May16

Client Banner Days That Click

Posted by Gary Duffy from Ogilvy CommonHealth Medical Marketing - Parsippany, NJ

By Gary Duffy from Ogilvy CommonHealth Medical Marketing - Parsippany, NJ | Published: May 16, 2013

banner-day-1This past Saturday, the Mets held their annual Banner Day at Citi Field—a one-day event that gives baseball fans a chance to express their loyalty, appreciation and creativity to their beloved ball club using homemade banners. Fortuitous for the Mets’ brass that the banner parade was held on the field before the game, as the Mets were mercilessly plundered by the Pirates 11-2.  I can only imagine what season ticket holder “Vinny from Queens” would have expressed with a bed sheet and some spray paint after the less than amazin’ performance.

In our business, and unlike the Mets’ fan base, we have the good fortune of being able to celebrate and show appreciation for our clients’ performance beyond just one banner day a year. In fact we have many.

As their partners, we help our clients thrive amidst the daily pressures and demands of making a brand meaningful, and we contribute to those amazing banner day moments. A successful product launch, an engaging and effective RM program, a new brand campaign and website, a motivating and memorable workshop  or convention, a positive sales quarter, or a brand team member promotion are all opportunities to keep our creative juices flowing and to let our client appreciation banner fly.

Rather than judiciously yet unceremoniously checking the “job well done” box then moving on to the next task, is there an opportunity to turn each milestone into a celebratory and defining moment for you and the client? And why do it at all?

Many of our clients have joined the marketing ranks after a successful stint in sales, where they were driven by incentives while showered with frequent tokens of appreciation and recognition, including for some, President’s Club, honoring the uber-performers with VIP getaways to sun-splashed resorts.

What’s the motivation and where is the recognition once they get into marketing? We can do our part and partially fill that void with client banner days. Each time the client achieves something special, there’s an opportunity to recognize and celebrate it with an agency-made token of appreciation. Let them know how much you care about them and their accomplishments. It gives us a chance to prove that our creativity extends beyond what’s stated in the brief to something more personable. It’s an endearing touch point that can enhance a relationship. And unlike the Mets, it only takes a little effort to get amazin’ results.

If you’re interested in learning more about how we have celebrated client banner days, please contact me at gary.duffy@ogilvy.com.

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May14

Is There Good Karma in Advertising?

Posted by Gabriel Fernandez-Obregon from Ogilvy CommonHealth - Parsippany, North America

By Gabriel Fernandez-Obregon from Ogilvy CommonHealth - Parsippany, North America | Published: May 14, 2013

buddhaSo much of what we do throughout our careers is interesting…but is it inspiring? Well, we found out recently when the knowledge and information we’ve been exposed to through client work helped me and my wife conceive of and create something entirely new and unexpected. Using the skills we’ve honed while working at ad agencies, my wife and I recently came up with the idea for an iPhone app that aims to improve the world by promoting small changes in daily actions. Basically, we asked the question: what can we do using our advertising knowledge to help make the world a better place? That was the question. “Karmasation” was the answer.

Karmasation, the app we’ve created, is what we somewhat jokingly call an anti-social network. People can post their actions, thoughts, and experiences anonymously and get feedback about whether they deserve good or bad karma. Because users maintain anonymity within Karmasation, they can post honestly. They aren’t speaking to people who know them through various social interactions (as they would on Facebook and Twitter), they’re just speaking to a community of people. Human to human.

The tie-in to social networks, though, comes into play with the idea of gamification, a subject about which we’ve frequently engaged our respective clients. As users participate in Karmasation, they accrue a Karma Profile. Users can simply compete against themselves, or they can share their profiles, posts, and results with Facebook and Twitter to create somewhat of a competition to see who can earn the best karma.

So what type of advertising knowledge were we able to apply while creating the app? And how did that learning continue with Karmasation?
1) The Devil is in the Digital Design. As we’ve worked on different digital platforms for our clients, we’ve learned a bit about clean design and user interaction. Combining that knowledge with being iPhone users ourselves, we had an idea of what would work within the iPhone platform. Are we still learning? Of course! But through our work on our app, we’ve gained a broader understanding of user interaction. We now have a better handle on how users might prefer digital platforms to react and function—not just from an art or copy perspective—but from an overall experience.

