Hi Everyone,

Well, anyone who turns on the television, reads a newspaper, or has practically any social contact on a daily basis knows of the great attention to the 2008 Election.  I am very interested in this election and am ready to make an informed decision, so finding ways to keep up with the facts is important to me. 

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why is Jessica writing on the election, I thought this was a retail social networking site?"  And you would be right, but humor me a few more sentences and you'll see the connection!  I recently found on MySpace, an entire MySpace page dedicated to Student voting tips, as well as, information on what districts they are allowed to vote in, in order to make sure their vote counts this year.  When I saw this, I thought, what a great way to reach out to the unreachable college sector.  Are you using the internet capabilities that are literally at your fingertips to its full potential?

Ah...see, I told you I would get to the nitty gritty on how this would affect us in the retail social networking scene.   So are you?  I mean, if Barak Obama and, especially, if John McCain, are using social networks such as MySpace and Facebook to reach the younger generation, which, as we all know is a huge market for retail, why aren't you? 

I found a great blog which discussed the launch of these pages on the social networks and you can read the rest of the facts here (http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/06/22/afge-launches-voting-rights-pages-on-myspace-facebook) if interested.  But to relate this back to retail, I simply cannot stress enough the importance of all things online in today's market place, especially when trying to reach the youth.  We all know that kids, teens, and young adults are all online checking their MySpace pages and adding all the latest apps (applications) to their Facebook.  So if you want to reach the younger market, if you want to influence this demographic, consider the importance of having a presence online.

Until next time...

Happy Blogging,

Jessica