Since its launch in 2010, Pinterest has been considered one of the fastest growing social media sites. As a visual board with over 11 million users, Pinterest allows participants to pin interesting pictures, blogs, videos or sites as well as re-pin posts that other users have pinned. This new and innovative way of collecting digital information has opened the door for people to share interests, ideas and dreams with the world. Ultimately, Pinterest allows users to express their inner voice, something which businesses might oversee. 

We are happy to announce that we are working with Como Park Zoo and Conservatory to create the logo for the 11th annual Travelers Sunset Affair. This year's theme is Global Adventure, and in preparation, we created three logo concepts to present the Como committee for consideration. Our goal: to set the scene for a wonderful summer evening party.

Last week, we discussed the importance of developing a content strategy to drive brand awareness, build your reputation and reinforce your market positioning. This week, we want to focus on another element of your content strategy: communicating it. Content is not meant to be created, then launched aimlessly. Once you've started to tend your "content garden," the next step is to share it with the target audience. Your content strategy is only as effective as your ability to deliver it to that audience.

As a marketing firm that puts great emphasis on our creative, we always enjoy the beginning phase of a project, where we concept and explore different directions a project could go. As The M Group took on this year's theme for Como Park Zoo & Conservatory's Travelers Sunset Affair, it was no different.

A year ago, we partnered with radio station 98.5 KTIS to develop the PrayerWorks! iPhone app and mobile website. Now, we're celebrating the news that 1 Million prayers have been shared through PrayerWorks! the online community for people to share needs and support each other through prayer.

Two talented individuals have joined The M Group for this spring's internship and we're thrilled to have them among our ranks. Anna Christensen is working on our social media campaigns and delving into research and planning. Natalie Wetjen is concepting and designing for the web and print materials. Her latest work? Check out the new Facebook covers.

The name of the game in driving brand awareness is through content. Creating informed and insightful content is the first step in an effective strategy to build your reputation, establish your unique marketplace position and achieve your lead generation goals. When discussing content strategies with our clients, often we draw the analogy of planting a "content garden." This is an effort to develop meaningful information about the brand that connects with the target audience at different phases in the buying lifecycle. More than generating copy for a brochure, developing content for your brand extends through many media channels, both online and offline. But once you create it, you need to drive eyeballs to it, and that requires optimizing and promoting it through your communication channels. The more successfully you do this, the more your content--and your brand--will surface to a wider audience.

Email is one of the tools of inbound marketing. There are very specific rules of the game. Failing to play by those rules can quickly give a company a bad rap. Over the past couple of weeks, we've discussed both the frustrating experience of receiving irrelevant emails and the importance of asking permission from your contacts when adding them to a company mailing list.

Facebook is changing its layout for Pages on March 30, and we are ready. We wanted to come up with a creative way to celebrate the change, and this early spring proved to be the perfect inspiration. Because of the unseasonably warm weather, we decided our new Facebook cover page could reflect the changing seasons. Over the next two weeks, our Facebook covers will change each day.

(Whitney here) I remember the first boy who ever kissed me. He chased me all around my second-grade classroom for weeks. Finally, one day, I tripped and he took the opportunity to make his move. If only he had realized I wasn't running because I disliked him, he just needed to ask permission to give me a peck on the cheek.