Debbie loves Stumble Upon – It’s yet another social media site that enables you to stumble upon web sites that match your interests. Fill in your profile, upload Stumble into your toolbar, and voila! You can stumble around the Internet from site to site and discover sites you may have never come upon otherwise. Like the site featuring photos of a baby kangaroo or an article on identifying key phrases for your web site SEO that I can actually understand!
Holly loves Jon and Kate Plus 8 – The cute and unusually large family includes a set of twins and sextuplets that never fail to put on a show. As parents of these rambunctious toddlers, Jon and Kate have learned to maximize their marketability in order to score cool stuff for their family. The show features the Gosselin kids sporting Crocs sandals, staying at enormous ski lodges and reading the Tale of Despereaux, all free of charge. By allowing sponsored items to appear in their home and on their show, marketers are getting the attention of millions of viewers and the Gosselins are getting way more than the average family of 10!
Kelly loves Clark Sorenson’s vintage flower urinals – For those obsessed with flowers, gardening and bathroom fixtures, for just $6,000 to $10,000, now you can have all three in a fantastic and realistic porcelain wall urinal. Imagine your guests delight-and surprise-upon entering your bathroom! While I wouldn’t have one in my own house, I personally think they are far too pretty to actually use!
Kirsty loves CNN.com Live with Facebook for the Inauguration – This historical event was made even more historical with the use of social media to connect Americans, from coast to coast. This event really showcased TV networks and newspapers’ ability to build interactive platforms to engage their audience.
Shawn loves Al Roker scoring the very first Presidential interview – Watching the Inauguration events unfold was a great way to spend my mini snow day. I laughed, I cheered and even cried a few times. But my favorite moment by far was weatherman Al Roker’s tongue in cheek “interview” with our new President.
Susan loves Doritos’ Crash The Super Bowl contest – The cheddar-cheese-chip-maker seems to have struck gold with fan-made commercials. For the third Super Bowl in a row, Doritos will run a commercial concepted, created and produced by fans. And from the few I’ve watched online, the entries this year appear to be agency-worthy. I cannot wait to see which spot wins the coveted spot in the big game!
It is quite obvious that Talk isn’t as big as Tampa Bay & Co., and our Talkies event is only a fraction of the size of the Super Bowl, but despite these apparent differences, both companies are implementing the same tactics to get the word out about their event. As the host of the 2009 Super Bowl, Tampa Bay is helping visitors find information about the city and the big game on their blog at VisitTampaBay.com/blog. Similarly, Talk has been blogging like crazy on TalkIncBlog.com, discussing everything related to Super Bowl ads, which is the focus of the 2nd Annual Talkies Awards. If reading blogs takes too much time, event goers can check out the latest info in 140 characters on Twitter, where both companies have been tweeting away. Finally, Tampa Bay and Talk have Facebook pages where fans can find anything and everything they’re looking for from event times, blog links, Twitter links, photos and more. The moral of the story is that no matter your size, social media is adaptable and useful and all companies should take advantage of this virtually free resource.
A January 26 
