Facebook just reported that it’s surpassed 500 million members. With that kind of proliferation we think its time for those on the fence to take the plunge and start leveraging social media marketing.

Here’s what the New York Times had to say:

Facebook Says Membership Has Reached 500 Million

Facebook, the social network created in the dormitories of Harvard six years ago, said on Wednesday that it now had 500 million members.

The company has grown at a meteoric pace, doubling in size from a year ago and pushing international competitors aside.

Each month, Facebook says, more than 30 billion photographs, links to Web sites and news articles are shared through the site, and its members spend roughly 700 billion minutes there.

“This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 26-year-old chief executive, said in a company blog post.

Facebook’s dizzying rise has not been without some stumbles. Most recently, the company was the focus of intense scrutiny over changes to its site that encouraged members to make more information about themselves accessible to anyone on the Internet.

A recent survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index showed that user satisfaction with Facebook stood at 64 on a 100-point scale, which placed it in the bottom 5 percent of the companies covered in the index.

Facebook’s popularity has also spurred competition from the likes of Google, which views the billions of links and hours spent on the site each month as a threat to its business.

But if anything, the site’s steady growth in spite of its setbacks only validates the company’s approach, said Ray Valdes, an analyst at the research firm Gartner.

Facebook has been aggressive in pushing users “to the edge of their comfort zone,” Mr. Valdes said. “But Facebook has proven that it can weather those challenges and still grow.”

Mr. Valdes, who estimates that Facebook is adding 50 million new members each month, attributed the company’s ascension to its continuous effort to change and improve the service. “That keeps it bubbling away,” he said.

If you’d like to discuss how Facebook and other social sites can increase exposure give us a call. To see how Atomicdust is using Facebook head over to facebook.com/Atomicdust

Danielle weighs in on the topic of online privacy:

First off, I assure you this blog isn’t becoming a commentary on Facebook (note the previous posts Facebook Success Story: The Pickle and Facebook is Taking Over the World), but considering it is pretty much the biggest social media outlet out there (going on, if not already surpassing, 500 million users), it is kind of hard to ignore it.

For the last month or so, Facebook has been under fire for their privacy controls, or should I say, lack thereof. They’ve since admitted they ‘made a bunch of mistakes’ and improved their privacy page so that you have better control, but their issues uncovered a bigger question-

Does privacy exists online? Should it?

To read the rest of the article and to learn why Danielle’s believes that, “Instead of asking if online privacy exists, I’ll ask you this—Why would you want to get online, just to hide?” head on over to The Atomicdust Blog.

In case any of you were wondering I fit into the “Eh, who cares. Online privacy was dead a long time ago” category as well.

MTV has announced that Danielle Hohmeier, social media expert at Atomicdust, has been selected as one of the 20 finalists in MTV’s “Follow Me: The Search for the First MTV T.J.”

MTV used Twitter and Facebook to find applicants for a new job opportunity to serve as the first-ever MTV TJ ‘Twitter Jockey.‘  The winner will be hired to become a brand-new face and voice for MTV across social media platforms, including MTV.com, to expand the two-way dialog between MTV and its global audience.

Danielle will compete against 20 other social media enthusiasts in various Twitter challenges. The contest will culminate with a live televised finale on August 8, where the MTV viewing audience will choose the winning candidate and offer them his or her dream job.

According to MTV, “The newly created position expands upon MTV’s history of giving its audience a global platform to express themselves. MTV uses social media to make it easier for its fans to engage around loud programming moments—everything from Twitter visualizations for award shows and chat widgets for popular series like The Jersey Shore, to an active Twitter and Facebook following.”
“We are anxious and excited that Danielle was selected,” said James Dixson, Atomicdust Principal and CMO, “We’ll miss her when she wins, but the entire staff and I will tweet relentlessly to help her win MTV’s challenges.”

Danielle has held position of Social Media Expert at Atomicdust since November of 2009. Her efforts to improve Atomicdust’s reach have resulted in 758 Twitter followers and over 700 tweets. “Our web traffic has tripled since Danielle started,” said Mike Spakowski, Creative Director, “She adds a personal and conversational tone to @atomicdust and coaches our clients on their social campaigns.”

It seems our friends down under are on their way to 100Mbps.

From Engadget

The Australian government just found the infrastructure for its A$43 billion national broadband project and eliminated its largest competitor in one fell swoop — pending shareholder and regulator approval, Telstra will receive A$11 billion of that money in exchange for its entire landline network. Telstra will decommission its monopoly of copper cables to make room for the government’s fiber and migrate its customers to the resulting 100Mbps National Broadband Network (NBN) as those light-bearing threads roll out. While Telstra might become a smaller player in the internet and cable business without a land network of its own, it may get even larger in the wireless space — the company says it’s received “written confirmation from the Prime Minister” that it can bid on a chunk of precious LTE spectrum should the deal go through.

Phil Shapiro of PC World seems to think St. Louis is a prime location to begin Google’s Gigabit Fiber project.

“I don’t work for Google, but if I did … I would announce St. Louis as the first city to be chosen for Google’s gigabit fiber-optic experiment. St. Louis is known as the “Gateway to the West.” That gateway could also be the gateway to our future – a more inclusive, educated, healthful, hopeful, and well-functioning future.”

