The most important feature for their new website was an Account System needed to display their membership. They have several types of members and a wide range of different industries that each member belongs to. They needed their membership searchable so that visitors can find a list of members for each industry. 

They also wanted a new custom design with a Rotator. 

To accomodate for their small budget we worked out an arrangement so they could use their existing service plan to redesign the website as opposed to other modifications to their existing website. Over the course of the last 10 months we built them a new website using 2 hours of maintenance per month. 

Because of our creative payment structure, the BCAOC has a completely new website without having to spend anything other than their existing monthly service plan. 

The SEO Goblin is anyone who knows just enough geeky words to convince you that he knows what he's talking about, but then turns out to be useless or at best lucky. Sure he may play World of Warcraft in his parent's basement, but that doesn't mean he knows anything about websites, search engines or marketing. 

Last night he struck at one of the places I go on a regular basis (I'm not sure they'd want me saying who or where). Walking out, I had a conversation with one of the employees who handles marketing. She told me that a guy was convincing the owner to go out and buy a bunch of domain names so that their website will show up higher in Google rankings. The Goblin was creeping around giving bad advice. 

The truth: Don't go out and buy a bunch of domain names unless you are going to create actual unique websites associated with each name. Just because you go out and buy www.iamthecoolestintheworld.com and redirect it to your website doesn't mean that it will all of a sudden show up in a Google search for "I am the coolest person in the world." In fact, Google will just ignore it. Please refer to my recent blog Are You Smarter Than Google? for more reasons why you can't trick Google. 

However, there are a few ways that a bunch of domain names could be useful.

1. If you create actual, unique websites for each.

2. You create micro sites (single page or small sites) devoted to specific subjects. However, realize that the smaller your website, the better the chances that your site will rank low. One page sites are useful if you want to judge the success of a specific advertising campaign. If you only advertise the domain name in one specific media you can test the success of the media or the campaign. 

3. Competition. If you don't want your competitor to own www.iruleeverything.com then go buy it yourself.  

Another horrible recommendation that the Goblin told them was that having a domain name that matches your company name is egotistical. Seriously. 

The most memorable domain name will match your company name. A keyword rich domain name may be slightly better for search engines, but your domain name isn't the only factor in the Google algorithm. So it's not like a domain name for www.lascruceswebsites.com (which for now we bought for competitive reasons) is worse than www.digitalsolutionslc.com (which is our actual website), it all depends on the situation. However, if search engines are your main concern, there are many other better ways to have an impact. 

The bottom line is that you need to be careful who you take SEO advice from. Sure the Goblin may seem legit just because he's a computer geek. He may even know some catchy lingo. But don't take advice from him please. Trust the web professionals. Contact Us if you need some good, experienced and honest SEO advice. 

"Google employs thousands of top notch engineers. A significant number of those engineers are devoted to search quality. Outsmarting them isn't very likely." 

It's not that I don't want to hear your idea, it's that 9 times out of 10 it's something like hiding text by making it the same color as the background, or keyword stuffing (things that will get you de-indexed). 

"Well then how do I get my website to show up on the first page of results?"

I know this is shocking, but the answer is follow Google's guidance. Google provides plenty of help for people looking to get their website ranked higher. Instead of spending your time finding people to exchange links with, spend your time listening to Google. They have Webmaster Tools that help you understand everything about your website, Analytics that breakdown how your website is being used, and an almost endless amount of videos and guides on how to make your website better. 

If that's too easy, then invest your time in good content development. Remember, Google is trying to provide people with a ranking of the best websites so make your website one of the best. 

Read more about our Search Engine Optimization philosophy or Contact Us if you need help. 

Guess what, it was easy. Really easy. And back in 2010 I did it a few times with a few different clients. We also helped people set up their blogs to automatically post on their Facebook and Twitter profiles. Another easy solution for incorporating social media into your marketing plan. 

One problem: These are bad ideas. While we didn't know it at the time, based on years of experience we know today that automated posting is bad. Not only is it frowned upon by the Facebook algorithm, but people know and they don't like it. 

To have a successful Facebook Marketing Plan you need first understand why Facebook works. If you think people logon to see automated postings from businesses trying to sell them something, you're living in a fantasy world. People logon to Facebook because they're looking for the most up-to-date stuff from friends and companies that they like. And if you're scheduling your posts a month in advance, it's not fresh. 

So be careful when someone pitches you the idea of managing your Facebook Page through services like Hootsuite. They could be creating more problems for you than you want to deal with. 

Instead, work with experienced professionals who understand the value of social media and know how to use it. Work with professionals who have experience succeeding and failing. Or better yet, work with someone who is going to train you and your staff to use it internally so you don't need to outsource it permanently. If you're looking for help with social media, contact us, we'd love to help. 

People use mobile devices more than ever. Last year more smart phones were sold than personal computers. Tablets are becoming more common. And of the 1 billion active Facebook users, 600 million use mobile devices. 

So the question isn't whether you're using mobile marketing, but how. If you have a website, you are marketing on mobile devices. So how are you doing? 

Should We Use Apps?

A few years ago the trendy thing was small business apps. The problem with apps is that there are too many steps in the process. First, the right people need to find your app. Presumable this would happen by linking to it through your website or by people searching for it in their app stores. Then you need to convince userers to dowload your app, presumably because you or they are going to do something on a regular basis with it. You need to provide value in your app, usually through engaging, unique, helpful or entertaining content.

The hardest part of this is convincing the right people to download and use your app and then follow through. The word Push Markeing is often used with Apps. However, be careful because Spam is Spam and if your content is not valuable and desired, it's not good. 

First Generation Mobile Websites

Next, people realized that they didn't need an app, they just needed a mobile friendly website. This is far better than the app because you're investing your time in something that has long term staying power. Creating content on your website is good for many more reasons than just providing your visitors with vaulable information (See SEO).

The mobile website trend started by either setting up separate websites or using software that detects most mobile devices and redirects visitors to a site formated for mobile. The problem with both of these options is that they have loop holes. Most software that detects what devices are being used either have a limited number of free redirects or cost monthly subscriptions. 

The Very Best Mobile Marketing

So we evloved to Responsive Websites. Responsive websites are designed to respond to the device being used. That means your website will recognize the size of the browser being used to view your website, and it will respond accordingly. 

Responsive websites restructure themselves so that the site is just as user friendly whether your visitors are on tablets, phones or PCs. Your site will not appear as a shrunken version of itself on a phone. It will change its design by restructing itself, removing unnecessarily large images and keeping all content legible without having to zoom. 

There's no doubt that mobile marketing is growing and you are engaged in it whether you like it or not. The question is how are you doing? Contact us for a free consultation and we can help you better understand the mobile marketing trend and where you fit. 

Here are 5 ways to make sure you're on the right track:

1. Start with a value proposition. What makes you cool and are you explaining that throughout your site. Are your meta descriptions highlighting what separates you or are they packed with keywords? 

2. Use relevant keywords. Be sure to use keywords that your targets use, not the words you use. Be smart about those words when you create tags or links. We found a great tool for researching keywords. Let us know if you need any help with it. 

3. Don't chase algorithms. Let the geeks fight about what the most recent Google Panda update means. Stay focused on making sure your content is readable, compelling and informative. Spend your energy on things that last not things that change on a regular basis. 

4. Integrate SEO into your larger plan. SEO shouldn't exist in a vacuum. Be sure the website side of your brain is communicating with the marketing side of your brain. When people land on your pages they need to quickly understand where they are and find what they're looking for. Ask yourself whether or not visitors can figure out your website. 

5. Contact us and we'll share the 5th one with you. 

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard where people share and organize all the wonderful things they find online. My wife organizes recipes (and then sends them to me since I'm the cook in the house), decorating ideas, fascinating places to travel to, and just all around fun stuff. In addition to these ideas, I organize ideas for website and graphic design. 

The bottom line is that Pinterest is useful and your business should be utilizing it as a part of your social networking plan. It will drive traffic to your blog posts or to specific sections of your website, and while not everyone will become a customer, search engines track the amount of traffic that your website gets. It also provides your customers with a unique way to learn about how they use your products or services. There is tons of value here. 

If this is your first exposure to pinning, check out our blog on Ways Pinterest Can Help Your Business. 

For the rest of you, here are 5 tips for making sure you're doing it right.

1. Organize. Create multiple boards so your visitors can easily find what they're looking for. 

2. Engage. By now you should know that successful social networking requires effort on your part. Not only do you need to post good content, but you need to follow others and engage with them. 

3. Quality Content Only. Pinterest is all about images. Don't upload it if you don't think it looks cool. 

4. Integrate. Put a Pinterest button on your website so your customers know you're there. Share your Pinterest posts on Facebook and Twitter. 

5. Promote with Value. It's okay to promote yourself on Pinterest, but do it by demonstrating your value not necessarily your best sales pitch. 

We look forward to see you out there pinning! Click here to follow our boards. 

Google's mission is the organize the world's information. And they try to make the best information the most accessible. That's why websites with good content tend do better in search results. That's not to say that bad websites can't trick search engines, but they do so a great expense and won't last long at the top. 

Why? Because Google's goal is to provide consumers with the best search results. That means the websites that you visit and like are the ones that they're trying to get to the top of their lists. After all, if they don't do that, consumers will go somewhere else to search the Internet. 

That's why creating good content is the best thing you can do for SEO. But content is valuable for more than just search engines. Your visitors will enjoy and appreciate good content too; they'll also dislike bad content. It's important that you balance content developed for SEO with content that is useful to your visitors. SEO would be a complete waste of time if your visitors don't find what they're looking for or are skeptical of what they find.

Whether you're selling widgets, services or educating people, good content is the key to a good website. 

So what's good content? Authentic content. 

Good content is the stuff that comes from your gut about your industry. The best comes directly from you. The worst comes from someone else pretending to be you. 

Your website or social media marketing is often the first exposure that people have with your business. If you've paid an external company to write that content for you then you aren't seizing on the opportunity to make a personal first impression. In the worst case you can be perceived as deceiving people (this is especially true in social media). 

So while you're exploring your SEO opportunities, don't forget that good content is the best option (assuming your website isn't a template - then you probably need to start a new custom website). And authentic content comes from you. 

Here are a couple tips to use if you have no choice but to hire someone else to help you with content development.

1. Hire or assign it to an employee. That way they're speaking on behalf of the company. 

2. If you aren't going to hire someone to help, work with someone who is tied to your success. SEO telemarketers come and go. You need a long term partner. 

3. Hire local. Local companies can be found and held accountable. Plus, they care about their reputation and should bend over backwards to help. 

4. Provide an editorial calendar. That way the ideas are at least coming from you. 

5. Hire someone with proven success. 

Their shopping cart includes an advanced account system allowing users to save items in their account, create wishlists and rate their items. If you're looking for a cool website to browse for unique home and kitchen accessories, take a look at the new kitchenkrafthome.com.

I got a call yesterday from someone trying to change their website. She bought her website from another company earlier this year and was trying to change the way her photo gallery displayed. She gave up on the company that originally helped her and turned to us to see what we could offer. 

Because the website she purchased was built using WordPress she wasn't able to make the change she wanted and we talked about the value of having a custom website.

