Aasif Mandvi, host of this year's Shorty Awards

What a difference a year makes. Last year the Shorty Awards — dedicated to honoring the best producers of short, real-time content — had CNN anchor Rick Sanchez as host. This year, Sanchez is long gone from CNN, and in his place was Aasif Mandvi of the Daily Show.

The significance wasn’t lost on Mandvi, as the Daily Show was right in the middle of things when Sanchez was dismissed from CNN last fall. “You all must really hate Rick Sanchez,” Mandvi joked, insinuating it was a slap in the face for Sanchez to have someone  from the Daily Show hosting.

Mandvi also poked a bit of fun at the awards themselves, as he joked that they are “the most relevant awards show ever,” and said, “Let me be honest. I’m only here to increase my Twitter followers.”

That being said, in their third year, the Shorty Awards have only gotten bigger (and longer).

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Carrot clients include The Onion, Crayola, the NFL, Unilever, MLB.com and the Dave Matthews Band. The agency also does a lot of work for Weber Shandwick, although, “with the agency side, I don’t get to talk about our work, so that’s the aggravating part,” he said.

Asked about how he sees the digital agency competitive set changing, Germano said, “…it’s the PR industry that should own social media, because it’s about conversation, having that conversation, getting people to talk about your product, putting information out there and getting customers to become advocates. …but the reality is, people who were born digital, who understand social media, understand the design and development of it, aren’t going to PR agencies.” It’s an interesting pitch for a company that isn’t a “PR” agency, but counts PR agencies as clients.

AgencySpy was on hand as well and asked Germano whether clients (either through an agency or direct) come to Carrot for help with social conversations or profit. Get that answer to that question via video here.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.