Hi, MK here. Social networking services are constantly evolving, and you need to keep up with the times. That got me thinking about my own beginnings in social media marketing, which was way back before there was a name for it.

I started to use social media back in 1996 to one-up my friends with the coolest page on firefly.com. That site shut down a few months later, but eventually MySpace came around. MySpace was awesome at first, and I ran several campaigns that leveraged that platform successfully. But times change, and while we do work with specific clients on MySpace presences (such as bands, consumer brands, etc), these days I’m personally more into Facebook, YouTube, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Twitter- to name a few! But my favorite of the moment is Facebook.

With all these other social networking sites, what do I use Facebook for? Well, while there are all kinds of tools you can use on the Internet to conduct research, I find Facebook to be one of the best outlets for everything from people-of-your-past research (hey, I know you do it!) to finding new products and services… and I often use Twitter as a way to point me there. It just seems like Facebook has achieved much of what many other services have aspired to- a true community, with a far less “spammy” feel than the competition and a ton of useful content. I’m comfortable on Facebook, and so is my Mom. That’s important, whether you’re creating an online presence for yourself or a brand.

I’m sure that Facebook isn’t the ultimate social networking service- there’s still much room for improvement over there, and you never know what great new services will pop up in 2010. But, for now, Facebook has become such an integral part of my own personal life and such a big part of what we do at PatrickOrtman, Inc., that I can’t imagine living without it.

Visit PatrickOrtman, Inc. on Facebook.