Thanks Phil, we agree.

Last week, our fearless leader (otherwise known as ‘Creative Director’), Mike Spakowski, was interviewed by The St. Louis Egotist on how we got started, our project philosophy, and his advice for designers, writers, and developers.

Here is what he had to say about what Atomicdust really is…

“When people ask if Atomicdust is a web shop, or print shop, I always say that we really focus on developing a good idea. Then we apply that idea to whatever channels will best deliver it for the audience… Good ideas are always worth something.”

The St. Louis Egotist is a website that features innovative, creative work going on in the St. Louis area, and we were honored to be featured on their site.

Check out Mike’s full interview here.

I watched this little pinwheel spin for most of the day.

According to an Engadget Poll most of the known world waited too.

A few minutes ago I actually made it past the pinwheel and was told that I am eligible for the subsidized pricing. The Next button took me to another pinwheel and AT&T timed out once again.

Apple announced iAds back in April. We’ve had a look under the hood and here’s the low down.

According to Apple’s website, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad users:

• Have downloaded more than five billion applications
• Spend, on average, 30 minutes per day using their apps
• Set trends and share with family and friends

Apple recently said that they had sold 2 million iPads in just two months. They also announced that the iPhone 4 will be available June 24. And, according to the Engadget’s poll of potential iPhone 4 buyers, 32.2% of respondents ticked the “Just try to stop me. This is my destiny” button.

So the number of ad impressions is enormous. But the magic doesn’t stop there. Apple has included a plethora of cool features for both advertisers and app developers.

“iAd offers advertisers the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web, and offers users a new way to explore ads without being hijacked out of their favorite apps,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iAds will reach millions of iPhone and iPod touch users—a highly desirable demographic for advertisers—and provide developers a new way to earn money so they can continue developing free and low cost applications.”

Traditionally, when users click a mobile ad it launches a browser, which loads the advertiser’s webpage. After viewing the offer, the user has to close the browser and relaunch the app. This cumbersome process doesn’t take users long to start ignoring ads in favor of staying safely within their apps.

“iAd solves this problem by displaying full-screen video and interactive ad content without ever leaving the app, and letting users return to their app anytime they choose,” says Apple.

The new iPhone SDK 4.0 allows us to embed iAd code within our apps. Ads are served based on demographic information, location and a myriad of other targeting options selected by the advertiser. The ads are dynamically and wirelessly delivered to the device and can change every time the user loads the app.

Apple sells and serves the ads with developers receiving 60 percent of iAd revenue. This revenue sharing model will help entice developers into including the ad code in their apps.

Apple users are loyal and passionate about their devices. The folks in Cupertino hope that businesses will turn to iAds in an effort to attract those same consumers to their products and services. But will it work?

I am excited about iAd. Search advertising rules desktop world but when it comes to mobile I believe Apple is on to something big. Several leading brands including AT&T, Best Buy, Campbell Soup Company, Chanel, Citi, DirecTV, GEICO, GE, JCPenney, Liberty Mutual Group, Nissan, Sears, State Farm, Target, Turner Broadcasting System, Unilever and The Walt Disney Studios agree. Apple has iAd commitments for the second half of 2010 totaling over $60 million, which represents almost 50 percent of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending for the second half of 2010.

We are currently working on a few test ads and running them inside the interactive tour app we’re developing for Bellefontaine Cemetery. We really like the ease in gathering opt-in information from users. They click a button, are presented with a form that’s populated from their address book entry and click submit. The ad can dump this information into a database, send an email or add the user to your Campaign Monitor distribution list. Slick.

For a closer look at iAd, check out this brief video of Steve Jobs’ keynote from yesterdays Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. The content is targeted towards app developers and how they can earn revenue by including the ads. This is good news for both advertisers and developers because more eyes translates to more impressions and increased revenue for everyone. Take a look.

What do you think? Will iAds revolutionize advertising? Or is it just another buzzworthy trend?

How do we know this? Because Memorial Day has come and gone? Because Saint Louis has already seen temperatures rise to above 90 degrees?

No.

We at Atomicdust know that summer hasn’t officially started until we’ve spent some quality time outside on our patio. And this afternoon, we did just that.

For lunch, James grilled some delicious garden salmon, gorgonzola & onion, cheddar & bacon burgers with grilled asparagus, zucchini and portabello mushrooms. Hmm hmmm, good.

Thanks James!

Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating. Facebook is not taking over the world (yet), but it is taking over the internet with their recent changes.

I’m not a Fan anymore…

In fact, nowadays, no one is. This was the first of the big Facebook changes. People are no longer ‘fans’ of your Facebook Page, but instead they ‘like’ it.

A lot of people are arguing that this devalues the relationship between the user and the Page. Really? Because that single click it took to become a fan carries so much more weight than the single click it takes to ‘like’ the page?

I don’t think so. At the Social Fresh conference a few weeks back, I was reminded that you can’t overvalue that one click. The emphasis should be on user engagement and loyalty- and that doesn’t change just because you change what you call the people who support your page.

