As time progresses, so do our lives. Perhaps more rapidly than we realize. The ways we choose to progress are changing, largely due to the vehicle known as social media. Social media has enabled each and every one of us to instantly brand ourselves and promote that brand to millions of individuals worldwide. The main tool used to do so, is the network known as Facebook. Facebook has worked its way into our lives professionally and academically as well as in our family life, sports, music and movies.

As far as movies go, the evolution of Facebook was cinematically documented in the feature length film, The Social Network and landed three awards from the academy out of the eight in which it was nominated. Facebook is so involved in our daily lives, even many of the Red Carpet hosts used Facebook to gather questions from their fans to ask the actors as they strolled into the 83^rd Annual Academy Awards.

A scene in the movie that sticks out is when the Harvard students are discussing the first 24 hours of Facebook’s existence. In that time, 650 users signed up for the site. Now that number may not seem all that high, but at the time you had to have a Harvard email address in order to sign up. In this first 24 hours, the Facebook brand reached 650 people simply by word of mouth. This is shocking because at the time there was no official advertising, let alone a full understanding of the site by its creator, Mark Zuckerberg, and his colleagues. Due to the viral nature of Facebook, we use this concept to our advantage when endorsing a product, thought, or event without looking too promotional, yet still reaching our audience.

I look at Facebook as a virtual word of mouth, a mouth that can reach millions within a matter of seconds. If you go to a restaurant and enjoy the experience, you’re most likely going to grab your smart phone and at that minute give a status update which includes the name of the restaurant, what you ate and maybe even a link to the website or a picture of your dish. This type of advertising is priceless and today we strive for our brand to achieve a “Facebook-worthy” status.