Debbie loves Grand Union Pub at The Forum Shops on Military Cutoff Road – Went to Grand Union Pub Saturday night for dinner and was delighted with the decor, the food and the huge, circular bar. The interior has been completely transformed with sky high ceilings, warm woods and exposed brick. The extensive beer selection of tap and bottled brews will satisfy beer aficionados. The veggie burger and sweet potatoe fries were great and the price was right. I will return often.

Shawn loves Trivial Pursuit’s new campaign which pits males against females – That usually never turns out well for anyone involved. But this is actually a great playful campaign complete with a hysterical video showing men and women caught in the act of stupidity as well as an interactive Web site. After logging on to defend my gender I got a little nervous with my first two wrong answers, but then I hit a winning streak and decided to call it a day. I did my part to defend the intellegience intelligence of men all around the world.

Susan loves the “Dislike” addon for Facebook – some days your friends post something on Facebook that really makes you wonder where the Dislike button is. Like, say if they cancel plans with you at the last minute, you want to be able to show your displeasure. But all Facebook will let you do it “like” it. Well now, my snarky friends, thanks to Firefox there is an addon that you can use that will squeeze a “Dislike” option into your newsfeed. The only caveat, your friends must have the addon too in order to see your justified thumbs-down opinion.

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More and more companies are embracing Facebook by creating a unique Facebook Page for their company on the 320+ million user social networking giant. The increasing adoption of Facebook for companies should come as no surprise as Facebook is reporting approximately 500,000 new users signup for their social network daily. The challenge, of course, is once you start a Page, how do you get more fans? Fans, after all, are what make having a page worth it, and give companies the opportunity to begin to engage new clients. We’ve put together a list of the 5 most common ways companies are growing the number of fans they have.

1) Giving away freebies for participation

Restaurants have been particularly aggressive with the idea of the “food for fans” model, as Outback Steakhouse, Whole Foods, Starbucks and many others are offering free food for becoming a fan. Contests have proven to be another great way to use free products or services in a more conservative manner to pull in new fans.

2) Exclusive content

Making your fans feel special and involved is a big piece of the engagement puzzle. When your fans become involved, this explodes the viral potential of your Page. Every comment, like, or post has the potential to show your Page to all of your fans friends. Exclusive content lets fans know they’re not just part of another marketing message. BestBuy and The Office do a great job of this.

3) Make your page a resource

Give your current customers a reason to keep coming back to your page and they will be more inclined to share your Page with their friends. When you create a Page that adds legitimate value to its fans, like Harris Teeter offering coupons and nutritional information.

4) Add your Facebook Page address to all communications

We know. It sounds simple and silly but you would be surprised how much adding your Page URL to e-mail and other customer communication messaging can help boost your fan numbers, giving you even more opportunity to communicate with them.

5) Buy your fans

It’s not as altruistic as the other ways to get fans on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t as effective. Facebook allows you to run an “ad” that can be targeted to very specific demographics with very specific interests. What’s more, you can run ads on Facebook that are specific to building your fans, placing a “become a fan” link in the ad itself.

These certainly aren’t the only ways to improve the number of Facebook fans you have. Have you experimented with any other methods? Share in the comments!

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Facebook, FarmVille and MySpace aren’t just for generation Y users anymore. A recent CNN article, “Social networks and kids: how young is too young?”, explores a social-networking trend among a much younger generation. Studies have shown that joining these sites at such an early age can lead to Internet addiction and could damage children’s relationships and brains. Since technology is at its peak children have become accustomed to computers, cell phones, and the internet. Most of these children are on social networking sites to communicate with friends but a small number abuse these privileges. Now children are growing up in an era where at age 10 they can’t live with out their cell phone. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that these same children are joining sites that are intended for a much older generation. Although most sites require users to be at least 13 there is no way to validate their ages. A growing number of children are signing on to these sites, which leads me to the question: How safe are they?

Technology is everywhere so banning it isn’t the answer. But adult supervision and sites with limited functions can help kids use these sites in an age-appropriate way. I don’t necessarily agree with Facebook and MySpace being used at such a young age, however, there are some sites that are “kid friendly.” Disney offers Club Penguin and the hugely popular Webkinz, which are both ad-free and offer safe chat features for kids to connect online.

You are never to old to join the world of social networking sites. But in my opinion, Facebook at age 5 is definitely too young.

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Debbie loves holiday catalogs – And much to my delight, the annual onslaught of holiday catalogs is in full swing. I enjoy leafing through the holiday editions of Pottery Barn, LLBean, PetsUSA and Sundance. I rarely order by phone and do most transactions online, but the catalog is the marketing catalyst that drives me online. So contrary to what some marketers will espouse, traditional catalogs are still an effective sales tool. So bring on the catalogs. I’m ready to start shopping and collecting creative gift ideas!

Nathan loves the triangle roll – If you’re in Wilmington and haven’t been to Hiro’s Steakhouse near Racine, during the business week they have half dollar sushi until 7pm. Try the triangle roll. It’s seriously the most odd sounding yet most delicious tasting sushi roll ever. It’s a combination of something like pineapple and mango and other amazing flavors. Yes, it probably has sushi makers of old rolling over in their grave, but it’s amazing. I’ll be honest. The first time you try it, you’ll be confused. You will probably order some other sushi rolls. Then, after about 20 minutes, the absolute deliciousness will hit you… and you’ll have a new favorite.

