That means more than a quarter of a billion people are telling us what they had for breakfast.

Lest I be branded as a cynic (again), let me say that even though I’m decidedly out of their key demographic, I like Facebook.

I got involved at the urging of my family so we could play Scrabulous (a version of Scrabble that one lawsuit later is now called Lexulous). I’ve learned to enjoy finding out the things my friends, family and acquaintances find silly, meaningful, enjoyable or challenging. I don’t post often and rarely comment, but I do like seeing what folks are up to.

It’s interesting to me to discover how different people with different personalities use Facebook. I’m also surprised at the number of types of “What Kind of (insert noun here) are you?” quizzes out there.

With that in mind, I have come up with the … (drum roll, cue the chase lights, fire pyro) …

“What Kind of a Facebook User Are You?” quiz.

Score one point for every 1) answer, two for every 2) answers, three for … well, you get the idea.

A. I make an entry into Facebook:

1) Never. I have no life.
2) Once in a while.
3) When I wish something interesting would happen.
4) When something interesting happens.
5) Three times a day.

B. If asked, would take the quiz (choose the one you would complete first):

1) What Disney cartoon character are you?
2) Which Sci-Fi movie villain are you?
3) What kind of pasta are you?
4) Which single celled protozoa are you?
5) Which prime number are you?

C. Give yourself five points for each Yes answer.

1) I Tweet about what I wrote on Facebook.
2) I check Facebook on my mobile phone more than twice a day.
3) Your Facebook picture of you is not you.
4) The image of jelly on my child’s face must be shared with the world.

D. When something exciting happens to you, like you spill coffee on your pants at work you immediately…

1) Grab a towel and clean it up, cursing under your breath.
2) Update your status on Facebook and seek sympathy responses.
3) Post to Facebook that you’re experiencing a 30-minute time delay so you can change clothes due to a caffeine malfunction.
4) Go to YouTube and find a fitting yet pithy song to epitomize the moment and embed the link on your Facebook wall.
5) Post to Tweetdeck (thereby hitting your Twitter and Facebook pages simultaneously) that the coffee stain on your pants looks like the Titanic.

E. When a friend makes a post, do you

1) Never comment.
2) Occasionally add a thumbs up.
3) Comment every so often.
4) Comment a lot of the time.
5) Comment on someone’s comment about your comment. And maybe keep the string running to make sure you have the last word.

How to grade the quiz:

If your score is:

(0 -9 points) You’re not much of a joiner. You may watch “Eureka” on the SyFy channel. You think your life is boring, and you may be right. You’re an observer rather than a participant.

(10 – 14 points) You like Facebook but don’t have the time or inclination to get involved. Your profile is pretty sketchy. You may never have posted a photo.

(15 – 19 points) You’re an average Facebook user. Nothing wrong with that. Somebody’s got to be average, after all, or it wouldn’t exist.

(20 – 24 points) You’re a little obsessed. You think people are interested in the little things you do every day. But it’s manageable.

(25 – 40 points) Seek professional help.

I was a video producer/project manager in a creative subsidiary for the beer company for about twelve years (until 2003). Those were heady times, when market share was rising, new products were being introduced, their international reach was expanding, and the company (with their ad agencies) were producing ad campaigns that became cultural icons (Spuds McKenzie, “Yes I am,” “I love you, man,” Frank and Louie, “Whassup?” and the classic “This Bud’s for You”). And they made the most of their ongoing icons, most notably the Clydesdales.

Working for one of the world’s great marketers let me observe what types of things they did that worked really well, and a few that didn’t (Dewey Stevens, Zeltzer Seltzer, and, in my humble opinion, getting rid of the Cardinals). In a nutshell, here are some of the things I think they did really well that can be generalized for other businesses.

Start with a quality product. They believed in producing a consistent, quality product and I saw the degree to which they were willing to make that commitment. Marketing a really good product is a lot easier than a mediocre or poor one. It’s hard to list competitive advantages if you don’t have any.

Make use of employees as ambassadors. You could probably ask anyone that worked for the company the attributes of Budweiser, and the employee could rattle them off. A-B knew the value of employees as marketers and made good use of that resource. They would give employees new products as part of a monthly beer allotment so that employees could sample them, and pass samples on to friends.

During a time when they were defending Budweiser’s market share, they gave each employee 25 bucks to buy Bud’s for friends, colleagues and perfect strangers. Up the sampling rate and create good will. (People seem to like free beer beyond its actual market value. I don’t know why.)

Played up competitive advantages well. An example: because of their efficient network of distributors and the strategic location of their breweries, they could deliver beer quickly and efficiently. This allowed them to market the freshness of their beer, and thus the Born On date was, um, born. To emphasize this, they created a series of special promotions offering select retailers (and in some cases entire sports stadiums of drinkers) beer packaged within 24 hours.

Aggressively marketed at every level. The brewery of course, was known for their Superbowl ads, flashy sponsorships, even a blimp or two. But they also paid attention to marketing at a grass roots level, and had a number of programs to encourage the driver-salesmen, who were often the main contact between the wholesaler and the retailer, to increase shelf space, show point-of-sale materials, hang neons, get key products on tap, and encourage sampling of new products.