Facebook is following you…. Everywhere

Facebook’s change from ‘fanning’ a page to ‘liking’ it made a whole lot more sense once they rolled out Open Graph at the F8 Developer Conference. Now, you can pretty much ‘like’ anything on the Internet. It started off with just a few partnered websites- CNN, Pandora, Levi’s, to name a few- but has quickly spread across the internet (all it takes to add the social plugins to your site is some simple coding).

What does this mean, exactly?

It means that your Facebook identity is following you everywhere. When you visit a site that has one of Facebook’s plugins, you will see a Like button that you can click to alert all of your Facebook friends via their newsfeeds that you like the page. But it gets way more in depth than that. Websites can also opt for more robust plugins that will show you how many of your friends like that page or even recommend other pages of the site you might like based on where your friends are.

Think information like that doesn’t matter? Well, I think you’re wrong. And so do 68% of Facebook users. According to a survey by market research and consulting firm Morpace, that‘s the percentage of consumers who say a positive referral from a Facebook friend makes them more likely to buy a specific product or visit a certain retailer.

“Google just found its nemesis” -Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus

Facebook’s recent developments are an effort ‘to make the web a more social place.’ Think about it: Now you aren’t just visiting a website. You are seeing which of your friends already like it and you are able to tell them that you like it too (all without leaving the confines of you desk… or putting down your cell phone).

As Charlie Witkowski of Social Studies Blog puts it, Facebook is paving the way for the web to move from an information-based platform to a social platform. Where Google’s emphasis is search, the emphasis with Facebook is interaction. Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, points out, “Instead of targeting people based on their click behavior or search behavior, it’s targeting based on their relationship to people and to brands and content.”

So, is Google in trouble?

I don’t think so. Sure, Facebook recently beat out the web giant as the most visited site in the U.S. and its user base is reaching a staggering 500 million users worldwide, but I think this just represents a shift in the way people are using the internet. Even the great Google has made efforts to add social components to their ever-expanding empire with Google Buzz.

‘Social media’ is a trendy topic for a reason.

People need to be social (I’m not making this up. It’s a tier in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). Facebook and other sites with social networking aspects have flourished as people try to fulfill this need. Social media is working because people want that sense of community and belonging, even when it comes through the internet and not face-to-face interactions.

Danielle Hohmeier writes about marketing and design in the digital world for Atomicdust, with a focus on marketing convergence and social media.

Growing up, my parents placed a strong emphasis on education. Whether for the purpose of instilling a love of knowledge, or in an attempt to live vicariously through us the lives they dreamed of, I’m not sure. My guess is the latter.

Either way, they knew a good education would enable us to have the understanding necessary to make important decisions and to choose our own adventure in life.

The term “knowledge is power” is not new, however, it represents a concept that is often forgotten or abused in marketing.

I don’t know which is worse: content that is too top-level, giving the audience only fluffy, feel-good words that do nothing to develop a deeper, more actionable understanding, or bulleted lists of details that go on and on for days. There is a fine line to be walked between a preachy, marketing message and a specifications list that makes eyes’ cross, but when that balance is found, customers gain an education that is comforting and empowers decision making.

The majority of our clients operate in saturated healthcare and technology markets whose competitive landscapes are smeared with parity. When lots of companies with similar products and services are talking to the same people, they are typically trying to out-detail one another in an attempt to stand out. Millions of marketing dollars are spent as bullet points are reworded and reordered. Instead of finding compelling, digestible information, customers find themselves caught in the middle of a subtle battle of semantics.

It’s amazing how precious these details become to companies, when they do nothing to help customers distinguish one brand from the other.

This is where a good – and in many cases, bold – education makes or breaks a relationship. Customers get confused when you have “the most authoritative system” and your competitor has “the most trusted system.” What’s the difference? What does that even mean?

Unless you’re educating them on what your claim really means to you, and more importantly, what it really means to them, they’re likely to stay confused and neutral because they don’t have a clear reason to pick your brand over your competitor’s. Remember, when everyone says they’re the best, no one is the best, and details don’t make strong, emotional connections.

There are numerous ways to create education-driven marketing material. Start by thinking about what happens to the content once it’s left the hands of the sales and marketing teams. What will happen to it once it hits an inbox or loads on a screen? It’s on its own at that point…at least until it’s lined up next to the competition.

Here are some tips:

• You can start by nixing the bullet points (not these bullet points… These bullet points are for dramatic effect).
• Don’t be afraid to not sell. If the content that’s created is purely informative, it can be a more powerful sales tool than the most persuasive pile of marketing jargon. Establishing your company as a resource for helpful information creates a positive, low-pressure impression.
• Be honest, be human and be considerate of the attention span of your customer – education shouldn’t be work.

Combine these approaches with a unique centralized message, and you’ve got a memorable impression that people understand well enough to side with.

Remember that customers don’t want to be sold. They want help. They want something great. They want reassurance. They want know that they’re making a good decision. Knowledge really is power and, in this case, it may be the best sales tool you’ve got.

Jesse McGowan is Account Director at Atomicdust and works with clients to develop marketing strategy.