2) Bravo for Beta Testing. Again, with the digital platforms we’ve worked on comes testing. The first time my wife worked on a digital presentation, her project manager told her to try and “break it.” And “break it” we did, because before putting an app out there you want to make sure you’ve covered every scenario—not just how you’d use it but also how anyone else might. Because our app has more possible combinations of actions than other projects we’ve worked on, we’ve learned the importance of testing in a systematic way with a greater attention to detail. We also found that as we progressed through the rounds of beta testing, we learned ways to better communicate issues we were finding with our developers. Clear communication between team members who understand different aspects of a project is crucial to getting any problems fixed.

3) The Process of Promotion. The obvious one since we’re in advertising. But this time, we are both the agency and the client. Deciding on your own strategy can sometimes be difficult, and as a result, we now have an added sense of respect for our clients. We continue to work daily to find ways to better promote our app so that more people can know, use and enjoy it.

As we continue with Karmasation and our jobs in advertising, we’ve learned from each experience and have already seen how we can apply our learnings from one circumstance to the other. Like karma, what comes around goes around. And in this case, we’d call it good karma!

 

 

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Apr23

Finding the Right Balance

Posted by Kristen Giordano from Ogilvy CommonHealth - Parsippany, North America

By Kristen Giordano from Ogilvy CommonHealth - Parsippany, North America | Published: April 23, 2013

PaperOne day, you wake up and you are an Art Director. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, you have the Icona Pop song stuck in your head. You realize that you are exactly where you want to be—in the middle. Some people may want to be a little to the right or a little to the left, but I personally like to have my cake and eat it too. I started out my career with a big slice of interactive pie. For the past 4 years, I have worked for Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide’s NJ-based interactive marketing group. My key role was to work on various interactive projects (websites, iPads, banners, e-mails). I learned so much from my amazing co-workers. Some of them have left to find a different path in their design careers, but I still hold them all close to my heart. I will never forget the teachings of those from my past.

Today is a new day. I am pulling the cobwebs out of my brain and refreshing myself to the world where I began: PRINT! I went to college at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. I remember spending my grocery money on expensive paper for my design projects. There is nothing better than walking down the north side of 18th Street toward 6th Avenue to Paper Presentations and then spending an hour feeling textured paper. I can still smell it. (Everyone close your eyes and smell the paper with me). In college, I mostly studied print. We all need to acknowledge and appreciate where we came from, because it made us into the designers we are today. Over the past few years, I have been lucky to help out with some print projects. I have been moving back and forth between print and digital for years now.

My new role as an Art Director for a women’s health client is like sunshine on a cloudy day. I am lucky enough to be working on both print and interactive design. For this particular project, we are working with another multimedia agency, located in NYC. My Art Director partner and I do a lot of traveling back and forth from New York to Jersey. Our collaborators hold most of the digital work, but now that I’m in town, we are bringing some of the interactive work to New Jersey, Ogilvy style (not to be confused with Gangnam Style). As we all know, it is hard to be the new kid on the block, and the agency has a wonderful, tight-knit interactive team. The more that I go there, the more I feel like a member of the design gang. The other day, the SVP Creative Director gave me an e-mail design test. He threw me some copy and a logo and let me at it. I came up with a few concepts that I felt confident about. When I met up with him the other day, we discussed the designs and it turns out that he really liked them. He said that they had a good balance of design and easy development. I couldn’t have been happier! It is always an exciting feeling when someone has seen your work for the first time. Each time is like a new chapter in your life, another page has turned where you get to prove yourself.

I think we all need to achieve a good balance of interactive and print. Most of us come from a print past and we need to look to the digital future. Print isn’t going anywhere. I still love paper, drawing in my sketchbook, and cutting things up with scissors. We also need to embrace the technology ahead of us. There is a lot of fun, innovative work coming our way and we all need to get excited about it! Let’s all strive for balance, because that is where we will be strongest!

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Mar4

Catch Us if You Can: Part 2

Posted by Courtney Kober from Ogilvy CommonHealth Wellness Marketing, North America

By Courtney Kober from Ogilvy CommonHealth Wellness Marketing, North America | Published: March 4, 2013

photo 2_m and CCo-authored by Maria Colicchio and Courtney Kober from Ogilvy CommonHealth Wellness Marketing – Parsippany, NJ

As you may have read in our first blog post, seen here, Millennials are taking the world by storm. We’re becoming a prevalent force and we’re shaking things up! Our behaviors and habits may be different from those of other generations, but we’re eager to contribute in a positive way—just give us a chance.

