It ain't what you do...

Joanna Shields, MD of Facebook for Europe, Africa and the Middle East has recently drawn parallels between Facebook and the early days of TV and John Logie Baird. She's encouraged marketers to get involved in creating "big, bold and meaningful ideas the world will want to share".

She has a point - the potential of connecting billions of people around the world is quite something. I do think, though, that one trick brands have to learn is how to use Facebook and its like to get people to actually take action. I don't know - I've "liked" so many things and joined so many groups, but have acted on precious little.

I expect that one way for brands to get people to take action is to do something themselves. In the Cyber Category at Cannes, it's reported that brands "behaving" rather than "telling stories" won top honours, the brands in question being Nike+ FuelBand and Curators of Sweden, where the official Sweden Twitter account was handed over to Swedish citizens.

I suppose it's like the managers of these brands. Who gets on - the one who tells stories in the pub or the one who gets things done?

But, as the song says "it ain't (just) what you do..."