Facebook for Branding

As a public affairs officer, I live and die by the power and force of Facebook.

This enormously popular and powerful social media site is where I maintain connections with many of my friends and professional colleagues, many of them I have not seen or heard from in years.

That is why I am stunned when I stumble upon colleagues in this business who refuse to "jump onto the facebook bandwagon."

I also heard from some, that they will just wait to join when they are ready.  But social media is not like the rest of the internet.  If you don't join now, you'll just have a lot more to catch up when you finally do.  Who has the most amount of friends on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, etc.  It's not like the internet, where you can just buy friends. They come with time so you better be online now gathering them, and quality ones I might add.  Frankly, social media marketing is getting harder and harder every day.   The internet replaced door-to-door, but tomorrow, door-to-door social media marketing will surely return. Just you wait and see.

It was not until early last year that I also enlisted in the social media army.

For the longest time, I resisted because I personally saw my roommate waste an inordinate amount of time on MySpace chatting with old friends or even internet friends they never met.

So at first, I was under the impression that Facebook is mainly for socializing, and since my time was my most precious commodity, I didn't want to necessarily donate it to Cyberspace.

So upon persistent urging from a fellow public affairs officer, I jumped in with both feet, ready to find old friends, read about some of their elegant lifestyles and browse through pictures of their kids on summer break.


A Lifesaver at Cocktail Parties

And Facebook has been the Superhero on Steroids, since there are many occasions when during a social event, I remember a face, yet I've forgotten a name of a friend.

That's when I make a quick detour to the restroom or bar...

Come Facebook Aps to the rescue and within miliseconds, I am able to retrieve that bit of crucial, embarrassment-saving info as well as names of all his (also embraces "her") children and what they did last summer in Nantucket.

Lately, I have discovered that this respected social media site is not mainly for socializing, but for collaboration and project management.

I love to share some of my ideas and stories with trusted friends and colleagues as well as read up about some of their initiatives that they proudly post on their walls.


Don't forget your Pictures and your Profile

Facebook is arguably the most important resource for building your brand -- a concept that may seem foreign to many, not in this business.

After all, not everyone is in the public affairs/marketing business or may not be selling a service or product.

Nevertheless, in this modern age of ubiquitous social media, almost everyone needs to develop and refine his/her brand.

We can't help it.  Every time we walk outside the house in your designer blue jeans or even go out for a run, with the distinctive Champion "C" and the Nike swoosh, you are making a statement for a brand. Many services company today, like this website, owns absolutely nothing.  Everything is accessed via the Cloud or rented.  The only thing we own is people, brains, talent and ideas.  Our branding is the way to communicate those ideas.

That brand should encapsulate who you are, what you like to do and what is important for the rest of us to know about you -- a topic that I personally can't wait to explore on a subsequent post.