Read on to learn even more about the mystifying Millennial generation as well as to see how you can attend a panel of executives, marketers and media mavens discussing Navigating Today’s Multi-Generational Workplace, hosted at our very own Ogilvy & Mather Chocolate Factory in New York.

Health & Wellness

  • Healthy enough. In general, Millennials haven’t yet reached the lifestage where their health is affected by issues/conditions that older generations may be currently facing. As a result, we’re less likely to frequent our physician’s office and may only go if we really feel under the weather. Online diagnoses play a huge role in our normal life and are a typical pre-step to scheduling a doctor’s appointment. However, it’s understood that search results should be taken with a grain of salt, as there is a bombardment of mediocre health information on the Web. I cherish the doctor’s office that sends me appointment reminders via text and the ones that allow me to schedule appointments online.
  • Fitness information isn’t tailored for us. Fitness experts have been slow to adapt to the needs and demands of Millennials. We’re at an age where we’re not necessarily working out to address health-related issues—rather, we want to relieve stress and feel good about ourselves by staying active. It’s surprisingly difficult to find fitness information that is tailored to our needs.
  • We like social fitness. Fitness is more fun and competitive when done socially. Group classes, such as hot yoga or cycling, are on the rise, and Millennials love this. Even if you can’t get a group of friends in the same fitness studio, we’re working out “together” via apps that track our progress. When I go for a run, I sync up my Nike+ app and post my results to my social feeds. Or, I’ve tallied my workout minutes and calories burned via an app that lets me share with select friends. Seeing social feeds of friends’ workouts or attending a group workout class helps push me to do better!
  • When it comes to food, options are important. Millennials have a heightened awareness of the foods they eat. In response to the nation’s obesity epidemic, our culture is shifting its focus more and more toward health and fitness, and Millennials are demanding healthier food options. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ll still eat pizza at 2 AM if the situation calls for it. But in general, we’re not interested in foods that have 26 ingredients that we can’t pronounce. We’re also more aware of how food affects our bodies and performance.  I know that if I’m starting to feel ill, there are certain types of foods I need to eat, or if I need to keep my energy levels high all day, I know what combination of foods would achieve that goal.

Social Interactions

  • Dating for a Millennial is totally different. It usually starts with long, drawn-out series of impersonal communications: Facebook messages, texts, or even emails. A “first date” means going out to a bar or maybe a party with groups of friends, and dates stay in that group format for a while.  Gone are the days when you receive a call and are invited out to a romantic dinner for a first date. But, for Millennials, this casual dating style works and we like it.
  • Travel. As a Millennial, I’m eager to see the world. International business trip? Yes! Please send me! Your sister wants you to visit her in SoCal and you want a travel companion? Sure!  While travel for my age group may be different due to limited free funds, I’m still eager to see new places and try new things and will try my best to make it work.
  • Communication. Millennials communicate with their friends and the world differently than previous generations. We’re more likely to send a text versus making a phone call. It’s also typical to have “digital friends,” who are close friends we may have never met. I’ve heard about this, though I don’t have digital friends myself. On any one of my social networking pages, I often post statuses that the average person may not understand—from a funny picture that serves as an inside joke, to a quote from a song or movie that explains a feeling at that moment.

Attitudes Toward Career

  • More optimism than experience. Even in the current economy, Millennials see a bright future ahead of them. And, while they may not be making the money they want right now, they’re confident that they will one day soon.
  • Pay your dues, rookie. A common misconception is that young professionals don’t take their work seriously, or that they lack a strong work ethic. However, nothing can be further from the truth. Rather, we just don’t necessarily trust in the traditional “corporate hierarchy.” We would much prefer approachable, accountable leadership and transparency in the workplace rather than blindly following a CEO title just because we’re told we’re supposed to.
  • Is profit the only thing that matters? Ninety-two percent of Millennials believe that business success should be measured by more than just the bottom line. Innovation and societal development are just as important.
  • Work hard, play harder. We’re a generation that fully embraces the mentality of working hard and playing harder. Millennials will work long hours, without lunch, to get their work done. So, at the end of the day we want to reward ourselves with a good time.