Susan loves NaNoWriMo – November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal: write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. That boils down to 1,667 words a day. My novel is a tale of  sisters, cupcakes. Oh yeah, and a little about love. To help keep me motivated to reach my goals, I follow #nanowrimo on Twitter to connect with other writers who are on this insane journey with me. I also loaded the NaNoWriMo app on Facebook, which posts my word count to my wall when I update the official tally on the NaNoWriMo site. After the first 3 days I’m at 7,122 and counting!

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With more than 300 million active users, Facebook is a marketing force unto its own. Savvy business people are using Facebook strategically to build their brands and drive sales. Facebook fan pages attract more than 10 million users each day. To learn how you can use Facebook to help grow your business, register today for our free, one-hour webinar entitled “Facebook 101″ to be held at noon on Thursday, November 19. And to learn more about Talk, visit our Facebook fan page

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What’s the difference between the “News Feed” and the “Live Feed”?

I am not surprised so many people are confused by this nomenclature for the two feeds since the feeds are storing the same kinds of information - news, status updates, links being shared, photos, and so forth. The difference, though, is that the Live Feed is only showing you a stream of information that was just shared, hence live, whereas the News Feed has replaced the Highlights section, showing you only those stories that Facebook thinks you might find Newsworthy*. This means the Live Feed is really by-the-minute, whereas the News Feed could be anything over the past week.

*For those who are extra-curious, the News Feed determines “newsworthy” stories to put into your feed based on an internal Facebook algorithm. For those particularly astute with the web, you, like me, may consider this a big change as it is beginning to put an algorithm for popularity more front-and-center for users. This type of algorithm is just what birthed search engine optimization specialists for Google.

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As you may or may not have heard, Yahoo’s “Hack Day” in Taiwan made headlines, but not for any innovative code. The event was supposed to be about developers designing Web apps in 24 hours, but it was the sideshow that caught the Web’s attention.

As an apparent “gift” to the developers, Yahoo hired lap dancers as entertainment. Certainly a large part of these events is to garner publicity, but the caveat that Yahoo seems to have overlooked is that said publicity should be positive!

Performing a Yahoo news search for “Yahoo Hack Day” almost exclusively returns articles penned by irate authors. The only exceptions were written before the actual event, or mentioned Hack Day as a side note. Chris Yeh, head of the Yahoo Developer Network, has issued an apology through the YDN blog, simply titled, “Sorry,” which acknowledges wrong-doing but offers little to better the situation. The first comment counters, “this is tradition as opposed to an aberration,” noting that Yahoo hired similar girls for last year’s Hack Day as well.

In Kara Swisher’s scathing analysis, she writes, “it is not clear why all the thumpa-thumpa music and dancing gals did not engender complaints last year.” This leads me to question how large a role did the groundswell play in making this a newsworthy story?

My takeaway? In today’s world, regardless of your immediate audience, you must always be aware that your actions are likely (definitely in Yahoo’s case) to be seen by global audiences. As a global company, Yahoo needed to recognize this, and act more appropriately. Let’s see what entertainment developers are welcomed with next year.

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Watch Talk’s Past Webinars

Social Networking 101 - How to stimulate word of mouth buzz about your company using social media

SEO or SOS - Search Engine Optimization Basics

Blogging 101 - Using a blog to grow your business, one post at a time.

Local SEO - Use the internet to generate leads for your local business

Business Is Personal - Examining and building the brand called “You”

Crisis Management - Avoid A Crisis By Planning For One

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One disgruntled Starcom employee however, apparently decided that speaking his mind was worth it, regardless of the consequences. While you will almost certainly sympathize with at least some of his note, perhaps most of it even, the point is that if you will ever be seeking employment again, it’s probably best not to burn those bridges.

Funny? Sure. Treating your career like a joke? You decide.

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Monday’s at Talk mean staff meetings! I would venture to say that most employees do not get as excited as I do about these weekly gatherings. Call me crazy…but I look forward to them and even enjoy them! At Talk, these meetings give me insight into how a public relations, Internet marketing and web design company works. Though they are different they must all work together to make a successful business.

We use public relations to raise awareness about a new client. Whether they have a new logo or just launched a website, it’s our job to use PR to make the public aware of these new changes. Since I started at Talk, I have been thinking a lot about which aspect of the industry I like the best and which one I would be good at. So far, my favorite is the public relations part of Talk. I am not creative like Shawn so that immediately eliminates graphic design (I wish I was though!). And I am Internet savvy, but certainly not to the extent that Nathan is. So, I guess it is a good thing that I enjoy public relations as much as I do!

I enjoy writing so drafting press releases and media pitches is fun and comes naturally to me. I think press conferences are exhilarating and I love helping clients get their voices heard throughout the community. And the learning experience is far from over. I think I have finally decided on a profession that is the perfect fit for me!

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