imagery.

An image could be a split second, freezing time at just the right moment in what photographers call “The Decisive Moment”. Take Bresson Henri Cartier’s images above for example. The moments he decides to capture incorporate a moment of tension, which forces viewers to think beyond the image, not just what’s on the surface.

An image could also pack longer moments into a single frame, by exposing for much longer than a split second. This can be used for a variety of reasons, such as showing the path of stars as the earth rotates, or the passing of cars in front of your restaurant. It can help to create a sense of time passing, a sense of movement, and something eye-catching that people can't see without the use of a camera.

City of Angels Timelapse from Geoff Roseborough on Vimeo

But sometimes an image isn’t the right way to tell a specific story. When I first moved to Los Angeles, I wanted to give myself a project to get to know a part of this city, while exploring one of the first things to catch my eye: Downtown LA’s skyline. I knew right away that a timelapse video would be the perfect way to represent the energy and life of DTLA’s busy streets against its beautiful buildings. By juxtaposing timelapse footage of movement with subtle pans and zooms focused towards the architecture, the two elements begin to emphasize one another.There’s plenty of real-world applications for timelapse work for brands to tell their stories, especially with a platform like Instagram where you’ve only got 15 seconds to tell your story. The North Face provided a great example of this a year ago at the 2014 Ultra-Trail Du Mont-Blanc. The key for making a timelapse work in 15 seconds is to maintain focus and clarity. In this video, The North Face kept its video to only three elements: an opening frame to set context, the length of the line (which is where the timelapse really comes into play) and then a momentary pause at the end on a single person, which helps re-humanize the video since changing video speeds can become disorienting at times.

A video posted by The North Face (@thenorthface) on Aug 27, 2014 at 1:33pm PDT

Another great example comes from The White House, which used this technique to jam-pack a White House tour into 15 seconds. They were smart and paused in each room for a moment, but all the inbetween moments moving from one room to the next can easily be sped up without losing anything important. That said, leaving them in the video makes more sense than cutting them out entirely. They act as transitions and help viewers make the connection that we’re taking a tour of the White House, whereas just cutting together a single image from each room wouldn’t have that same effect.

Want to walk around the White House? Take a 15-second tour right now! #Hyperlapse A video posted by The White House (@whitehouse) on Aug 27, 2014 at 6:38pm PDT

My final example, comes from the opening weekend of The Village at Westfield Topanga. The opening weekend was packed full of events, workshops, food, and of course new stores. They sent Socialtyze out to help document the weekend and share all the fun on their social channels, and one of the best ways for us to do that was to capture a short video of all the excitement. So we went out into the crowds with a Go-Pro, capturing second long clips of all the events, stores, and little details in the shopping center, and cut them all together with music that matched the tone and pace of the day. It was low on production needs, fairly simple to do, and in the end, painted a great picture of what the day was like for everyone there.

Want more tips and tricks for how to dominate social this year with Data, Creative and Amplification? Download our 2016 Social Media Survival Guide.