When you're shopping for a new website you will have several options. A lot of people sell what they call custom websites, but are actually just graphically enhanced WordPress (or Joomla, etc) websites. That means the modifications you can make are confined to the template offered by that third party. That may seem fine in the beginning, but those of you with experience know that it won't be long before you want to start making changes to your website. And it's not like you, or the company you bought it from, can contact WordPress to suggest a modification. 

Changing Your Website is Natural & Good

Why is it natural? Things frequently change in your industry. You will get customer feedback. You will find new ideas that you want to incorporate (like the photo gallery my call was about). 

Why is it good? People don't return to stale websites and Google doesn't like websites that people don't go to. Search engines look for new content each time they crawl your website, and so do visitors. If you're providing new, relevant info on your website it will be a valuable website to everyone. 

When you buy a template, you're stuck with that template and the options offered by the third party (WordPress, Joomla, etc.) until you decide to leave it behind and go with something custom. 

Why Custom? No Limitations

So why not start with something custom from the very beginning? At Digital Solutions, everything we do is custom.

Your content management system is completely custom built so you can modify anything in it. And we've taken our years of experience and customized our system so that it's the most user-friendly option out there. Most of these templates are designed for a mix of geek and general user, ours is built for you. There's no confusion with it and if you have a question we're always a phone call away. 

Your design is custom. Whether you buy our Classic Website of Premium Website, your design is custom to fit exactly what you want. 

Your website functions are custom. That includes your blog, calendar, photo gallery, shopping cart, video gallery, etc. If you can imagine it, we can build it for you. No limitations. 

Contact us if you're looking for more information on building a new website. We'll give you an honest consultation. 

Hampton Investigation Service is a civil and criminal investigation organization. The company also conducts pre-employment background screening and skip tracing. Check them out at http://www.hamptoninvestigation.com/

Las Cruces Security Services provides security and investigative services in Las Cruces, as well as, other areas of Southern New Mexico. They have over 92 years of combined experience.

These two organizations are led by one of the most respected people in Las Cruces, Pete Hampton. Pete's resume is extensive, but is well known as the former Chief of Police for the City of Las Cruces. Learn more about Pete at either of the two new websites.  

Hunting Widows are women frequently left behind by husbands who spend countless hours hunting. And these wives love every minute of it!

Trophy Wives are "huntresses" who are equal to the challenge of hunting game during hunting season. 

If you, or your wife, qualifies as one of these, you really ought to check out the most recent website that DS developers went live with: Cazadora Hunting Botique and Supply. In this new E-Commerce website you can find everything a Hunting Widow or Trophy Wife is lookinging for! 

We took the content from their old website, modified it for SEO and built this Las Cruces firm a new responsive website. Simply put, responsive websites are mobile friendly. Their underlying structure responds to the size of the browser being used. So if you are using a tablet, phone, or just a down sized browser on your PC, the website responds and becomes more user friendly. 

Take a look at the Furth Law Firms new website and play with the size of your browser to see a responsive website in action. 

http://www.furthlawfirm.com/

The Academy of Music and Dance, located in Las Cruces, New Mexico just launched its new website!

We are very proud to be involved in planning the organization and development of this website. They're the only certified Angelina Ballerina institution in Las Cruces and their website has a really cute video about the certification.

In addition to music and dance classes, The Academy of Music and Dance has a great performing arts preschool called ABC Academy Preschool.

Take a look at the new website (click here) for this great Las Cruces business and let us know what you think.  

That's why we were excited when First Presbyterian Chuch came to us to help them promote their Renewal 4 Women event in Las Cruces.

If you're looking for an inspirational event, Renewal 4 Women may be just what the doctor ordered. It features local musicians along with the inspirational renewing of your mind. 

Visit their website, www.renewal4woment.com, for more information.

Our most recent website www.stahmannpecan.com went live earlier this week. The estate that has been growing pecans in the Mesilla Valley since the 1930s is still growing strong and plans to be here for generations to come. While they have shut down their candy operations, they're still one of the largest pecan growers in the world and that isn't going to change. 

Check out www.stahmannpecan.com to learn more about Stahmanns Estate Grown Pecans. 

Then why would you pay someone to pretend to be you on Facebook. Over the past few years it has become more popular for advertising agencies to try and sell content development plans that include posting comments on your behalf on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or what ever other social network is the flavor of the day. 

Don't get me wrong, I get it. You're busy. Your market share is dropping. Is it the economy? Is it the new guys down the street? You're asking yourself: "How do we make sure we're taking advantage of the marketing opportunities in social media?" Then this guy comes knocking at your door. 

"I'll do it all for you so you can focus on making money. I'll set up a Facebook Page for you and I'll post your comments for you every day." 

Despite how he looks, it sounds like an easy way to take the load off your shoulders and put it somewhere else. Sweet. So you say "Sounds good sleazy looking dude, go pretend to be me online. I'm sure this will work out great."

But it doesn't. Just like automating posts using HootSuite didn't work. 

But this time, it's worse. You've effectively lied to everyone out there who took the time to follow you online. These are people who said to themselves "this looks like a valuable page to follow," or "I know this guy, he's cool so I'll help him out by throwing a Like his way." You haven't just set yourself up for failure, you've potentially ruined your reputation. 

Now, your market share has dropped even more. You're still looking for ways to take advantage of social media, but no one cares what you have to say. 

So Don't Do It

Don't trust your reputation to some random dude off the street who's going to make your life easier by pretending to be you. If you need help with content development, go to someone you can trust and make them a member of your team. If you're going to pay someone to do it, you need to work out an editorial calendar with them and provide specific guidance and oversight to make sure you are intimately involved in the content. And you need to post it yourself.

This is networking in a lot of the same ways that going to a Las Cruces Home Builders Association luncheon is networking. It's meant to be social, interesting and fun. You need to be invested in it if you want it to work. If you aren't going to engage, then don't waste your time, or worse, your reputation. 

While working on Beaverhead Outdoors, we all wondered what it would be like to drop everything and move into the country. Beaverhead Outdoors specializes in selling ranches, hunting and recreational real estate. If Mountain Men were still around and if they bought real estate, this is where they'd go for advice. 

We've been working with the folks at Beaverhead for a few months now. This is the second website we created for them. The first was Beaverhead Outfitters. This is where they promote the guided hunts. Believe it or not, a third is right around the corner. It promotes hunting themed clothes for women. Keep your eyes open for this one! It's helping the ladies at the office complete their vision of dropping it all and heading out into the mountains. 

We just completed a project for the Gold Guys where we dressed up one of our employees in this gold suit and shot him in front of our green screen. The video doesn't capture it all because you don't hear all the random comments we were shouting at him while he was dancing... if that counts as dancing. 

The Gold Guys got what they were looking for and we had fun doing it. 

Need a custom video? Stop by and we'll help. 

I think the essence is, will there ever be a social network that's about being fun and social, not just another place for the used car salesmen of marketing to make us feel awkward. 

I agree with the essence of the message. While I try to help people understand how social media is used for marketing purposes, I focus my message on the importance of being genuine, social and building relationships. That means most of you shouldn't use social media for direct sales. In addition, simply posting a bunch of stuff doesn't work. These things will get you hidden real fast. Remember, your past clients can Like your page and hide your posts. 

Instead, you should use social media to strengthen your relationships. Provide relevant and interesting information to your followers so they feel comfortable when they see your name on their wall. You can also ask interesting questions that involve your followers in your decision making. These are the things that get people to engage with you and your business. 

That doesn't mean you can't promote your business. It means that you can promote your business by developing relationships. If you have strong relationships, your promotions will be welcome.

Here's an example:

What not to do:

"Huge sale today on the best stuff in the world!"

Try this instead:

"If we had a huge sale, what should we include in it?"

What not to do:

"We're the best company in the world!"

Try this instead:

"How would you describe your experience with us in three words?"

Social media is about being social. Reevaluate your strategy and see if that's what you're doing. 

It's not that I think Timeline is the greatest thing since Pintrest, but it's the platform that Facebook offers and it isn't that much different than what you had two months ago. I do, however, look forward to seeing the haters petitioning to add a 28 Amendment to the Constitution establishing our right to keep social networks from evolving. 

Until that happens, let's make due with what we have. And Facebook has now introduced Timeline for Pages. Here are a few things that you need to know before you transform your Page:

Default landing pages are gone. 

Photos, Likes and Aps are at the top. 

You can move things to to the top or change how they are featured by hovering over them. 

Your administration panel is different and I think better. 

You need a cover photo (851 pixels by 315)

You can now change your page name!

Learn more about Facebook's Vision for Timeline.

Ideas for Your Timeline

Think of Timeline as scrapbooking for your business. You can add photos to specific dates, so if you have a ribbon cutting picture from your business's grand opening ceremony in 1985, add it. You can also add specific posts to specific dates, so if something really important happened on April 1, 2005, add it. The point is that you can now trace the history of your business on Facebook. Some of your clients may like that. 

You also get a larger image to feature your business. Get creative, but remember that people don't want to spend multiple seconds trying to figure out where they are. The best image will have one message that is easy and clean. 

What Not To Do

The other day I came across an individual's Timeline that was cluttered with messages from what seemed like 10 different businesses he owns. If you're goal is to present yourself or your business as a desperate used car salesman, then I suggest taking this route. However, for those of you who would like to present yourself and your business as a professional organization with a simple and effective message, you might want to try something else. 

What Others Are Doing:

Don't just look at the top image. Remember, your timeline is more than just a big picture. Your Timeline is a scrapbook for your business. Spend some time adding content. Here are a few pages that have spent some time making the Timeline interesting. 

http://www.facebook.com/cocacola

http://www.facebook.com/nike

http://www.facebook.com/facebook

http://www.facebook.com/mashable

http://www.facebook.com/fordmustang?ref=ts

Okay, now if you have a Facebook Page, either plan on spending some time transforming your page, or star organizing the campaign for the 28 Amendment. 

I know, I know, all of you have already heard of these, used them and have moved on to something much cooler, but a good list must start somewhere. 

Several of my clients have asked me for a list of the resources I use online. I finally decided that sharing my list online was easier than anything else. So here it is and these are in random order:

HootSuite http://hootsuite.com/

HootSuite allows you to manage multiple social media accounts in one place from an easy to use dashboard. If you manage multiple accounts and want an easy way to plan and coordinate, I recommend them.

Bitly https://bitly.com/

If you have the habit of sharing links, use Bitly to track them. Bitly is a simple way to track how many clicks your links get and where they come from.

Social Mention http://socialmention.com/

A quick search for anything in social media. If you want to track your brand or your name you can also sign up for email alerts.

Topsy http://topsy.com/

Another real time search engine of social media. It organizes its results by influence.

Twellow http://www.twellow.com/

Twellow organizes Twitter accounts. If you're looking for the most popular accounts or just want to know how you rank next to your competitors, this tool is for you.

Slideshare http://www.slideshare.net/

This is an awesome place to put all your presentations and then embed them into your blog or social media. It also tracks how many views your presentation gets.

Alltop http://my.alltop.com/ideaboost

Alltop is an awesome place where you can organize the blogs you follow, or look at the blogs that other people follow.

Alexa http://www.alexa.com/

Alexa ranks every website by how much traffic a site gets.

Cubstat http://www.cubestat.com

Cubstat provides you with ranking information for your website.

Website Outlook http://www.websiteoutlook.com/

Provides you with ranking information for your website.

