It's 9.26pm on a Thursday Evening and I'm Social Networking

The term, "social networking" is extremely ironic since there's absolutely nothing social about sitting in your office at (now) 9.27pm on a Thursday evening tapping away into a laptop. At this point in the evening, I'd much rather have caught the tail-end of the Happy Hour somewhere. Or tonight's rugby practice that I was telling myself I was going to get to. But I'm here in our Canal Street design studio. Social networking.

Being more specific, I just finished 1) claiming and 2) updating my ZoomInfo.com profile. Honestly, I never really gave ZoomInfo much credit until I read quite recently that it is a trusted resource for getting information about people, so I thought I'd better update it. And not necessarily because I expect a journalist from Time magazine to be scoping me out for an article (well, perhaps not this year!) but because ANYONE can be scoping me out as a potential vendor, business partner, or whatever. I had noticed that ZoomInfo ranked pretty high up on a typical "Ahmed Yearwood" Google search, so I figured it was time to finally correct the handful of inaccuracies in there. There were just a couple. I'm sure Brangelina has teams of people to sort out all the junk they've got out there against their name(s)!

These days, EVERYONE's talking about social networking. I don't think many quite get what it's all about (and I'll raise my hand and admit I'm still trying to get my head around it!) but the one comment everyone seems to make is that it's rather time-consuming. And it is. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious, Flickr, ZoomInfo, High5, Blogspot, etc, etc, etc – it's a lot of content to manage and working through it all IS time consuming. Big companies like Dell hire people whose sole responsibility is to manage their web 2.0 communications. Well, Y INTERACT isn't that big (yet), and that's why I'm here, in the office at (now) 9.43pm on a Thursday evening social networking. During the course of the business day, I've got "regular course of the business day" responsibilities to manage – like clients, my design team, and all the ins and outs that come with running a design studio, or any business for that matter!

It's definitely got its advantages, however. For me, the 2.0 channels offer an opportunity to expand Y INTERACT's brand in a way I never would have thought imaginable a few years ago. And, while everyone's always banging on about S.E.O. (Search Engine Optimization), the 2.0 channels are a great way to cast an extremely wide Y INTERACT net for great Google pickup. My objectives are very specific – I'm not targeting people who go online Googling "website designers." After all, there are a ton of companies out there who do what we do (although not as well of course) and broad searches like that are a short route to mini sites for magicians that simply aren't our market. However, when someone types in "Y INTERACT" after hearing about us, by either word of mouth, meeting one of us, a job bank, or from an event that we were involved with, that's what I want to manage. Additionally, given that at least 50% of Y INTERACT's revenue comes from developing online media (the other half coming from print media/graphic design), we've got to be clued into this stuff. And lastly, I'll admit it's also kinda fun at times, it's a GREAT opportunity to keep in touch with friends I haven't seen in ages, and I'm a bit of a workaholic anyway. If I weren’t in the office social networking, I'm sure I'd be doing some other form of work right now! And watching two hours of Anderson Cooper "Keeping them Honest" on his CNN soap box gets rather mind-numbing after about 10-15 minutes.

At Y INTERACT, I think we've got most of the "of the moment" channels covered

• We use our Facebook page for more fun items – event photos, new client gigs, random stuff that we just like to toss out there as a design group
• On our LinkedIn group, I post articles of interest. These can be related to design and architecture, business/finance, technology/IT, the works. I read the Financial Times every morning so a good number of articles come from the FT.
• Twitter is a bit more random, "What is Ahmed doing right now???" It's fun and a great way to engage people with similar interests to yours. I've got some AWESOME music tips from others who I follow on Twitter
• We use Flickr for posting and tagging photos (and DON'T FORGET TO TAG YOUR PHOTOS, BECAUSE THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT) from our events, such as the Race for Kids Fundraiser, or our Chinese New Year party.
• And this blog, "Notes from Canal Street" – I still haven't entire figured this one out yet as this is just my second blog. But here I will be posting more PR-related content such as product launches, milestones in our studio, and rants just like the one you're reading now

If, after reading all this, you find yourself more confused then you were before, then join us for an event that we're calling "Social Networking 101", a cocktail party and panel discussion on how individuals and marketers can make heads and tails of all this 2.0 stuff. It will be on April 30th at Certe (20 West 55th Street, b/t 5th and 6th), from 6-8pm and Y INTERACT is the sponsor. Details and online bookings will soon be available via the Financial Communications Society website, http://www.fcsinteractive.com/. Panelists are still being finalized, so watch this space for details!

It's now 10.08pm on a Thursday evening and I think I'm going home. Or, on second thought, I think I might actually stop off for that (now) non-happy hour beer. So what if it's no longer half-price, or two-for-one, or whatever the special-of-the-moment was. I'll pay a bit more for it but, as Beyonce famously says for L'Oreal, "I'm worth it!"

Ahmed Yearwood
President
Y INTERACT
http://www.yinteract.com/