If you found this interesting and would like to learn more about Millennials, you should register for:

Talkin’ Bout My Generation:

Navigating Today’s Multi-Generational Workplace 

 Thursday, March 7, 2013

7:45 am—9:15 am

Register Now, Click Here

Topics will include:

  • How to manage relationships with everyone in the workplace: management, subordinates, and peers
  • How to navigate through Millennial stereotypes…and how can we improve perceptions?
  • How to manage (direct-report) Millennials
  • How to balance eagerness and passivity, both Millennial stereotypes

Moderated by:  Leslie Zaikis, Director of Brand Engagement, Levo League

Panelists will include:

  • Marie-Claire Barker, Global Chief Talent Officer at Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide
  • Aaron Harvey, Entrepreneur and Engagement Director, Ready, Set, Rocket
  • Nikki Nash, Marketing Manager, Consumer Campaigns, Intel
  • Alicesa Vonglukiat, Associate Director Human Resources, Hearst
  • Katharine Zaleski, Managing Editor, NOWTHISNEWS.COM (and former Washington Post Executive Director of Digital News)

 Where: Ogilvy & Mather, 636 11th Ave (between 46th and 47th streets)

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Jan24

What’s Your Story?

Posted by Erin Roche from Ogilvy Healthworld - New York, North America

By Erin Roche from Ogilvy Healthworld - New York, North America | Published: January 24, 2013

Tell-Your-StoryBuilding Strong Partnerships Through the Power of Storytelling

Story is an essential part of everything we do in life and in communications. Whether you’re a junior account exec explaining changes on a scope of work to a client, or a creative director pitching a new TV spot, your work can live or die based on how well you tell your story. But what makes for a great story?

The best stories are ones that invite the audience to step onboard for the journey and engage them right away. That’s why the first minute of any presentation is the most crucial. It’s within this first minute that clients decide whether they will be passive clients or collaborative partners, observers or journeymen.

A great many minds have waxed philosophic about the power of storytelling to move people and change behavior. History’s greatest orators and speakers were, in essence, gifted storytellers and all of them told stories that followed these three basic principles:

  1. Make them laugh, make them cry, but most of all make them care. Every decision you will ever make is based on emotion, not on reason. PET scans of the human brain show that decisions are processed in the area of the brain that is responsible for emotion (aka the amygdala) and then rationalized afterward, using reason (aka the prefrontal cortex). A simple way to make your clients care is to show them how much you care by telling your story as if it’s the last thing you thought about before you went to bed and the first thing you thought about when you woke up.
  2. Give them a call to adventure, complete with twists and turns. When you tell your clients about the journey you and your team went on to get where you landed, you are inviting them to join you on that journey. You’re also reminding them that they’re just looking at the tip of an iceberg, peeking out above a vast foundation of valuable team insights and back-story below. Sharing your team’s thinking process invites your clients to become collaborators. It also helps get them out of the weeds of the little details and refocused on the bigger picture. If you show your clients that you’re thinking big, you’ll inspire them to join you there.
  3. Give them a big payoff. They’ve earned it. There is nothing more frustrating than investing in a good story and getting to the end only to find it’s a lackluster ending with no clear resolution. Consider your favorite movie or favorite book. The best endings are those in which the plot points are well placed and the entire audience arrives at what feels like the “right” ending together. Of course, a great storyteller always knows the ending in advance, but allows the audience to feel like they would’ve written the same ending themselves.

When you have a story worth telling, your clients won’t just want to hear it, they’ll want to become part of it. Understanding these few basic storytelling principles can open up a parallel universe where every presentation is a powerful story and every client is on that journey with you.

Click here for more information on the art and principles of great storytelling.

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Jan15

The Function of Creative in an Organization Focused on Specialty Marketing

Posted by Jennifer Rodriguez from Ogilvy CommonHealth - NJ, North America

By Jennifer Rodriguez from Ogilvy CommonHealth - NJ, North America | Published: January 15, 2013

Creative-in-SpecialtyThis blog post was co-authored by Deb Ciauro, also from Ogilvy CommonHealth in NJ.

An agency of record for a specialty brand can work for several months and sometimes longer before any tangible “creative” sees the light of the marketing day. Some question when to bring the creative team into the fold and how they should work in what is assumed to be a purely strategic and data-driven phase. Those are the moments when the instinctive reply should be, “Creatives are always involved in the process and are a crucial part of it.” If you aren’t saying or thinking that, you may need to reconsider your position.