Quantcast http://www.quantcast.com/

This is a fun site that measures the US demographics of the people who visit your website. How? I have no idea!

Get Listed http://getlisted.org/

An easy way to find out if your business is listed on major search engines and it provides you with a guide to add it if need be.

Ping-o-Matic http://pingomatic.com/

A quick and easy way to notify blog aggregation websites that your blog has been updated.

Resize It http://www.resize.it/

A website that helps you resize photos.

What the Font http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Identify fonts by uploading images.

Blog Grader by Hub Spot http://blog.grader.com/

A pretty cool analysis of your blog.

Slick Plan http://www.slickplan.com/

Create free site maps and flow charts.

Bubble Us https://bubbl.us/

Another cool place where you can develop flow charts and brain maps.

Edgerank http://edgerankchecker.com

See how your Facebook Page compares with others based on interactions.

Google Plus Nick http://gplus.to/

Get a shortened Google+ url.

Simply Noise http://simplynoise.com/

This may not be a handy tool for websites unless you sit around annoying people and need to drown their voices out. Check it out.

Printer Friendly http://www.printfriendly.com/

Take any webpage and make it printer friendly - i.e. remove blank space, resize photos, etc.

However, when Lerner walked in on me today and said "get off Facebook already," I replied "I'm researching for our next blog!"

So now I have no choice but to write a blog about Facebook. 

The Best Las Cruces Facebook Pages

(Other than Digital Solutions and Scott Krahling is my County Commissioner, or course)

5. Stearns Custom Homes

http://www.facebook.com/stearnscustomhomes

A key part of a successful Facebook Page is good content on your website. Stearns Custom Homes is a custom home builder in Las Cruces and does better than most when it comes to updating his blog. For instance, he updated photos and videos of an adobe home project over the course of last year. He also asks fun questions and keeps people engaged. 

4. Allen Theaters

http://www.facebook.com/allentheatres

Who doesn't like movies? Allen Theaters does a great job of keeping people posted on the movie industry. 

3. Hot 103

http://www.facebook.com/Hot103LC

Hot 103 gives great news updates, music and movie updates, and more. They also encourage engagement and get it. Like so many other pages, it probably helps that they have a radio station backing them up with promotions and followers. 

2. Las Cruces Sun News

http://www.facebook.com/LCSUNNEWS

The thing about the Sun News page is that they keep it updated. They post links to stories, ask questions, and allow people to post on it. Other than the fact that they clearly have great content, I think the fact that they allow people to engage and post their own comments makes them socially friendly. They are, by far, the best local media on Facebook. 

1. Biad Chile

http://www.facebook.com/hatchgreenchile

Over 92,000 people can't be wrong! Hatch Green Chile, aka Biad Chile, makes chile fun. They do everything right: post, reply, ask, and promote. Go to their page and look at how many people have engaged them. It's exacxtly what brand promotion on Facebook is all about. 

You Pick the Best Facebook Page

These are my favorites. Visit our Facebook Page and add yours. 

1. First thing is first, sign up and start building up your boards! The reason Pinterest is become so successful is the visual aspect of the site, this gives the business owner the opportunity to post pictures from their website and pin them on boards for others to see.

For example, if you are a home builder and you would like to share a beautiful custom bathroom you built, take a picture, add it to you site and pin it into your board called : beautiful bathrooms.

That way your followers will be able to see your photo and have direct link from that photo on Pinterest to your website. This is helpful  for those followers who may not go to your website on a regular basis.

One thing to note, Pinterest encourages the sharing of ideas, photos and information but looks down on blatent self promotion (you can read on their etiquette page). But again, that doesn't mean that you can't intergrate your photos with other inspiring images you have found on the web.

2. Add a Pinterest button to your website. This encourages visitors to pin from your site. You can also incorporate a "Pin It" button, for added encouragement.

3. Get to know your followers, and follow them back, and learn a little about what they like. Getting to know your followers will help you tailor your articles, products and photos to your audience.

4. Content is king. You want to make sure your boards don't become stagnate, your followers will become disinterested if articles or products is all you share. Keep it interesting, show your photos and products off, but be sure to share links to other items (movie, books, recipes) you like.

Most importantly, have fun! That is what Pinterest is all about!

Content is King and Relationships Freakin' Rule!

And thanks to social media this applies online more today than ever before. If this is a new concept for you then you need to pull your head out of the sand and get moving.

Web marketing is no longer just brochure marketing. You don't just need a website, or just need a Facebook profile. You need to work at it to make it work. Consider your online marketing in the same terms of your Chamber of Commerce membership. You can't just join and expect your membership to deliver. It's what you put in that determines your success.

When you are online, are you building relationships? Your website and your social media give you a unique opportunity to develop relationships and just as in real life, if you don't deliver than it won't deliver for you. Provide your audience with information that is relevant to them and suites their interests. Don't spam them with pitches on why your business is the best as if you are making a sales call. Treat your audience the same as you do the folks who join you at the diner table at the Chamber's awards ceremony. Ask about them. What are their interests. Wait for them to ask about you. And then deliver by responding.

Responding is key. Imagine if you were at diner and the stranger sitting next to you, whom you just introduced yourself to as a representative of your business, said this: "I heard your products need to be replaced every year." And then you just sat there for the next two hours ignoring it and talking to everyone else about how great you are. That person walks away with the impression that not only do your products fail, but that you pretty much suck. Don't leave that impression online. If someone comments about you on Twitter, respond. If someone asks you a difficult questions about your service on Facebook, respond. It is better to face the difficult situation up front, than fail at business and wonder why.

People do business with people they like and trust. Be that person in your online strategy and you will succeed.

Most people like photos. They're easy. They're pretty. And how does that old saying go? Oh yeah, they say 1,000 words. If she doesn't have photos then they're even further behind then they realize.

However, photos have even more importance than just looking pretty and showing yourself off. They actually should be driving traffic to your site. Here are two ideas on the subject.

1. Post your photos in multiple locations. Flickr.com is a great example. You post your photos on Flickr and drive traffic back to your website. Google also have a photo sharing site called Picasa.

2. Google Images. The photos on your website are logged into Google Images. How? It associates the words you use on the pages where the photo appears with the search being done on Google. For instance, if I am searching for pictures of a jail (I have no idea why that was the first thing to come to my mind, maybe I have issues), the results include the photos that are on pages that talk about jails. How novel... Google will also look at the page titles, domain name, and photo tags. This probably requires a little more explanation.

• Use descriptions for the names of your photos. Don't call it "Jail.mpg" call it "Dona Ana County Detention Center the Jail in Las Cruces.
• Describe it using the words you think your prospects are searching for. If you want people to find you using a location, add the location.
• Link to the photo using a keyword. For instance, "Jail in Las Cruces" instead of "click here.

These are just 2 ways you can drive traffic to your website using your photos. There are others. And while it may seem little, all the little things add up to a successful web strategy.

To Infinity & Beyond - That's where Buzz Lightyear's going and if you're in business, your marketing ideas better be going there too.

Marketing is evolving and we have to make decisions today without knowing what the future will bring. This is why we need to be educated and prepared based on what has happened leading up to today, but focussed on tomorrow. For fun, let's call this Buzz Lightyear Marketing. 

Continuing trends like newspaper subscriptions are declining and the Internet is growing, forcing your marketing strategy to evolve. I posted a blog a year ago about killing the old cliche that you waste half of your advertising dollars. Then I started thinking about my own web consulting and how in just 5 years my ideas and advise have changed.

In just 5 years we've seen the Internet change so much that Digital Solutions has become almost exclusively a web based firm. This is primarily because in the small community we serve there are no strong web production companies with reliable staffs complete with customer service professionals and developers. And recently we've gone through the evolution from a website production company to a web consulting company. Again, this happened because we are fluid enough to adjust as times change and the web has changed significantly in the last 3 years (not to mention what happened before that).

Just 5 years ago our clients seemed focused on getting a website and targeting key words on search engines. That need hasn't changed, but now everyone has a website (and if you don't you had better start figuring that one out quick or just give up on the future).  Then a couple of years ago people like me started talking about "social networking." That phrase has transformed a few times most popularly into "new media" and "social media." Today there are hundreds of people out there talking about how to make all this work for your business and count me in as one of them.

But sometimes we get so caught up talking about what's happening today that we lose sight of what's to come. Don't get me wrong, we need to know what's happening today in order to think about the future possibilities, but today we easily get distracted by tweets, fan pages, blog posts (especially writing them, lol), and other ways we grow our networks. I could easily spend all day doing these things, and some days I do.

However, a vision focused on today isn't really a vision. So here are some thoughts on the future.

1. The Internet is going to become the central feature in your life and you will use it everywhere you go. For some of us this is already happening. Everyone else will be joining in soon. And the things that you like will continue to be found there, reducing the need for a lot of existing Internet services. Television and movies, direct communications like telephone and video conferencing, web surfing, reading books, listening to music, searching, and social networking, these are all going to be centralized in one spot and chances are you already have one. Today's flat screen TVs are already fit and ready to go to be tomorrow's computer.

2. Your options are going to go through phases of shrinking and growing. We don't need 50 different social networks, but everyone has the capability to come up with new ideas so websites will come and go. The best ones will evolve and listen. If you use Facebook, think about how many times it has changed in the past year or so. And have you ever joined a group or become a fan of a change that you would like to see in Facebook?

3. Internet searching will continue to change. Why do you think Google is spending so much on new ideas like Social Search and Google+? Because they know that the traditional (wow, has it been long enough to call it that) search isn't very efficient unless you are looking for quick answers to questions like definitions, locations or specific websites. Searching may become most useful in small hand held devices and with augmented reality.

4. The Internet will be understood. We will know what we use it for, why and when. We will use it for a variety of reason in a variety of ways depending on where we are and what we're doing. Augmented Reality will happen.

What does this mean for marketing?

1. You had better start using the Internet. For the few of you out there who are still holding off (you probably aren't reading this anyway) figure it out! Your website is no longer a brochure. It needs to be multiple things with multiple uses. Mobile, Applications, Brochure (yes there is still a need for that), Video, Social, Customer Service, etc. these are all things that you should have been thinking about yesterday and you need to be implementing today.

2. Think. I almost just want to stop there, but when you are using the internet for you personal uses, think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. Don't think about profit alone, that will come with good ideas. Think of ways to incorporate your business into what you do.

3. Take risks! Don't be afraid to try new things. That is the only way that you will be the leader in your industry and not the follower. A lot of your new ideas will fail, but one good one will make you stand out far beyond any following that you could do.

4. Get out there. If you're single you know that you aren't going to get a date unless you get out there, even if that means getting out there online. The same is true for marketing. If you don't get the word out you will either go away or someone else will get it out for you and then you have almost no influence.

I'll stop here for now. After all, I need to get out there myself and start earning my income.

These are just my thoughts and once they've been written they become older and probably ought to be criticized so I'm interested in your thoughts and ideas, please share them.

For the last few years we've see social media as the new evolution in marketing but it's hard to pinpoint exactly why or how it works.

It is helpful to think about this evolution in the context of the overall evolution of the economy.

The participatory concept isn't new. It involves having a relationship and interaction in the decision making of the businesses that you work with and it's actually as old as economies themselves.

I recently participated in a webinar with leading marketing specialists about the evolution of marketing and what appears to be a merging of communications, customer service, marketing and public relations. The point that I took away from it is that the corporate structure is changing back to being more participatory.

