Social Networking

Last night while at dinner at a friend's house I learned an interesting factoid. Said friend had attended a social networking conference for work and while there learned some of the most interesting - and most successful - small business social networking stems from nonbusiness entities. For example, it's well known that it makes sense to get your Linked In/Facebook etc account to highlight your company website and professional achievements. However, said friend found out that it's sites like Dogster/Catster etc - sites that are geared towards the bringing together of common interest groups - that can really drive web traffic for business sites. He learned that for many small businesses the largest driver of web traffic - despite doing an integrated e-marketing campaign - comes from the CEO's dogster profile. (Dogster, for those who don't know, is the social networking sites for dogs. People go in and upload their dog's profile and then make virtual friends).

So while on vacation next week guess who will be updating her dogs' dogster profiles (yes, we actually did have dogster profiles for them already but they are woefully out of date). Since the dogs are my VPs I figure it's the least they can do. Perhaps this unique foray into will help promote the dogs to VP of e-marketing!