Ensuring that a creative lens is applied to all aspects of a brand is the primary objective, no matter where a brand is in its lifecycle. Particularly in the world of specialty marketing, where a tremendous amount of time is spent mining the data and understanding the ever-changing dynamics in fast-paced, high-science categories, it is crucial to have a creative team engaged from the start. In these early stages of the process, beginning for example with the inception of positioning, through even a prelaunch market-shaping campaign, those necessary steps must be infused with creativity to make certain that the proper tone, language, and colors or images are used to convey a brand’s essence. How such creativity is woven into those less tangible aspects of promotion and marketing is a craft that strategists and creative folks work on together to produce an emotion for a brand in its fledgling stages—an emotion that will advance with the brand as it journeys from a single-minded thought in our target’s mind, to specific differentiating messages, and finally, as it motivates a change in behavior through engaging and memorable creative in the form of language and visuals that come together in what we traditionally call a concept/campaign.

Any creative person will tell you that the campaigns they are most proud to have worked on and generated are those that they were involved with from the very start. Those are the instances where the work really shines—cuts through the clutter and makes a meaningful difference in the complicated and dynamic world of pharmaceutical advertising. And the moment doesn’t just start with the implementation of tactics. Tactics are the final output of a long and exhaustive process of creating the perception of a brand, which is inherently a creative exercise—the making of something out of nothing.

Pharmaceutical art directors and copywriters are creative by discipline but are also marketers and strategists by the very nature of where they’ve decided to apply that discipline. Tapping into their expertise and passion is and should be a natural part of the marketing dynamic. So, whether the output is tangible or not, the implementation of the creative process is a pivotal aspect to all brands, and the earlier it’s applied, the better.

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Oct2

Radical Creativity and a Little Bit of Dirty Talk

Posted by John Nosta from OCH Specialty Marketing - NJ, North America

By John Nosta from OCH Specialty Marketing - NJ, North America | Published: October 2, 2012

 

If your strategy is to “think outside the box,” you might as well give up.

Because today, there is no box. 

There’s no cardboard container that defines yesterday’s boundaries. Today we live in a world of radical connectivity, where ideas intermingle, evolve and explode in the digital ether of creativity. Today we live within a sea of words, concepts and ideas that create the communication ecosphere. It’s a system that is alive, and in a profound way…wait for it…actually is self-organizing. It’s ideas driving new ideas! And it’s this exchange of thoughts and ideas that provides the catalyst for profound and life-changing events. It’s the Big Bang of Creativity! The slope of creativity and innovation is changing and getting so steep that you’ll need to have the digital tools to hold on tight. Otherwise, you’ll slip off into the abyss of ignorance.

It’s ideas having sex!

Matt Ridley, British journalist, scientist and author, clearly gets it! Throughout history, the engine of human progress and prosperity has been, and still is, the mating of ideas. His passion for thought and the exchange of ideas comes through loud and clear in his TED video.


Technology is advancing our abilities to a point beyond our mere human capacity. We are becoming super-creatives, where ideas fly like sparks, and this confluence of thought will ignite a fire of change. Jason Silva, in his over-the-top perspective, helps bring this magic into view.  His characterization of our new creative world is inspiring and captures the energy of this change. Jason is a filmmaker, futurist and self-proclaimed “epiphany addict” who loves to fool around with ideas!

So, get down and dirty…and connected!

But you might not really want to use conversation in a conventional way. Our conversation can be very smart, very public and very engaged. But it exists between you, me and the world. It’s this “ping-pong” conversation that echoes across the digital space and can spark a revolution of thought. Yesterday’s “blue sky” meeting has evolved into today’s “blue universe“ engagement.

The rules of creativity are changing. Are you connected?

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You can also follow John on Twitter @JohnNosta.

 

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Aug23

Speed That Belies Size

Posted by Dan Chichester from Ogilvy Healthworld-NY, North America

By Dan Chichester from Ogilvy Healthworld-NY, North America | Published: August 23, 2012

The interwebs sparks all sorts of great stories. Cat videos are awesome. Only boutique agencies “get” digital. And big agencies are only good for bloat.

We can all agree on the first. The latter two—well, as “Mortal Kombat” used to kick off its matches: Fight! Which is not to say there aren’t odd days in the quagmire week where machinery gets in the way. But more often, the potential of having a great many top folk in one place is its own advantage.

Rapid response can be assembled in short order. Properly motivated and target-focused, this is a critical mass of strategy, planning, creative, coders, UX, and more that can more than handle itself in the ring. And as in all good moments of fission, that time to reaction can really cook.

Just this last week the mobile group put together a 2-day hackathon. Thirty or so pros, many meeting for the first time, split into 5 teams across an equal number of brands.