One of the hardest parts of change is being convinced to take the leap without a clear understanding of what the return on investment is. But we know that PR, while hard to gauge, works. The return, while hard to see, results in feelings and beliefs. PR moves your brand ahead because people feel better about using it. You have the opportunity to move ahead of your competitor because people believe in your product.

Start thinking about your marketing, communications, customer service and public relations plans and how you can restructure and merge them.

For business owners out there here's some good news: your marketing budget may be shrinking. You should start thinking about shifting your marketing budget from paid media to earned media. Earned media is participatory media.

This all comes back to social media because you can merge these roles and make your brand more participatory with social media. Social media allows your clients to have a voice, to get their problems addressed, to interact with you directly, and share their good experiences with the rest of the world. At Digital Solutions we can help you incorporate these ideas into a new participatory strategy starting with your website and reaching out into your overall online profile.

Take a moment to compare the two main phone technologies - cellular vs. landline. How have mobile phones in the 2000s alone advanced? When the decade started they finally became mainstream, led by those popular candy bar phones and basic monophonic ringtones. In just one decade, they became full-fledged, all-in-one multimedia devices capable of complex computing and communication. Along the way they acquired the capabilities of text messaging, chirping, color screens, polyphonic ringtones, e-mail, office productivity programs, MP3 music playback, web browsing, photography, video, editing, multi-purpose gaming, touch screens, and sophisticated applications. All that in just 10 years!

Now consider how many years traditional phones have remained the same. Granted, they may have changed outfits (rotary to touch-tone to cordless), but functionally they haven't progressed very much. Oh by the way, how many people still use them?

Phones are just one example of the breakneck speed at which technology is developing. Consumers get to reap the benefits of these advancements, but they are largely driven by corporate competition in advertising and marketing. Companies and entrepreneurs who choose to embrace the pace survive and thrive by cultivating these tools in order to help their business grow. The questions is, are you willing to roll the dice and jump in the pool before everyone else? Sure there may be some risk involved, but nobody ever wins big by playing it safe.

This brings us to a breakthrough technology that has been around for well over a decade in Japan but is starting to pick up steam here in America - QR codes. Below is an example:

No, that's not one of those Rorschach inkblot tests or magic eye hidden 3D images. This is actually what a QR (quick reference) code looks like. It is a special offer for a 10% discount on a new website from Digital Solutions if purchased before March 31.

You may have already seen one of these symbols and not even realized it. Shipping companies like UPS and FedEx place them on their packages for commercial tracking. Nowadays though, this 2D pixelated square is a powerful communication tool that is revolutionizing the way goods and services are marketed. Huh? Stay with me and let me explain.

What are they?
We all know what bar codes are - vertical lines with numbers underneath that reveal basic product information after being scanned. But since they're one dimensional, data can only be contained within those lines. With QR codes, information is stored in the entire square in both directions, allowing much more data in the form of plain text, URLs, images, even video. Although there are similar technologies out there, such as Data Matrix, Ezcode, and MaxiCode, QR codes seem to be gaining the most steam.

How do they work?
As mentioned above, mobile phone technology has exploded, and it's largely due to the advent smartphones such as the iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Pre. According to a 2009 year-end tech trend report by CNN, smartphone sales, in spite of the recession, increased by a whopping 24% from the previous year.

Clearly, we are in the midst of a mobile revolution in which these devices will soon be the primary source for accessing information. Several websites saw this coming and developed companion sites specifically for mobile devices, such as Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and, more locally, Allen Theaters.

This trend directly enhances the value of QR codes since a camera-enabled smartphone is required to access them. All that's needed is a QR reader, a free downloadable application that comes pre-installed on many of these devices that scans the image. The reader decodes the symbol and generates the content. Want to create your own QR code? No problem. Hop online to one of the many free QR code generator sites, enter your content, and in moments you have your very own QR code that can be read in print or on screen.

Essentially, they act as brilliant "tell me more" tools. The benefits are huge for all involved. For product and service providers, it's a simple, space-saving alternative to get people curious about what you offer by displaying contact information, offering promotions or discounts, encouraging instant feedback, showing images and videos, and countless other creative ways.

For consumers, it makes acquiring information incredibly easy. No more jotting stuff down with pen and paper to access on some computer later. No more slow page-by-page searches for what you're looking for. And no more tedious typing of long links on your small handheld device. QR codes do the legwork for you.

How are they being used?
Since QR codes were developed in Japan, they can be found everywhere there, including McDonald's burger boxes to display nutritional information, movie posters to view of trailers, and doctor's offices and beauty salons to schedule appointments.

Here in America, there are some very innovative ways people are using QR codes:

• Illinois State University's 2009 official football magazine has them throughout its pages, allowing readers to book a tee time at the university golf course, make a donation to an endowment fund, give access to detailed player statistics, and order tickets to upcoming games.
• Disney World's PhotoPass card, which Disney Photographers scan to store your images you have taken throughout your trip, has a QR code on it that will allow you to view all your images from your smartphone.
• A student from the Parsons New School of Design in New York had QR codes that contains entries from her diary printed on T-shirts and made them available for purchase to the public. It was such a success that her website now offers to make custom shirts for visitors to submit their own entries for purchase.
• The Detroit Red Wings have included a QR code in their in-arena programs that lead directly to a humorous video that fans love. More important, it's encouraging advertisers to hop on the QR code bandwagon, according to the team Social Networking Coordinator, Nicole Yelland.
  
  "In tracking this effort, the Wings have found mobile devices to be the #1 viewing medium fans are using to see videos accounting for an overwhelming 22% of fans viewing linked videos nearly 2,000 times all the way through," she said. "We're very excited at the possibilities this technology provides our team in giving more access and we've only just begun to tap into the capabilities it provides us in both marketing to our fans and giving them exactly what they are asking for in terms of access to their team."

As you can see, all you need is a little imagination. The point is to find more ways you can get people to your website and keep them coming back so that you can achieve a higher search ranking and attract more advertisers, which in turn leads to greater profits. QR codes are an excellent method to achieve that goal.

How can you tell if they are effective?
There are direct ways to determine QR code effectiveness, such as offering exclusive specials by going to pages at your website that are otherwise inaccessible. Once someone takes advantage of that special, mission accomplished. In addition, a very powerful aspect of QR codes is that their usage can be measured by using analytic tools, similar to tracking website traffic. The number of scans, date and time of scans, locations of the people scanning them, devices being used to make the scans, and number of website hits per scan are a few examples. Several services are available online to provide a wealth of reports and data, which can be used to adjust your marketing on the fly for optimal success.

Will they actually take off?
Like any new technology, there is initially a great deal of interest and support at the grassroots level from tech savvy consumers and niche organizations. In order to acquire mass appeal though, it needs backing from some big guns that have an established, wide-reaching presence.

The future for QR codes looks bright because they are finally getting that from Google, who is pushing hard to get the ball rolling with their recent campaign, Favorite Places on Google. Basically, they are rewarding local businesses that garner the most Google searches by sending them a decal to be placed on their windows, similar to a Chamber of Commerce seal. Once the QR code from the decal is scanned, the smartphone will be redirected to the business's Google Maps Place Page - a hub of information about it gathered from all over the web.

"You can easily go up to a storefront and immediately find reviews, get a coupon if the business is offering one or star a business as a place you want to remember for the future," said Ryan Hayward and David Kim, Google product marketing managers. "Soon, you'll be able to leave a review on the mobile page as well, just like on your desktop."

Locally in Las Cruces, you can see this in action at Asian restaurant Aqua Reef and pub High Desert Brewing Company. See how it works below:

The Bottom Line
Cleary, QR codes are here to stay. Here in Las Cruces, they are still relatively unknown, which means there's a great chance to capitalize on this untapped market, especially in real estate. But you have to be willing to get out in front before everyone else. Digital Solutions is on the forefront of this and is available to help you plan how to incorporate them into your marketing plan.

Every week, we pit two web apps or companies against each other in our web faceoff series. In the past, we've put Android vs. iPhone, Digg vs. Reddit, and Windows 7 vs. Snow Leopard order to see which one was truly the people's choice.

This week, we're tweaking the competitors a bit. Over the last few weeks, you may have heard about a battle brewing between Adobe and Apple. It all started when Apple slyly revealed that the iPad would not support Flash.

This quickly broke out into a heated debate: Should we be abandoning Flash for HTML5, the new version of the web's mark-up language that can support video, audio and more? Steve Jobs certainly thinks so.

Now with more people chiming in, we think it's time to take the pulse of the people.

Which will eventually win out in the end: Adobe Flash or HTML5? Which is better for the future of the web? Do you think Apple has the muscle to take down Adobe's widely used plug-in?

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

We often say that social media is a conversation, and what we mean by that is unlike traditional broadcast and print mediums, which are often one-directional, social media is very much a two-way channel. Not only can businesses communicate with their customers, but their customers can communicate with them and with each other, as well. By and large, this type of communication is a good thing - businesses can form more personal relationships with customers and customers can become part of a community around the brands and businesses they want to support.

However, when you open the conversation up to anyone, you can also potentially invite negative criticism that you need to be prepared to deal with. Here's a quick guide to dealing with negative feedback on social media.

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Identify the Type of Feedback

The first step to dealing with negative feedback is determining what type of feedback you've received. Negative feedback comes in a few different flavors, each of which is best dealt with by a different type of response. Determining which type of feedback you're dealing with is an essential first step toward figuring out what is the appropriate response.

Straight Problems - Someone has an issue with your product or service and has laid out exactly what went wrong. This type of feedback is negative in the sense that it paints your business in a poor light, but it can be helpful in exposing real problems that need to be dealt with.

Constructive Criticism - Even more helpful is when the comment comes with a suggestion attached. Many customers - including some of your most loyal - will use social media to suggest ways in which you can improve your product or service. While this type of feedback may point out your flaws, and is thus negative, it can be extremely helpful to receive.

Merited Attack - While the attack itself may not be merited, the issue that catalyzed it does have merit in this type of negative feedback. Essentially, you or your company did something wrong, and someone is angry.

Trolling/Spam - The difference between trolling and a merited attack are that trolls have no valid reason for being angry at you. Also in this category are spammers, who will use a negative comment about your product or service (whether true or not) to promote a competing service.

Decide How to React

Once you've figured out which type of feedback you've received, your next step is to determine the type of response necessary. The number one rule when responding to all criticism, even the negative type, is to stay positive. Adding more negativity to the conversation by letting yourself be drawn into a fight with a customer or user will only reflect poorly on your business.

When dealing with Straight Problems, a response is almost certainly necessary. Whether that response is personal or a broad public-facing message depends on how widespread the problem is and how many people reported it. Regardless, if a real problem exists, steps should be taken to fix it and customers should be notified that those steps are being taken. Remember that there will be times when such criticism is the result of a perceived problem rather than an actual problem (e.g., someone who just doesn't like the method by which you do something). Even this type of complaint should be given a response, if only to say, 'Thanks for bringing it to our attention, but here's why we do it that way.'

Similarly, Constructive Criticism also requires a response. Certainly there will be times when you won't want to implement the suggestion given - probably most times you won't - but you'll build loyalty and trust by responding to criticism with a positive message. It is well worth the effort to thank those consumers who took the time to provide you with a suggestion or point out your product's flaws.

