Carrot Creative Blog

Dumbo loft, check.
Free Brooklyn beer, check (thank you RRE Ventures).
Everyone in room geeking-out over mobile apps, check.

This pretty much sums up the Monday Mobile Brooklyn event this past Monday night where our very own Robert Gaafar, Carrot Creative’s CEO presented our submission to the NYC Big Apps contest: “Where Brooklyn App?”

Carrot isn’t ashamed to admit that yes from time to time we are turned down by clients. We aren’t an agency full of salespeople so we rely solely on our creative minds and genuine nature to win big business. We pride ourselves on being humble. Sure, WE know we’re freaking awesome but sometimes is takes time for YOU (the client) to realize that.

Recently at a client pitch where “team biz;” (@jpbrunelle, @katykelley, @mopostal, @mikegermano and @kaitvillanova) pitched a boatload of creative brilliance. During the pitch they oooo’d and ahhhh’d and we left their office with firm handshake and a lofty assumption that the pitch went well.  Beers all around.

Thank you Zipcar for sending us this awesome package of swag!

Here at Carrot Creative, we have always been big fans of the Zipcar brand, in fact we love it so much we built a customized twitter feed for them. With an office in Brooklyn, and clients all over the place we have had many instances where a Zipcar rental came to the rescue.

Our favorite use was for a recent visit to our most colorful client,  Crayola. For this trip, @mikegermano and @mopostal chose a bright yellow mini-cooper to put them in a colorful state of mind. They arrived in Easton P.A. on time and in style…

For those in DUMBO that don’t know yet, FanFeedr has moved into the area. Ty Ahmad-Taylor and his team setup shop in the Green Building off Water St. a few weeks ago. As the sports guy here at Carrot, I was extremely excited to hear about such a cool fan-oriented product planting roots in DUMBO. FanFeedr is all about providing real-time personalized sports news to fans in the most desirable way, and their integration of Facebook Connect is a clear example of this. With the release of an iPhone app last Friday, the FanFeedr team seems to be rolling out with new innovations each and every week. I have no doubt you’ll start hearing much more about them in coming months.

I just returned from the Future of Media Panel hosted by I Want Media at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. If you missed it, check out the livestream here. It was interesting this year compared to last, which is a true testament to how things have changed in the media world.. Last year’s panelists included more of a traditional set including Michael Wolff from Vanity Fair, Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch and David Carr from The New York Times. (There were others of course. Allen Stern’s CenterNetworks recap from last year can be read here if you want more.) The panel focused on a popular topic at the time “What is online killing/hurting?” Answers revolved around music, print, etc… you know the argument.

Photo Credit: Kelly Samardak, Just an Online Minute

Last night was the 4th Digital DUMBO Drinks hosted by our good friends at HUGE. An extremely successful and SOLD OUT event at the DUMBO Arts Center, we’re already excited for the next one. The lofty space hosted over 150 of the DUMBO digital elite gathering around the keg filled with the finest beer around-Brooklyn “We Go Hard” Lager  or filling up a glass with the delicious punch. Kegs and punch? Now THAT is how you throw a party.

Here at Carrot Creative we’ve been getting a TON of résumés and it’s hard to keep track of all the amazing talent sending work in. But today, something different happened and we had to call it out.

Looking to get our attention? Here are some tips:

1. Send a themed box full of Carrot Cookies plus a thought out résumé to our office.

2. Receive oohs and aahs from the team. (Plus smiles all day with full stomachs)

3. Accept huge thank you from the Carrot Crew on the Carrot Blog.

**This post was originally a guest post on  SmartBlog on Social Media and can be viewed here.

In this landscape, where everyone talks about the need to “get” social media, a basic social media audit can help you save a great deal of time before rolling out a larger strategy.

Carrot Creative’s audit takes into account your current social media presence but also looks at what assets you have that can be leveraged across online channels. For example, while some people go down a checklist — Do I have a blog? Do we have a Twitter account? How about a Facebook page? — we look first at what you already have and then how you can push it out to the community.