Two days to learn about multiple capabilities in a new software development kit (SDK) from a leading telecomm vendor; conjure that fresh knowledge into a mobile app concept; push pixels and punch words to fit an appropriate number of screens, menus and assets; and program it out into a working prototype that had to impress a showcase session at the end of the second day.

Every group delivered sit-up-and-take-notice work. The results were a wowza gathering of mobile goodness across luxury and consumer packaged goods, financial and communication services—and from our corner, healthcare adherence.

Building on the tools offered by the SDK, the Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide team concepted an app that tracks a person’s pattern of behavior, uses location to assess health-positive and health-negative activities, and then provides the right level/tone of support to make sure they’re properly managing their condition through treatment.

These weren’t blue sky exercises. They are real apps, based on real insights, and they will be leveraged for real next steps with their respective brands.

Not bad for 16 hours. And more common than “big agency” is often credited with. Edgy and current is critical to digital thinking. But that’s not the sole province of “small & scrappy.” Mass can equal more talent, more discipline, more expertise and experience to kick into gear and kick it up a notch. On your next journey into digital, consider all your options.

But whatever else—trust me on the cat vids.

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Aug21

When Did Social Media Become Social Obligation?

Posted by Douglas Bratman from Ogilvy CommonHealth - NJ, North America

By Douglas Bratman from Ogilvy CommonHealth - NJ, North America | Published: August 21, 2012

As a writer at Ogilvy CommonHealth Medical Marketing, part of my job is to understand the usefulness of social media as part of the marketing process. Because my interest is keen, I like to consider all aspects of the platform, whether negative or positive. One aspect of social media that fascinates me is whether what isn’t included is as important as what is.

For example, last Mother’s Day I posted a photo of my dear mom on Facebook, wishing her and all mothers a happy Mother’s Day. Upon seeing this post on her own Facebook page, my wife promptly asked me why I hadn’t expressed the same sentiment to her.

“Uh, because you’re not my mom?” I replied in that tone husbands use when they think they might be in trouble for something they never considered and were grabbing a lifeline. The lifeline broke.

So while washing and waxing her car I began to reflect on the obligatory nature of Facebook posts. Am I remiss if I don’t “like” a cute photo of someone’s child? What if I’m not one of the 101 people to wish someone a happy birthday, even though I haven’t spoken to them in 10 years? When someone posts a story about a sad event, can you “like” that post, or should you express your condolences or add your voice when appropriate? Facebook has become a great way to get the update on people’s lives, but has it become as much of a responsibility as an addictive distraction?

In short, when did Facebook become the high school cafeteria?

Facebook alone is not the only site that requires care and feeding. If you don’t tweet enough, you quickly lose followers, meaning those great stories you do tweet are read by fewer people. But tweeting is not enough. You have to thank followers for re-tweeting your tweets, which are sometimes re-tweets to begin with. There’s etiquette involved.

If I don’t continue to post classic cars on Pinterest, I’ll miss out on all those great cake recipes. If I don’t update my LinkedIn profile with new information and recommendations, my presence there becomes irrelevant.

Keeping up with these social media sites can feel like a full-time job when you get home from work. So again I ask, has social media become social obsession and obligation?

The answer, I believe, lies in your level of interest and choice of involvement. Yes, it’s a good idea to keep profiles updated so people interested in your current status don’t think you’ve been doing nothing for five years. And sure, it’s fun to post on Facebook if you don’t begin to feel bound to report everything and every place you eat and every activity you engage in. Please don’t get me started on political bashing. A great way to lose friends—real friends.

Will the world end if you or your company doesn’t have 1000 Twitter followers? Not likely. As with many other interests that lie beyond the Internet (yes, they do exist—lest we become amorphous blobs attached to our computer chairs until future generations are born with these chairs as appendages), you can choose your level of interaction and stay in that zone. People will respect that. No one will judge you based on how many Facebook friends you have. There’s real life, too.

Being a social media aficionado is a choice you can make or avoid. While it’s important personally and professionally to be aware of what the current trends are, it’s not as important to be involved in every one of them.

I believe that these nuances apply to all of us as individuals and as an agency. What we don’t include in a tweet or post may be just as important—perhaps even more important—as what we do post.

Now that I’ve opined on this issue, it’s time for me to prepare my next heartfelt Facebook post. My wedding anniversary is coming up and I don’t want to have to paint the bathroom.

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