Merited Attacks are a bit tougher to deal with, because they're more likely to feel personal. You should always try to keep in mind that this type of feedback, as harsh as it may be, has a basis in a real problem. It is best to respond promptly and with a positive vibe (e.g., thank the commenter for the feedback and assure them that steps are being taken to correct the issue or mitigate their problem, such as offering a partial refund).

The final category is the only category of negative feedback that does not require a response. In fact, it is almost always best not to respond to Trolling or Spam. This type of feedback isn't really feedback at all. It is designed either to bait you into an unnecessary and image-damaging fight, or to siphon off your customers using underhanded tactics. You should always ignore this variety of feedback, and when appropriate, remove it as soon as you spot it.

2010 is the year social media and the Super Bowl are officially converging.

Everyone from the advertisers and the NFL to fans and athletes are getting in on the social media Super Bowl action like never before.

In fact, we're seeing advertisers play up their controversial Super Bowl spots in social media channels, with online denizens weighing in with their candid thoughts. Of course there are also advertisers who are taking the straight and narrow path via their Facebook Fan Pages, offering fans the ability to share and and participate in Super Bowl-inspired Facebook activities.

Below we'll look at the entire social media picture as it pertains to the Super Bowl and round up what we've seen and expect from advertisers, the NFL, fans and athletes.

Advertisers

Super Bowl advertisers are using social media in three very unique ways this year:

1. To Manufacture Controversy:

- GoDaddy: The web-hosting company has never been shy about creating ads that push the boundaries of what's socially acceptable for television. This year it posted its 'Lola' ad online - which features a former football player now filling his time with more feminine activities - after it was banned by CBS. The move seemed like an effort stir up drama and generate online interest. What's especially interesting is that while GoDaddy has managed to rank fifth overall as the most-mentioned advertiser in terms of social media Super Bowl conversations (per Alterian SM2 data), it's also generating a ton of negative online buzz.

- ManCrunch: ManCrunch posted its 'banned' ad - which shows two men grabbing for chips and then spontaneously making out - to YouTube () and used social media channels to drum up controversy and video views. The strategy worked quite well and the advertisement has since gone viral.

- Focus on the Family: Focus on the Family may not have manufactured the controversy around its pro-life Tim Tebow spot, but the unseen advertisement has become the second most widely discussed Super Bowl ad nonetheless. People are using social media - especially Facebook - to voice their frustration and show their support, making Focus on the Family one of the most buzzed-about advertisers going into the Super Bowl this year.

2. To Generate Buzz Around Spots:

Several advertisers are using Facebook tie-ins to pump up the volume on online chatter about their spots. Instead of going for cheap controversy, they're using their Fan Pages to inspire fans to share content and participate in Super Bowl-themed activities that are spreading virally via Facebook, ensuring that social media mentions are mostly positive in nature (per Alterian SM2's analysis included below). Let's take a look at a few of the Facebook-savvy brands capitalizing on the Super Bowl via social media.

- Coca-Cola: The company's Live Positively Facebook app lets fans share a virtual Coke bottle on Facebook in order to watch a sneak peek of one of its Super Bowl spots. For each virtual gift shared, the brand is donating $1 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. As it stands, the campaign is generating a ton of positive buzz for the brand. Coca-Cola currently places fourth when it comes to the most positive conversations about Super Bowl advertisers, per recent Alterian SM2 social media analysis.

- Budweiser: Anheuser-Busch is the biggest Super Bowl advertiser this year, occupying five minutes of air time. It's also wisely using Facebook in a big way by encouraging fans to vote for the commercial they most want to see during the Super Bowl on Sunday. The efforts are paying off handsomely, as the brand has the highest positive sentiment score according to Alterian SM2 when compared against other advertisers.

- Target: While not a Super Bowl advertiser, Target is definitely getting in on the social media Super Bowl action with its Valentine's Day-themed Facebook application: Super Love Sender. The campaign combines the two events with a generous $1 million contribution promised to the most popular charities as selected by fans.

- Monster: The Super Bowl advertiser's social media blitz was unveiled earlier today. The company's social media efforts include a few seconds of its actual spot - which it exclusively shared with us - and a Super Bowl-specific microsite dubbed Fiddle a Friend. This site is currently just a landing page with a fiddle-playing beaver, but come Super Bowl Sunday you'll be able to send customized greeting cards to friends that feature the busy beaver fiddler.

3. Skipping the Super Bowl for Social Media

For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi will not have a Super Bowl ad. The soft drink maker has opted instead to spend $20 million on a social media campaign dubbed the Pepsi Refresh Project.

The idea behind the campaign is to encourage people to submit ideas to refresh their communities, and site visitors can vote on the ideas they like best. Ultimately, Pepsi will select and fund the most popular crowd-sourced ideas.

So far the campaign has been a huge social media success. According to Alterian SM2 data (see below), Pepsi tops all Super Bowl advertisers in total number of mentions and overall online reach.

NFL

For the first time ever, the NFL is officially participating in the Super Bowl melee. The Tag the Super Bowl #SB44 initiative encourages fans to tag their tweets and Flickr photos with the SB44 hashtag. The football organization is aggregating all tagged content and presenting it in a unique and interactive user interface, giving anyone the ability to visually explore tweets and photos.

Fans and Athletes

Fans are turning to Twitter and Facebook to weigh in on the big game and the advertisers like never before, and the social media activity will only continue to increase as we get closer to game time.

In fact, what will be especially interesting to watch is the online chatter about the Super Bowl ads that will continue long after the game. Given that sites like Hulu have a tradition of posting the Super Bowl spots online, we know from years past that the advertisers and ads will remain hot topics as social media fans continue to watch, share and discuss the top spots during the following week.

Another unique element to this year's Super Bowl: This is the first year NFL players are tweeting en masse. It's also the first time that fans will have this much unfettered access to the athletes uncensored opinions and game-day activities.

For example, Chad Ochocinco will bring us the Motorola-sponsored OCNN to cover all angles of the games, which will include commentary from other players he has recruited to his news crew. We also expect other players to share their experiences extensively, which is why we'll be following Twitter Lists like the one below.

Social Media Analysis

Alterian SM2 has been tracking the Super Bowl advertisers since early December. It has just released the latest version of its social media analysis and the findings are quite interesting. We've embedded the entire report below, but here are a few key takeaways:

- Pepsi and Focus on the Family are still the most buzzed-about advertisers. Together their combined social media mentions make up about 15% of all advertiser conversations tracked by Alterian SM2.

- GoDaddy is the fifth most mentioned advertiser in social media conversations, but it is also receiving the second biggest number of negative mentions (second only to Focus on the Family).

- Anheuser-Busch has the highest sentiment score among all advertisers.

- It's still the case that advertisers that are keeping mum on their Super Bowl spots aren't making anywhere near the impact on social media conversations as those that are offering sneak peaks or previews.

From Mashable - Why Social Media Isn't for Everyone

Joshua-Michele Ross is SVP of Digital Strategy with Fleishman Hillard. He blogs at opposableplanets.com.

Social media has a loyal tribe of disciples. We follow each other on Twitter, connect on Facebook, read each other's blogs and listen to each other at conferences. We provide each other moral support and though we are a minority, we have religion and we are here to change the world (I'm not joking).

Most importantly, we share stories. These stories are all about finding common ground and building a defensible position on the what/why/how of our new orthodoxy; what is 'social', why you need it, how it actually works and how you measure it.

In this giant food-mill of collective meaning making we are defining the significance of new terms and putting our arguments to the test. Like any self-interested group however, we easily slip into dogmas that serve our purposes but may not serve our clients. Lately I have become increasingly aware of the oversimplified answers that social media consultants apply, often regardless of business context.

So let me be the first to tell you: Social media may not be for you - yet.

Are You Willing to Act? Can You?

One of the most common issues big organizations have with social media is a reasonable fear that customers will air their grievances on a company-sponsored platform such as a blog, Twitter or Facebook page. The nearly universal response to this fear, one that has been hammered home at every conference, and in every blog post is, 'your customers are already saying these things about you. Wouldn't you rather have them talking on your site?' This response rings true because, by and large your customers are online -- and they do have the means to talk about you. If you are a sizable company and you look around it is very likely that someone, somewhere has said some pretty shocking things about you. Sometimes they even work for you.

The hackneyed 'you better join the conversation' is often an appropriate response. But it isn't always the appropriate response.

First, there is a difference between isolated criticism that a company may receive here and there on the Social Web from people of varying influence and veracity, and painting a target on your back by hosting that conversation.

Second, and more importantly, when an organization makes an investment in social media it is a constructive opportunity to consider not only what could go wrong, but why it could go wrong. In other words, what are the valid criticisms that customers and employees might have and what you are willing to do about it. If you aren't willing to consider the former and have no power concerning the latter, social media might not be your best bet.

Be Prepared to Change

All too often the person making the social media investment has little control over (1) the quality of the product, (2) the pricing strategy, (3) the terms of use, (4) the company's stance on cause-based issues (political, environmental, etc.), (5) the quality of customer service, and the list goes on. Yet these are often exactly what the customer wants to talk about.

All too often the person making the social media investment has a narrow mandate - quarterly growth - that exists within a parochial frame of reference ('it's still marketing, isn't it?'). All too often the company has not thought through (or perhaps willfully ignored) what its response to criticism will be.

So it might not be the best idea to 'join the conversation' if you just want to make your quarterly numbers. Don't create a Facebook Fan Page if your product is a letdown. Don't use Twitter if your intern will be running the campaign. Above all, don't engage in social media if you aren't prepared to change in the bargain.

Ultimately if your company is willing to take the feedback and turn it into action, then social media is a competitive game changer. Connecting with customers, partners and employees can drive innovation, decrease cycle time, improve customer service and so on. This usually involves bringing various internal constituents to the table; marketing, customer service, product development, legal etc. But social media isn't for every company or every situation. It has a transformative power but, like fire, not everyone is ready to wield it without getting burned.

B.L. Ochman is a Managing Director of Proof Digital Media; publisher of What's Next Blog, and co-founder of pet site Pawfun.com. Follower her on Twitter at @whatsnext.

Companies large and small are rushing to understand and get involved in social media. But most of the agencies and consultants who are being paid to establish social media campaigns for corporations are afraid to tell their clients three things they don't want to hear.

1. Everyone Must Work Together

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In most big companies, IT, digital, marketing and sales not only don't work together, they compete with each other. Until they start collaborating as a team, you will not succeed in social media.

For example, I recently handled social media advertising for a major retail chain's holiday microsite. The promotion was conceived by the digital department and involved augmented reality. But the IT department refused to allow a link from the homepage to the microsite because the microsite's design was done by an external agency.

Further, the marketing department refused to allow a dedicated e-mail to go out to the company's mailing list, and when placed in the company's normal promotional e-mail, the link to the microsite was lost in a sea of weekly specials.

These hurdles made it very hard to drive traffic to the microsite.

But more than that, this lack of internal collaboration and contact makes any kind of social media involvement virtually impossible.

A company that hasn't learned to listen to its own employees, and encourage them to collaborate internally, is not likely to succeed in integrating social media tools into its marketing mix, no matter what agency or consultant they hire.

2. Top Management Must Be On Board

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If the direction doesn't come from the very top, managers, who have myriad reasons to fear change, will hang on to the status quo.

