Arsalan Akhtar, CTO of Facebookster, Inc., presented a challenge to the over 200 receptive attendees of the Inaugural Facebook Developer Garage: Think “social media,” or be left out of the loop.

Facebookster, an established star of social media application development worldwide, contributed several speakers to the conference. Leading off the event after Facebook’s introduction, Hakim Sadik gave an introduction and overview of Facebookster. He was followed by Senior Business Analyst Ahmed Hashim, who, with Akhtar, spoke on such critical aspects of social media strategy as viral looping, virtual goods and monetization, and use of direct advertising as a secondary tool to drive traffic to social media. Throughout, Hashim stressed how the advantages of social media are pulling ever more attention and dollars away from traditional advertising strategies.

According to Hashim, contributing to this successful conference was only one part of Facebookster’s global idea exchange program, which is working to connect social media developers and trade professionals across the world to share strategies and strengthen the industry as a whole. The response was affirming: After a closing presentation from Microsoft on its powerful new Silverlight tool, a networking session gave attendees the opportunity to provide feedback on Facebookster’s presentation and the conference overall. It was overwhelmingly and enthusiastically positive. “We hope that the success of today’s event will encourage Facebook to support more such events in the coming months,” says Hashim. One thing is clear: Social media is making its own place in the history of advertising, and with thinkers and strategists from companies like Facebookster at the helm, its future is bright indeed.

Source: Facebookster