Next General Meeting:
Meeting Preview—Bill DeRosa – Facebook and Pinterest
Date: Tuesday, December 3rd, 7 p.m.
Location: Danbury Hospital Auditorium
Directions

By Lisa Leifels

Are you interested in gaining a better understanding of what a few of the more popular social networking sites have to offer?  Do you belong to an organization or run a small business that would like to do a better job of utilizing social media to get your message out?  Bill DeRosa, one of the founders of Talking Finger, a marketing agency that focuses on social media, will be shedding some light on this topic.  Bill will be explaining to us the best way to use two different social networking sites, Facebook and Pinterest, at the next General Meeting, on Tuesday, December 3rd.

Facebook has been around since 2004 and has been steadily expanding its user base ever since.  As we learned from watching the movie, ‘The Social Network’, Facebook started out with the students at Harvard and soon spread to other colleges, and in 2005 opened up to high-school students.   In 2006, Facebook allowed everyone over the age of 13 with a valid email address, and in 2007 businesses began to use it.

People use Facebook to stay connected with family and friends and to keep in touch with what is going on in the world around them.  Businesses use Facebook to build deeper relationships with their customers and foster brand loyalty.  As of March 2013, Facebook reported having over 1 billion active users around the world.  The core user base was once made up of the 18 to 29 crowd, but since 2012 their real growth has been occurring with those aged 45 to 54.  Facebook’s aging demographic may be one of the reasons why younger teens have been abandoning it lately in favor of other social media platforms, such as Twitter, SnapChat, and Instagram. 

Now that Twitter has completed its IPO, there is plenty of buzz asking what will be the next great social network.  One of the fastest growing tech companies that we have seen in the news recently is Pinterest.  Pinterest is a social networking site that lets people collect and share photos of their favorite events, interests, and hobbies.  People use it to plan trips, organize events, and plan projects.  Many technology and investment analysts think Pinterest has plenty of marketing potential and that it is a perfect platform for e-commerce.  The upcoming holidays will be a major test for Pinterest.

As the Social Network landscape continues to change, social media carry more weight than ever before.  Social media are being used for business by 93% of marketers.  Fortunately for us, we have Bill DeRosa to show us some tips on how to navigate this rapidly changing environment.  He will help us gain a better understanding of what Facebook has to offer and perhaps convince us to use Pinterest to plan our next trip.

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DACS meetings are usually held at the Danbury Hospital auditorium. (Click here for directions and parking information.)

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for registration and casual networking. The meeting starts at 7:00 p.m. with a question and answer period (Ask DACS), followed by announcements and a short break. The featured evening presentation begins at 8:00. The meeting is scheduled to adjourn at 9:30 p.m.

DACS General Meetings are free and open to the public. Members and prior attendees are encouraged to extend invitations to anyone interested in this topic.

Danbury Area Computer Society (DACS) is a registered nonprofit and has been serving the region since 1990.