Thanks to our fish-loving video guy, Doug, Willow now has an office pet. We’re open to ideas for his (or her) name. Welcome home little beta!

From my office window

Desk that awaits me

This is what I’m looking at today, what about you?

With so much commotion around the office today, it appears not all of the  Shrubs commented on the Willow White Board question. This means we need your input. What is your advertising super-hero name? Let’s hear it!

According to Facebook’s own statistics there are:

* More than 500 million active users on Facebook
* 50% of Facebook’s active users log on to Facebook in any given day
* The average user has 130 friends
* People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

* There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)
* The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
* The average user creates 90 pieces of content each month
* More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month

With so many users it is no wonder that social networking is at the forefront of many discussions about marketing.  Marketers see the value of using social networking sites, but many struggle with how to use it appropriately.

Three years ago, I couldn’t be found on any social networking site.  Like many of my friends, I am now an active user on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.  Like Facebook’s average user, I’m connected to a number of community pages, groups and events and I receive updates and messages from many of them.

But if networking is synonymous with meeting people, making contact, exchanging ideas, and interacting then why is it that so many marketers use social networking sites not as an opportunity to interact with users, but instead to shout their spiel through a megaphone, with no intent to listen to anything that could be said to them?

I recently had the opportunity to hear Chris Forbes, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Nonprofits, talk about the use of social media in marketing, specifically the way to grow your following/friends.  What I heard is that you have to interact.  My crude drawing was scribbled on my note pad during his presentation.  Proportionally these four areas represent the number of times you need to Participate, Network, Share, and Create. Take a look at the companies and organizations that you follow/fan/are friends with.  Do they participate by commenting on their friends/fans posts, pictures, etc.? Do they network by reaching out to similar organizations or people with similar interests or causes? Do they share interesting news, articles, blog posts with you? Do they create interesting content of their own? I believe that Facebook and other social networking sites can be effective for marketers, but they still have to be used for the intended purpose: to network.  I want to know the companies/organizations that are great at interacting.  If you have examples share them with us.

I’m a slow, fast person.  Hermes with a turtle shell. There’s never a week that goes by where I’m not wowed by something new I haven’t found out about yet, but really feel like I should have known. I try to keep up on the latest and greatest but there’s so much awesome at times it’s hard to keep up. For instance, just two weeks ago I finally watched the Double Rainbow video on YouTube. And speaking of rainbows (this is called a segway people) I recently discovered that you can import Kuler colors directly into InDesign. For those of you unaware of the magic of Kuler you need to check it out, www.kuler.com. I’ve been aware of it’s funktacular goodness for a while now but didn’t know it was so easily available through InDesign. Having found this out I quickly ran throughout the creative department singing it’s praises. When I got to the web department I notified them as well of my miraculous discovery. Ed wasn’t very impressed. He simply stated, “You didn’t know about that? I’ve known that for a while.” It should be noted, Ed doesn’t even use InDesign . . . what a failure I am.

What things have you been late to the party to?