Despite the best intentions of agencies and consultants, social media integration is bound to meet huge resistance until top management says it's OK to spend time and money to integrate it into the company's marketing and culture.

Example: The marketing team of an international manufacturer of electronics wanted to know how the company could begin to use social media and we discussed the many possibilities.

Listening and responding to what customers are saying about the brand in social media can supply good intelligence and give the company a chance to interact with customers.

'Our management doesn't want to listen to customers,' the PR director said. 'They want to talk to them.'

However, that doesn't work anymore. The status quo is dead. Any company that isn't willing to listen to customers and be nimble and quick enough to respond, and, when necessary, change, will soon be unable to compete with smart, tech-savvy companies that can turn on a dime.

Willingness to change is the new bottom line for every business today. But top management has to buy in before change can begin.

3. Don't Expect Overnight Success

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Sure there are videos that go viral, contests that attract a lot of buzz, and Facebook pages that get a lot of fans. But what comes after those efforts?

After the tools change (and they surely will) how will social media fit into the company's overall strategy and help it reach long-term goals?

Example: Smart companies look at the long-term. The Fiskateers, now in its sixth year, is the brainchild of digital agency Brains on Fire, for their client Fiskars.

With the scissors brand losing market share to foreign knock-offs, the company enlisted several actual crafters to blog, attend events, and represent the brand to customers as part of a new community strategy.

'If you empower your customers to become your evangelists, you'd better be prepared to continue it,' says Brains on Fire's Geno Church. 'It's permanent when you engage in this type of marketing.'

Once you have created the community, listen to it. Fiskars made several changes to its products based on what it discovered through its Fiskateers community. Doing so helped build customer trust and loyalty.

Where Should Your Company Start?

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Realizing that employing social media in the marketing mix is a long-term commitment to change, the best way to start is to pick manageable, measurable goals.

Pick a small number of social media goals for the coming year. Some possibilities:

- Turn the company newsletter into an internal blog and give all employees the ability to contribute
- Establish a social media policy for employee participation in social media on company time and beyond
- Let employees vote on the best ideas suggested by other employees
- Resolve to respond to customer service issues within three hours, via social media

Don't try to do all of these things at once. Pick the ones that are most likely to be possible for your company to start and sustain.

Brian Solis is a principal at new media agency FutureWorks. You can connect with him on Twitter or Facebook.

An overnight success ten years in the making, social media is as transformative as it is evolutionary. At last, 2010 is expected to be the year that social media goes mainstream for business. In speaking with many executives and entrepreneurs, I've noticed that the path towards new media enlightenment often hinges on corporate culture and specific marketplace conditions. Full social media integration often happens in stages - it's an evolutionary process for companies and consumers alike.

Here are the ten most common stages that businesses experience as they travel the road to full social media integration.

Stage 1: Observe and Report

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This is the entry point for businesses to better understand the behavior of an interactive marketplace.

Listening: Employ listening devices such as Google Alerts, Twitter Search, Radian6, and PR Newswire's Social Media Metrics to track conversations and instances associated with key words.

Reporting: Distill existing social media conversations into an executive report. This early form of reporting is merely designed to provide decision makers with the information they'll need for continued exploration of social media and its potential impact on business.

Stage 2: Setting the Stage + Dress Rehearsal

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Once the initial intelligence is gathered, businesses will set the stage for social media participation. This is an interesting phase, as it often joins Stage 1 as a more comprehensive first step. Instead of researching the best ways to engage, many businesses create accounts across multiple social networks and publish content without a plan or purpose.

However, those businesses that conduct research will find a rewarding array of options and opportunities to target.

Presence: Create official presences across one or more social networks, usually Twitter and possibly Facebook (Fan Pages), YouTube, and Flickr. Early on, this is often experimental, and less about strategic engagement.

Analysis: Review activity for frequency (the rate of mentions), the state of sentiment allocation, traffic, as well as the size of connections (friends, followers, fans, etc.). Provide managers with a limited glimpse into the effects of presence and participation.

Stage 3: Socializing Media

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The next stage in the evolution of a new media business is the proverbial step towards 'joining the conversation.'

As companies take the stage, they will eventually pay attention to the reaction of the audience in order to respond and improve content, define future engagements, and humanize communication.

Conversation: Representative of an early form of participation, this stage usually evokes reactive engagement based on the nature of existing dialogue or mentions and also incorporates the proactive broadcasting of activity, events and announcements.

Rapid Response: Listen for potentially heated, viral, and emotional activity in order to extinguish a potential crisis or fan the flames of positive support.

Metrics: Document the aforementioned activity in order to demonstrate momentum. This is usually captured in the form of friends, fans, followers, conversations, sentiment, mentions, traffic, and reach.

Stage 4: Finding a Voice and a Sense of Purpose

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This is a powerful milestone in the maturation of new media and business. By not only listening, but hearing and observing the responses and mannerisms of those who define our markets, we can surface pain points, source ideas, foster innovation, earn inspiration, learn, and feel a little empathy in order to integrate a sense of purpose into our socialized media programs.

Research: Review activity for public sentiment, including negative and neutral commentary. Observe trends in responses and ultimately behavior. This allows for a poignant understanding of where to concentrate activity, at what level, and with what voice across marketing, sales, service, and PR.

Strategic Visibility: Introduce relevance and focus. You don't have to be everywhere in order to create presence, just in the places where you would be missed. Understanding that the social web is far more extensive than Twitter, blogs, and Facebook, brand managers search across the entire web to locate where influential dialogue transpires.

Relevance: 'Chatter' or aimless broadcasting is not as effective as strategic communications and engagement. This stage reflects the exploration of goals, objectives, and value implementation. Companies begin to learn that exchange is based on trust and loyalty.

Stage 5: Turning Words Into Actions

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Actions speak louder than words. Businesses must act. Once the door to social consciousness is opened, bring the spirit of your company through it to affect change.

Empathy: Social media personifies companies. It allows us to see who it is we're hoping to reach, and what motivates them. Listening and observing is not enough. The ability to truly understand someone, their challenges, objectives, options, and experiences allows us to better connect with them.

Purpose: The shift from simple response to purposeful, strategic communication will be mutually beneficial. It is in this stage that we can truly produce captivating content and messages. In order to hold it, we have to give the audience something to believe in - something that moves them.

Stage 6: Humanizing the Brand and Defining the Experience

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As Doc Searls says, 'There is no market for messages.' Indeed. Through the internalization of sentiment, brands will relearn how to speak. No longer will we focus on controlling the message from conception to documentation to distribution. We lose control as our messages are introduced into the real world. Our story migrates from consumer to consumer. This chain forms a powerful connection that reveals true reactions, perception, and perspectives.

The conversations that bind us form a human algorithm that serves as the pulse of awareness, trustworthiness, and emotion.

The Humanization of the Brand: Once we truly understand the people who influence our markets, we need to establish a persona worthy of attention and affinity. A socialized version of a branding style guide is necessary.

Experience: Our experience in dynamic social ecosystems teaches us that online activity must not only maintain a sense of purpose, it must also direct traffic and shape perceptions. We question our current online properties, landing pages, processes, and messages. We usually find that the existing architecture leads people from a very vibrant and interactive experience (social networks) to a static dead end (our web sites). As we attempt to redefine the experience of new customers, prospects and influencers, we essentially induce a brand makeover.

Stage 7: Community

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Community is an investment in the cultivation and fusion of affinity, interaction, advocacy and loyalty. Learned earlier in the stages of new media adoption, community isn't established with the creation of a social profile. Community is earned and fortified through shared experiences. It takes commitment. As Kathy Sierra once said, 'Trying to replace 'brand' with 'conversation' does a disservice to both brands & conversations.'

Community Building/Recruitment: While we are building community through engagement in each of the previous stages, we will proactively reach out to ideal participants and potential ambassadors. We become social architects, and build the roads necessary to lead customers to a rich and rewarding network, full of valuable information and connections.

Stage 8: Social Darwinism

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Listening and responding is only as effective as its ability to inspire transformation, improvement, and adaptation from the inside out. Survival does not hinge solely on a company's social media strategy. The social element is but one part of an overall integrated strategy. It's how we learn and adapt that ensures our place within the evolution of our markets.

Social Media as embraced in the earlier stages is not scalable. The introduction of new roles will beget the restructuring of teams and workflow, which will ultimately necessitate organizational transformation to support effective engagement, production, and the ongoing evolution towards ensuring brand and product relevance.

Adaptation: In order to truly compete for the future, artful listening, community building, and advocacy must align with an organization's ability to adapt and improve its products, services, and policies. In order for any team to collaborate well externally, it must first foster collaboration within. It is this interdepartmental cooperative exchange that provides a means for which to pursue sincere engagement over time.

Organizational Transformation: The internal reorganization of teams and processes to support a formal Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM) program will become imperative. As social media chases ubiquity, we learn that influence isn't relegated to one department or function within an organization. Any department affected by external activity will eventually socialize. Therefore, an integrated and interconnected network of brand ambassadors must work internally to ensure that the brand is responding to constructive instances, by department. However, at the departmental and brand level, successful social media marketing will require governance and accountability. Organizational transformation will gravitate towards a top-down hierarchy of policy, education, and empowerment across the entire organization.

Stage 9: The Socialization of Business Processes

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Multiple disciplines and departments will socialize, and the assembly or adaptation of infrastructure is required to streamline and manage social workflow.

Social CRM (sCRM): Scalability, resources, and efficiencies will require support, resulting in a modified or completely new infrastructure that either augments or resembles a CRM-like workflow. Combining technology, principles, philosophies and processes, sCRM establishes a value chain that fosters relationships within traditional business dynamics. As an organization evolves through engagement, sCRM will transform into SRM - the recognition that all people, not just customers, are equal. It represents a wider scope of active listening and participation across the full spectrum of influence.

Stage 10: Business Performance Metrics

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Inevitably, we report to executives who may be uninterested in transparency or authenticity. Their goal, and job, is to steer the company toward greater profits. In order to measure the true effects of social media, we need the numbers behind the activity -- at every level.

While many experts argue that there is no need to measure social engagement (much the way that some companies don't explicitly define the ROI of Superbowl ads or billboards), make no mistake: Social is measurable, and the process of mining data tied to our activity is extremely empowering. Our ambition to excel should be driven through the inclusion of business performance metrics, with or without an executive asking us to do so. It's the difference between visibility and presence. And in the attention economy, presence is felt.

ROI: Without an understanding of the volume, locations, and nature of online interaction, the true impact of our digital footprint and its relationship to the bottom line of any business is impossible to assess. An immerssive view of our social media goals and objectives allows us to truly measure ROI. Stage 10 reveals the meaning and opportunity behind the numbers and allows us to identify opportunities for interaction, direction, and action.

Conclusion

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There is a great distance between where we are today, and where we need to be. Our work in 2010 will be dedicated to narrowing the social chasm.

The thing about social media is that it's always new, and as such, these stages represent a moment in time. They will continue to evolve and expand with new technologies and experiences.

In the end, social media is a privilege and a tool - one more opportunity to run a more meaningful and relevant business.

The latest research conducted by IT security firm Sophos shows that it's very easy to convince Facebook users to reveal their personal info to complete strangers.

This is nothing new, mind you - after all, many users see Facebook as a possibility to make new friends - but it is worth noting that simply friending someone you know nothing about can result in identity theft.