Not every company can be an Anheuser-Busch. But they all can look at the principles that great marketers use, and use those same principles to market products and services more effectively, especially in tough times when marketing budgets become tight.

Smart marketers look to use innovative ways to push their products – social media and word-of-mouth marketing for instance. TVG helps our clients find new and cost-effective ways to build your brand and your reputation.

* I have to say that one of their initial changes, the new AB InBev logo, is a disaster. Neither traditional nor contemporary, it looks to me like it was designed by a second year graphic arts major – no offense meant to second year graphic arts majors. Here are some other local St. Louis opinions about the new logo.

With dialup going the way of the triceratops, Web-based video is becoming ubiquitous. Video can be an effective way to communicate with succinct messages with an emotional hook that text or still graphics cannot supply. It can give a face to a message or reinforce brand attributes.

So what kind of video should you consider putting on your Web site? Maybe your TV commercials if they’re funny or compelling, and not too old. A how-to-do-it video if you sell do-it-yourself types of products. Client testimonials. A message to your employees from your CEO. Maybe a new product video. Or even, if you got the money for it, original entertainment programming that drives people to your Web site. BMW used original short films by major directors to drive traffic to their site (hopefully driven in a BMW).

If I may, I’d like to suggest some ways I think will help you put video successfully on your Web site.

Engage your audience. And do it fast. Visitors will click away quicker than you can say “Our company started in nineteen forty-seven with a dream…” Your video should be something people want to watch, and, if you should be so lucky, tell other people to watch. You should know your target audience well enough to present video they would like to watch. If you don’t know your audience well enough to do this, well, you should.

Exclusive Content. Some prominent successes in Internet marketing came from the idea of only being able to get certain content from your Web site. If the content is compelling enough, and drives word-of-mouse, then people will visit and watch. The Bud Light commercial documenting the fictitious cause of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction is an example. It was pulled from broadcast but put up on an A-B Web site, where it gained new life and lots of, um, exposure.

Basic production rules apply. The quality of video on the Internet can be quite bad. That’s OK for a You Tube video of a guy in his basement channeling his inner Frodo while battling Sauron with his pull tab ring of power. But you may want to consider good lighting, good sound, and good editing as a viable alternative for your own video.

Promo it. If you want to drive viewers to your web site, you can’t do it by publicizing it only on your Website. If you have something really special, tell people about it in other media. Get some press on it. Take out an ad. Create an event.

If you go for funny, be funny. Really funny. Not kind of chuckle funny. Save kind of chuckle funny for blog posts.

How about a live video? I do like live Web cams pointed at interesting places. Sure the frame rate is ponderous and nothing much happens most of the time. But when the hyena walks by the camera or you see the sun set on one of your favorite beaches, it’s pretty cool.

Keep it current. Keeping a video up long past its viable shelf life is not a good idea. If it’s dated, it’s dated.

Copyrights apply. Violating a copyright may be a problem if your violation can be viewed by almost everyone on the planet. Talent, music, images – all may have rights associated with them. Viacom is suing Google for one billion dollars over copyright infringement on YouTube. How it’s settled will probably affect use of copyrighted material on the Web (at least in certain instances), but it hasn’t been settled yet.

How about HD? You can get decent HD on the Internet, movie trailers from the Apple site, for instance. But your viewer needs the broadband speed and the computer horsepower to make it work well – and it will take some time to download. So give standard def as an option to hi def and make everybody happy.

The handwriting is on the screen. Broadband video is with us … in our homes, at the office, on our cell phones. Yes, put video on your Web site. If you’re pretty sure someone will want to watch it.

Then you check your email. There’s a hot new video from YouTube being passed around and I don’t suppose I need to tell you what’s on it.

We’re in the age of instant video – the result of the availability of broadband Internet connections, handheld devices with built-in video cameras, and affordable editing software. If you make a mistake in a campaign speech or at a family reunion, within hours you can be seen by pretty much anyone in the world with an Internet connection. Unlikely? Ask Michael Richards or the third runner-up in the Miss Teen USA pageant.

Twenty years ago you needed a fifty thousand dollar camera and a half a million dollar production facility to be in the video business. Now you can get perfectly good, professional quality pictures from an under $5,000 camera and do some pretty decent editing on an iMac. You can even view the video on your phone.

But having a good camera doesn’t make you a shooter. And having editing software doesn’t make you an editor.

Good shooters know how to paint with light, compose a picture, and get decent audio (big problems on a video shoot are more likely to be audio ones than video ones). Editors need to have a feel for pace and drama, and more often than not in the pro world, the skills of a graphic artist. The same holds true for producers, writers, sound recordists, and the rest of the crew.

No matter what the technology, you’ll still need talented and experienced people if you want to effectively tell your story and get attention in an environment that is awash in pictures, sound and motion. Ideas and expertise still matter.

Contact us at tvg@vandivergroup.com or send comments to blog@vandivergroup.com.