The social media marketing and branded content agency has taken 40,000 square feet at 40 West 23^rd Street, which also houses Home Depot's Chelsea store. We should clarify they did some work for MySpace and Fox a few years ago, and also represent such biggies as Neutrogena, McDonald's and Colgate-Palmolive,

They were previously headquartered in 6,000 square feet in two buildings at 276 and 298 Fifth Avenue, near the Empire State Building. In the last eight months they've ramped up from 12 to 120 employees, Seth Berk, the company's vice president of business development, told The Observer. Needless to say, they were a bit cramped.

They looked for space in Soho, midtown and their existing neighborhood. "We saw a lot of availability in the corporate-type office spaces. We wanted an open loft that could allow for true collaboration," he said, hitting all the current buzzwords. "I guess it's the Bloomberg model."

They came upon space vacated by Marc Ecko, which The Observer reported last week is opening a new showroom and office on the far West Side.

Big Fuel, founded by former Viacom producer Avi Savar in 2004, currently has 125 employees and the company has experienced "stratospheric growth," expecting to hit 170 employees by the end of the year. If only MySpace could say the same thing.

lkusisto@observer.com

Social media marketing got a boost after Old Spice shook heaven and earth with a series of YouTube messages from its spokesman personally targeted to Internet celebrities and tastemakers and sites like 4chan and Reddit. The Old Spice YouTube videos were discussed, shared and written about for a week, known as "winning the Internet."

"What's evolved from my original plan is that now the goal is to make social media the center, and build complementary pieces around it. Social media has tentacles that reach all aspects of marketing," Bond told AdAge.

The ad industry's new focus on social media is great for startups like AdKeeper, a New York startup that has built a way for people to save and share ads.

The rise of social media in advertising is resulting in ads that are more like content--useful, funny or otherwise entertaining--than purely promotional messages.

ajeffries [at] observer.com | @adrjeffries