Here's how Sophos conducted their research:

'Sophos created two fictitious users with names based on anagrams of the words 'false identity' and 'stolen identity.' 21-year-old 'Daisy Felettin' was represented by a picture of a toy rubber duck bought at a $2 shop; 56-year-old 'Dinette Stonily' posted a profile picture of two cats lying on a rug. Each sent out 100 friend requests to randomly-chosen Facebook users in their age-group.

Within two weeks, a total of 95 strangers chose to become friends with Daisy or Dinette - an even higher response rate then when Sophos first performed the experiment two years ago with a plastic frog. Worse still, in the latest study, eight Facebookers befriended Dinette without even being asked.'

At Sophos, they call it the 'rubber duck attack.' The moniker is silly on purpose, as it shows how you can gather someone's personal info without any technical expertise, simply by working within the social network's rules.

It's important to point out that Facebook gives very extensive privacy options for every profile; you can read the details on how to protect your data in our Facebook privacy primer. While there's nothing wrong with being friendly, even with strangers, Facebook users need to understand that this friendliness can cost them, and the price of identity theft can be very high.

Check out a video showing how the 'rubber duck' tactic can be used for identity theft at Mashable.

From the fundamentals of Twitter branding, to the importance of blogging, to getting work done with some great online tools, small businesses face many challenges when trying to understand how to use social media. However, taking the time to learn how to leverage social media and technology to benefit your business will pay big dividends in the long run.

Whether you're just signing up, or primed for some advanced social marketing, the posts below have all the tips, tricks, and wisdom you'll need to take your brand to the next level.

Social Media 101

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Start here for the basics on how and why your business should be implementing a social media campaign.

Sign up, stay on message, and utilize some leading sites and apps that can give your business a social edge.

These posts have real-world advice and examples of how businesses have succeeded on social networks. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn and beyond, here are the resources you'll need to get started.

- Social Media 101: How to Avoid Alienating Your Customers

- Why Should Traditional Businesses Care about Social Media?

- 10 of the Best Social Media Tools for Entrepreneurs

- Putting Social Media in Real Life Context for SMBs

- Why Your Business Needs to Be on Facebook

- Making Social Media a Tool, Not a Distraction

- How to Use Twitter Hashtags for Business

- 5 Mistakes to Never Make on Twitter

- How SMBs Can Capitalize on the Twitter Woes of the Fortune 100

- 5 Small Businesses Successfully Using Social Media

- How to Build Your Company's Profile on LinkedIn

- 3 Great Social Media Policies to Steal From

- 5 Secrets From Social Media Insiders

- Social Media: What's Next

Blogging

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Blogging is an essential way for businesses to keep their customers informed and interested in new products. When connected to social networks, business blogs can have a powerful reach.

There are a host of great online tools and tricks you can use to get your business blog up and running for maximum buzz. These posts cover all the best practices and how to avoid the most common mistakes.

- How to Set Up Your Small Business Blog

- 5 Winning Post Ideas for Your Small Business

- 6 Tips for Customizing Your Small Business Blog

- 5 Rules for Better Web Writing

- 5 Blogging Executives and What They Can Teach Us

- How to Get Free Press by Becoming a Source

- Sage Social Media and Blogging Advice for SMBs From the Experts

- The Small Business Guide to Wikis

- Top 5 Business Blogging Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Video

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Online video is booming, and it offers great opportunities for customers to discuss and share your brand. A video that 'goes viral' can put your product into the feeds and inboxes of thousands of potential customers and make your brand known to a much wider base.

Paid advertising on social video sites like YouTube can also be extremely lucrative. Check out these posts for tips on how to get the most from a video marketing campaign.

- How to Use Online Video to Establish Credibility

- 5 Important Web Video Lessons for Small Business Owners

- Live Video and Business: Some Best Practices

- YouTube: An Unlikely Small Biz Marketing Platform

- 4 Tips for Marketing Your Business on YouTube

- Video Advertising: Not Just for Big Business

Mobile

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Mobile devices keep you and your employees connected to your business. The proliferation of smartphones also means that your customers will be interacting with your brand in new ways.

It's important to keep in touch with mobile business trends. Which devices and platforms will your customers be using to search for and connect with you? These posts have the lowdown on mobile web, productivity on the go, and tips for choosing the right devices for your business.

- Optimizing Your Business Website for Mobile Visitors

- Mobile Productivity Tools for the Small Business

- iPhone App Economics 101

- Beyond Yelp: Location-Based Opportunities for Vendors

- How to Choose a Smartphone For Your Small Business

- Which is Better for Business: BlackBerry or iPhone

Productivity

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No matter the type of business, improving productivity is always at the top of the to-do list. Social media and Web collaboration tools can really speed up your workflow.

However, there are many choices and many pitfalls. Choosing the right applications and keeping your employees connected is key.

These posts will show you how to get things done quicker and smarter on the Web.

- 3 Fresh Ideas for Working Smarter

- Collaborate Online: 3 Toolsets That Get Stuff Done

- 3 Steps for Staying Focused and On Task

- Content Management Systems for Small Businesses: An Overview

- How to Stay Organized With Google Calendar

- What Microsoft Office's Move to the Web Means for You

- Intranet and Collaboration Solutions for Small Businesses

- Six Web Tools for Better Time Management

- Supercharge Your Customer Communications and Save Money With Web-Based VoIP

- Never Miss an Important Phone Call Again with Google Voice

- 6 Adobe AIR Apps for Small Business

- Google Wave: What Small Businesses Should Know

- Tools for Collaboratively Building Presentations

PR and Marketing

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Perhaps the biggest draw of social media for small businesses is the ability to create far-reaching and relatively inexpensive marketing campaigns. But there's a lot more to it than simply tweeting updates from the water cooler, or linking to your newest blog post.

Ensure maximum return on social media investment by engaging your customers across multiple platforms. These posts will show you how.

- 10 Small Business Social Media Marketing Tips

- 5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

- 5 Tips for Managing Social Media Marketing Expectations

- How to Be Your Own PR Person

- Email Marketing Lives: 3 Services for Sending a Great Newsletter

- 9 Surefire Ways to Get Blogs to Cover Your Business

- Real-Time and Hyperlocal: Advertising Trends Every Business Should Know About

- Tweetable Eats: What Street Vendors Can Teach Businesses About Twitter

- Why You Should Talk About Everything But Your Business Online

- Going Global: How to Sell a Worldwide Audience Online

- Before You Go Online: Talk to Your Customers Offline

- 6 Tips on Rebranding Using Social Media

- What is a Community Manager and Should I Hire One?

- 3 Qualities to Look for When Hiring a Community Manager

Numbers and Stats

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Enough theory and hypotheticals - get to the data already!

If you're looking for some cold, hard stats to explain what's going on with the business of social media, read on.

From venture capital to tracking your social investments, here are some important posts on how businesses are cashing in on social media, and how social networks are changing the online marketplace.

- By the Numbers: Social Media and Small Business

- Social Media's Impact on SEO

- Venture Capital Today: Key Numbers to Remember

- Using Social Media to Research Venture Capital

- Is Peer-to-Peer Lending Better Than the Bank?

- How to Track Your Twitter ROI

Strategy and Management

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So you've got your social media plan in place and you're starting to see some benefits for your business. Great! Now, how do you keep up and keep track? There are many tools that can help you streamline your social media efforts to ensure you're always moving in the right direction.

Here are some advanced strategies on how to manage your social media presence, hire Web-savvy employees, and stay on top of this fast-moving field.

- 5 Things Small Businesses Can Learn From Big Business Social Media Campaigns

- How to Choose a News Reader for Keeping Tabs on Your Industry

- The 'Iterate Fast and Release Often' Philosophy of Entrepreneurship

- Cutting Through the Resume Pile: Recruiting Tools for Small Businesses

- How to Use Social Media to Find Star Employees

- Online Hiring: LinkedIn and Beyond

- How to Research Potential Hires Online

- How to Train New Employees in Social Media

- How to Manage Customer Feedback

- Clickstreams: What They Are and Why You Should Track Them

- 5 Payment Platforms to Consider for Your Business

- How to Manage Telecommuting Employees

- 5 Ways to Use Social Media for Customer Service

Your Small Business Ideas

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We hope you've found some strategies you can incorporate into your small business plan. What other tools and tricks do you use to maximize the reach of your social media presence? Share some ideas in the comments below.

Imagine falling in a deep sleep and having the following dream:

The phone is constantly ringing because your loyal and growing customer base loves the fantastic product or service you offer. Profits are plentiful, people are happy, and life is good! Then one day, you notice there aren't as many calls. In fact, anytime the phone does ring it only rings once and stops. It gets worse as the days pass. Later, the new phone book comes out and you notice your business isn't listed in the yellow or white pages, even though you've paid for the advertising. Now everything's down: customers, profits, and especially you.

While this dream may sound like a nightmare, it's going to be a stark reality very soon for a lot of businesses. Not with your phone number, but your website. In the fast-paced digital world of the 21st Century, speed is king. And no matter what you're selling or how cool your website looks, if it isn't keeping up, neither are you.

People like fast websites. This is not a newsflash. Dial-up has all but vanished and hi-speed access is the norm for good reasons. But like any good thing, we want more of it and we want it faster. Recent research certainly backs this up.

Technology and marketing research company Forrester Research teamed up with global web trafficking giant Akamai this year to conduct a study examining the relationship between website performance and shopper behavior. The results were startling. Among other things, the big news is the new threshold for page load wait times on these sites is two seconds. Two seconds! This is up from the four second limit that Akamai determined in a similar study in 2006. Expectations have doubled in just three years.

It was also concluded that 79% of those shoppers not satisfied with load time aren't going to buy anything from the site again (up from 58% in the 2006 study), and that 75% won't even go back to visit the site (up from 64%). The affect is that 46% of shoppers develop a negative perception of your business, and 44% go out of their way to tell others about their experience.

All these numbers may seem to explain the obvious, but it's worth noting how quickly expectations are rising and the need for businesses to keep pace. Customers have spoken loud and clear. And guess who's listening? Google.

The search engine king is now jumping on the speed bandwagon. At last month's PubCon, the annual webmaster conference in Las Vegas, Google's software engineer Matt Cutts indicated website speed is going to play a major role in SEO for 2010.

"We're starting to think more and more, should site speed be a factor in Google's rankings?" he said. "Historically we haven't used it in our search rankings, but there's a lot of people in Google that think the web should be fast. It should be a good experience. And so, it's sort of fair to say, if you're a fast site, maybe you should get a little bit of a bonus. And if you're a really slow site, then maybe users don't want that as much."

In a nutshell, if you're website isn't fast, it isn't going to show up on Google's search results. This is huge because other search engines could follow Google's lead with their own rankings.

It makes sense. With all the great things you can have on your website, like rich images, dynamic content, personalized information, and social networking tools, nobody is going to enjoy it if it's not fast. So why not reward those who can provide that experience?

What this ultimately means is that businesses need to take a hard look at their websites and ask themselves if they are really offering what people want. If the answer is no, maybe it's time to take a look who's designing, developing, and maintaining your website. Otherwise, you could be living your own bad dream.

I think one of the best new marketing opportunities involves the use of Facebook Applications.

