Geek Soap Box

Back in April, the Current Television Network made waves in the new biz community by boldly soliciting agencies to respond to an RFP for an account review via Twitter, the popular upstart social-networking site usually filled with 140-character comments on what users had for breakfast or other pithy commentary.

What made the move so innovative, though, was that it forced agencies to embrace their inner digital selves and admit that they were either already engaged with new media – thereby in the loop enough to receive the RFP – or they weren’t with the times.

Beyond this development, though, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that social networking is fast becoming a staple of the average New Business professional’s toolkit, if it hasn’t already.

For instance, did you know that there was a growing and passionate community of users on Twitter dedicated to discussing agency new business best practices and sharing their own experiences? A quick search indicates several dozen tweets from the past week alone, all marked by the hashtag “#adagencynewbiz” (for the uninitiated, “hashtags” are Twitter’s simple means of sorting and aggregating content on a particular topic, acting as real-time keywords).

In addition, whole blogs and other social communities have arisen in pursuit of the perfect pitch, such as Michael Glass’s Fuel Lines and – of course – this very blog you are reading right now. Even Facebook has a group dedicated to “Ad Agency New Business,” although it’s languishing away with only eight members currently.

What about you? Are you currently utilizing the resources of the Internet Business Development Community to strengthen your own proposals and strategies in these rough economic times? Share your own best experiences and favorite sites in the comments to this post!

(Cross-posted at the 4A’s Business Development Blog)