On Wednesday, March 4th we hosted our fourth(!) Advisory Board call. Some of our top members and bloggers joined the Smiley team to chat about a number of topics ranging from our five-year anniversary infographic to what Smiley can do to grow its already awesome member base. Need a refresher of our first three calls? You can find the recaps here.

1. Five Years Later

smileybday_infographAs you may know, Smiley celebrated its fifth birthday recently! To mark the milestone, we crunched the numbers and put together an infographic that sums up all you’ve helped us accomplish over the years. We asked our Advisory Board what surprised them most about the numbers we came up with and across the board everyone was blown away by just how many members we have and how many kits we’ve shipped. It’s a lot!

Many were also happy to see that our “Most Wanted Product Categories For Mission” section fell right in line with what our Advisory Board would like to see.

The geography of our members has been a bit of a mystery to our community and all were surprised to learn that Brooklyn was in our top cities with the most members—everyone except one Advisory Board member who triumphantly shouted “Brooklyn in the house!”

What surprised you most about the infographic? Let us know in the comments!

2. How Would You Describe Us?

chat-23713_1280Since we’re always curious how other people describe Smiley360, we asked our Advisory Board to tell us what they tell people when asked, “Where did you get that free stuff?” Our board did a great job of getting to the core of what Smiley is all about. “I feel like I have influence over products I might not otherwise try.” One member of the board stressed the importance of the community at Smiley and how you feel like you are a part of something big and meaningful.

How would you describe us to your friends? Let us know in the comments!

3. Where Do You Turn For News And Product Information?

tree-200795_1280Television, print magazine, blogs—we wanted to know where you get most of your information.

We learned quickly that our board members stay away from the news—too much negativity out there! Our board members are great sharers and active online, so it came as no surprise to use that many of you get much of your information from Facebook, whether it be following brands or publications. Specifically a few of the board members mentioned that they tend to follow niche local publications that focus on areas they are interested in—fitness, beauty, dieting and more.

We want to hear from you all too! Tell us about the TV shows, newspapers, magazines websites and blogs you read and watch. And think about this; if you had never heard of Smiley, where would you be most likely to see or read about us? Let us know in the comments!

4. Spreading The Word Of Smiley

Smiley has been lucky enough to be featured on The Today Show and in USA Today but we wanted to know, what else can we do to spread the word about our great community (you guys!)? Not surprisingly many of our board members suggested getting involved with different charities as a way to get our name out there while also doing good for other communities. Specifically, child-focused charities were popular among the board members.

Do you have any other suggestions for how Smiley can help grow our awesome community? We’d love to hear about them in the comments.

5. What’s Your Ideal Mission?

unnamedAs the call wrapped up we asked our board members what their ideal Smiley Mission would be. A few notable categories were mentioned—anything relating to children/babies, fitness-related Missions, natural or organic products, keeping things seasonal (a gardening Mission for spring, for example) and of course FOOD.

Let us know what your ideal Mission is in the comments!

Until next time.

Do you have anything to add to the topics we discussed? Do you agree with everything our board members said? We love hearing from you all so leave any thoughts you may have in the comments!