Our online presence tripled 2 years ago, and we shifted our focus from having a web site that simply gives information to creating online connections with people.
Why? For starters:
1. To stay connected with other designers we have met all over the world
2. So clients can get to know us and easily connect with us
3. To share information about marketing, design and the internet with those who are interested.

Should your business participate in social networking? A 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study shows that:
• 93% of Americans believe a company should have a presence in social media
• 85% believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its consumers via social media
• 56% of American consumers feel both a stronger connection with and better served by companies when they can interact with them in a social media environment.

Consumers are looking for less selling and more sharing. Social media adds value to your interactions if you can find a way to focus on customers in a way which adds value.

We find that just as many people visit our web site to learn from us as those who want to hire us for future design projects. For this reason, links to our graphic design tutorials are just as easy to find on our web site as samples of our work. They are both front and center on our home page.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are social networking tools which allow you to connect online with people all over the world. You can think of social networking as a large cocktail party - everyone in the world is invited but nobody has to dress up. But just like everyone throws a party differently, each site has its own function.

Twitter, which the New York Times affirms as one of the Web’s fastest-growing phenomena, simply has users answer the question, “What are you doing?” Users answer in short updates called “tweets”, using 140 characters or less. It is the ideal tool for frequent, short bursts of information. (We’ve even seen a friend update hourly as he went from ride to ride at Walt Disney World.) Twitter users “follow” other users to read their tweets on their own home page (or on their cell phone), making it a real-time communication tool.

Twitter is a great way to stay connected while on the road – turning a 10 minute wait in line at the post office into a way to connect with others by Tweeting from your cell phone. Even if you don’t have an internet connection on your phone, a simple text message to Twitter allows you to update your status, and you can select whose updates you would like to receive on your phone as well.

Although we have been actively using Twitter for over a year personally, the RDesign Twitter account is new – and will focus primarily on marketing and world of web, and less on casual updates. You can find the account at Twitter.com/rdesignonline. In Twitter shorthand that would be @rdesignonline.

Facebook, a more robust social networking tool, allows its registered users – over 200 million at last count - to create and update profiles with photos, videos, quizzes, games and more. You can become a “fan” of an organization or celebrity, and other users you’ve added as “friends” will know about it. In this way you can covertly endorse someone or something you like. Facebook is a great place to search for people you have not seen in years, and in just a few clicks you can reconnect, see photos of their children, find out what they’ve been reading lately, or play a virtual game of Scrabble against each other.

LinkedIn is similar to Facebook in that your profile can hold a lot of personal information for others to see, but its primary focus is to link professionals with each other. By listing past and current job positions and people you have business relationships with, other people in your circle of LinkedIn “Connections” can see this information and perhaps create an opportunity through you they didn’t know they could, such as meeting the owner of a company they’ve wanted to sit down with who happened to share a cubicle with you at a prior position. LinkedIn also has “Groups” which allow you to find others with similar interests, and an “Answers” section, where you can get advice from experts in your field, or perhaps you can answer others’ questions and establish yourself as an expert.

What do people do on these sites?
- Create a profile
- Meet people: Even though they may live thousands of miles away, you can communicate with them, comment on their activities, and share photos or stories.
- Chat live with others who are online
- Write Blogs / journal
- Post photos
- Take polls & quizzes
- Make & join discussion groups
- Post/read classifieds
- Play games
- Listen to music or watch music videos
- Schedule events
- Create online pets
- Promote their business

What’s the most important reason to make social networking a new habit?
Connecting with people. These sites help you create connections that may be hidden in the real world. Links to our social networking profiles can be found at the bottom of each page of our web site.

What Is a Poken?
Poken is not another social network. You’ve already got that.

Poken solves a simple problem: How do I remember the email addresses and screen names of everyone I meet?

A Poken is a small USB device that looks like a character with a big hand. The Poken hand pulls out of the body, revealing a USB connector. Insert the USB connector into any computer with web access to easily upload your new contacts to the Poken web database.
When you meet other Poken owners in the real world, you can quickly swap information. No more writing down email addresses or blog names. Just touch Poken hands and connect. 

On the Poken site, you and your friends can view contacts alphabetically or chronologically in your “social timeline.” You can also send messages, group your contacts, write notes for yourself about each contact, and much more.

Choose which of your social network profiles you would like to share with people when you meet them in the real world. Poken holds your contact information: name, address, email, phone # - whatever information you choose - and it also holds your social networking account names. Poken contains your FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and other accounts.

If you already know all your friends’ profiles, when you Poken and they Poken, you’ll automatically receive updates when they open a new social networking account.

Buy a Poken in the U.S. from http://pokenzoo.com.