These are the Farmville and Mafia Wars of the Facebook world. Think about how many people are using these applications. Even if you don't personally use them, chances are that someone you know does. Don't you get sick of all the updates that you see in your news feed on Facebook? I do. But people are still doing it, and a lot of people are. Imagine if you could consistently capture those users with your marketing message. I bet you can.

Until now I have experimented only slightly with Facebook Applications. At Digital Solutions we used them for polls and to rank movies, among other things. The movie application is cool because it allows you to rank movies, post them and that data is collected and shared on the website, but we could go so much further than that. Think Farmville meets your business. Take an aspect of your business and turn it into a game.

The possibilities with this idea are endless. For instance, you can use it to find new clients. Your prospects are probably the people who would be interested in a game about your industry. If you sell real estate, people interested in real estate would use your game (and probably others too, hint, hint). You can also use an application to stay in contact with existing clients. Give them something to do that involves you when they aren't actually purchasing your product. If it's interesting then they will probably use it often and their opinion of you will probably improve. Plus the game will spread virally.

Facebook Applications spread throughout Facebook virally. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you've heard this word before. But have you tried it? All you need is something interesting and worthy of sharing with others.

One thing I read recently is that participatory marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing. That's right, but you still need something to talk about. Participatory marketing may be cheaper, but it's not free. You have to make investments in it just like anything else, but it is cheaper, different and perhaps more effective. Imagine a Facebook Application built once but lasts you years and years to come with only minor maintenance. It's very different from advertising in the newspaper and probably, if done right, much more effective.

The time has come to think beyond status updates and links to your blog. Ask yourself this: are you thinking about how your marketing is going to evolve and change or are you just catching up?

I read a lot about how small businesses are having a hard time realizing the benefit of social media. Even those that have been convinced to spend time working on it are having trouble seeing anything come from it.

The first question to ask is if you fully understand marketing, your brand and your message. If the answer is no, then we need to engage in a deeper conversation. Marketing is the process of finding customers and keeping them by satisfying them. This requires consistent communication throughout the relationship. Your brand is the symbol associated with your product. You use your marketing to construct expectations within people's minds of what they will get from the product. That's your message.

Hopefully the answer to the first question was yes. If it wasn't then we ought to talk more about your overall marketing strategy. Once you've answered that question with a yes then I'll turn back to the issue at hand: social media.

If you think that social media isn't working for you then I must ask are working your social media?

Basically, working your social media means devoting time to sharing your message. You don't just create an account on Facebook and hope that people become your fans. And once you get fans, you need to talk to them about your industry and why your message matters to them. Again, go back to that first question. These folks became your fan for a reason, now go keep them updated on the most recent information regarding your business. Give them what they are looking for, and they aren't looking for sales pitches.

If you are trying to use social media for sales then you have an incomplete picture of your marketing. Remember that marketing involves satisfying your customers with your product and creating expectations in their minds of what they will get from you. Use social media to explain your products in tiny increments and over time your customers will have begun to associate your brand with their needs.

I mentioned Facebook, but what about the others? They all have different value and yes, you have to work them all in order for them to work. The most successful social media stories involved blogging, posting comments on other websites, asking questions, responding to questions and giving potential customers a reason to open up to you. You should also take it to the level where your customers are inclined to return. If you write something or you do a video, ask yourself if it satisfies the goals of your marketing: finding customers and keeping them satisfied.

Maybe now you are asking yourself 'how you are going to find the time to do this.' Good question, and there are a variety of answers depending on what your time is like. However, the question shouldn't be 'how.' It should be 'when.' If you ask yourself 'when you are going to find the time,' you are accepting that you need to find it and you do. You can create a plan that takes as little as a few hours per month or one that takes a few hours per day. It all depends on you. Let me know if you want me to expand on that and I will. Until then,

You know that you're the expert now go explain why.

If we don't evolve we die. I think that's a commonly excepted idea. Today we see social media as the new evolution in our marketing but it's hard to pinpoint exactly why or how it works.

It is helpful to think about this evolution in the context of the overall evolution of the economy.

The participatory concept isn't new. It involves having a relationship and interaction in the decision making of the businesses that you work with and it's actually as old as economies themselves.

I recently participated in a webinar with leading marketing experts about the evolution of marketing and what appears to be a merging of communications, customer service, marketing and public relations. The point that I took away from it is that the corporate structure is changing back to being more participatory.

One of the hardest parts of change is being convinced to take the leap without a clear understanding of what the return on investment is. But we know that PR, while hard to gauge, works. The return, while hard to see, results in feelings and beliefs. PR moves your brand ahead because people feel better about using it. You have the opportunity to move ahead of your competitor because people believe in your product.

Start thinking about your marketing, communications, customer service and public relations plans and how you can restructure and merge them.

For business owners out there here's some good news: your marketing budget may be shrinking. You should start thinking about shifting your marketing budget from paid media to earned media. Earned media is participatory media.

This all comes back to social media because you can merge these roles and make your brand more participatory with social media. Social media allows your clients to have a voice, to get their problems addressed, to interact with you directly, and share their good experiences with the rest of the world. At Digital Solutions we can help you incorporate these ideas into a new participatory strategy starting with your website and reaching out into your overall online profile.

All About Social Networking from Digital Solutions on Vimeo.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

One of the best uses of social media for business is being able to monitor your brand. Services like Twitter search and Facebook search make it easy to see each time someone mentions your company, while third-party applications like TweetDeck and Seesmic Deskt allow you to get real-time updates pushed to your desktop and instantly reply.

But what if you want to proactively get feedback about your business, new product ideas, marketing campaigns, or other issues relating to your company? You could simply publish out a question to your connections on a social network of choice, but there are far more methodical ways to gather feedback - some free and others low-cost - that can be a valuable aid in your decision making.

Add a Survey to Your Website or Blog

Feedback forms have long been a part of websites. But now, there are ways to create them and obtain organized feedback without any programming knowledge. WuFoo is a service that lets you create virtually any type of form - from open-ended questions, to polls with radio buttons, to multiple choice - and then embed it on your website or blog with cut and paste code.

Then, through your WuFoo account, you can get real-time reports on the results, as well as add or update poll questions on the fly. The service offers a free edition that includes up to 3 different forms and 100 responses, plus subscription plans for users that need more forms or more responses.

Add a Poll to Your Facebook Page

If your brand has a Facebook Page, adding applications to it is one way to both keep them engaged and gather feedback. Involver offers a Facebook polling application that will not only ask your Facebook fans a question, but also let them share their vote with friends, which can help attract additional fans to your page.

Poll Your Twitter Followers

If you've already set up a feedback form on your website through an app like WuFoo you could simply share a link to it with your Twitter followers. However, there are some feedback apps designed specifically for Twitter that are worth checking out.

PollDaddy, which offers a polling solution for blogs much like WuFoo, has an app built specifically for Twitter too. Set up your question, login with your Twitter username and password, and PollDaddy will automatically tweet your question to followers.

TwtPoll offers similar functionality, and has a built-in option that allows poll respondents to retweet your poll question and in turn give your poll a wider audience.

Post a YouTube Video

Want feedback that captures more emotion than a text response? Post a YouTube video. Doing so is now as easy as recording from your webcam and uploading - all directly from the YouTube site. YouTube now allows for 'video responses,' so users who see your video can post a response in the same way they'd post a text comment.

LinkedIn Answers

As a network targeted at professionals, LinkedIn is an excellent place to get feedback for your business. Its LinkedIn Answers product is actually specifically designed for this purpose, letting you pose a question to your connections and get feedback. On the flip side, answering questions from other users is a great way to build new relationships on the site.

Gather Feedback Responsibly

While the social web makes gathering feedback and conducting market research exceptionally efficient and low-cost, it's important to remember that you're also potentially broadcasting your next move to competitors. Thus, social media based feedback programs should be designed such that they give you the information you need without telegraphing your strategy.

Social networking usage by Americans continues to soar. According to a new report from The Nielsen Company, Americans spent 17% of all their Internet time using social networking sites. This was nearly triple the time spent a year ago.

As users spend more time on social networks, advertisers are starting to take notice and move their campaigns to social networking sites. According to Nielsen, the online advertising spending on top social networks and blogs was estimated at $108 million for August 2009, a 119% increase over August 2008 figures.

Check out the chart above, you can see that although online ad spending across all sites is down in many sectors, it is up in every sector for social media sites.

Social networks offer advertisers several key advantages over regular sites. They can target users based on location, age and relationship-status by virtue of having accessible profile information. Companies can also communicate directly with potential customers using social media channels.

Do you spend more time on Twitter and Facebook than you did a year ago? Have you noticed any changes in how you respond to advertisers? Let us know in the comments.

Soren Gordhamer writes and consults on ways we can more creatively and effectively use the technologies of our age, including social media. He is the author of 'Wisdom 2.0' (HarperOne, 2009). You can follow him on Twitter at @SorenG.

Social media is helping to forge a new era in business transparency and engagement, creating both new challenges and opportunities. Gone are the days when companies could rely on carefully crafted press releases or flashy ad campaigns to communicate with their customers, often in an attempt to convince people that their products are the best in the field. In the age of social media, the rules have changed radically, and people today demand a more honest and direct relationship with the companies with which they do business.

Companies now face a clear choice: wall themselves in and become increasingly controlled and hidden, or use social media and other means to reveal their human side, welcome transparency, and forge new relationships with their customers. The old game is undoubtedly over, and the question now is, 'what can businesses do to transition and succeed in this new era?'

Below are the top four broad shifts that social media is causing in business. Please feel free to share any others you have observed in the comments.

1. From 'Trying to Sell' to 'Making Connections'

In order to change the context of customer relationships from trying to sell to seeking to engage and connect with customers, companies need to use various means, including sites like Facebook and Twitter, to socially interact with people. The most popular brands in social media tend to post less about their products or services and more about things that help their customers get to know the people and personality of a company. Their goal is less about 'selling' and more 'engaging' - and, as a result, through such engagement people feel more comfortable doing business with those companies.

Jeff Swartz, who is the President and CEO of the Timberland Company, is a great example of this. Swartz uses his Twitter account to show his personality by tweeting about his life and the social issues he is passionate about, rather than the shoes his company makes. He also links from his Twitter bio to Timberland's Earthkeeper project that supports environmental awareness, rather than to the company homepage, in an effort to make a connection with people around something that goes beyond just the products Timberland sells.

Lesson: Release fewer 'official statements' and more personal ones that help you make a connection to your customers and audience.

2. From 'Large Campaigns' to 'Small Acts'

With sites like Facebook and Twitter, we all essentially have our own broadcasting network, and businesses are beginning to see that rather than spending millions of dollars on traditional ad campaigns, small acts can be more valuable because people will inevitably share such experiences through the social web.

In the past, if we had a very bad or very good experience with a company, it could take days or weeks to tell all of our friends and relatives about it. Today, in a matter of minutes, we can let all our friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter know about what happened. When every customer experience can be easily and widely broadcast, small issues become super important.

Loic Le Meur, CEO of startup software company Seesmic, once told me that one of the most important jobs of a CEO today is to hear what people are saying about the company's product across social media channels, and to respond to them directly. In fact, much of his Twitter stream is @replies to people commenting on his company's product.

Bigger companies, such as Southwest Airlines and Comcast are using Twitter in the same way, making sure customers' concerns are addressed. Because bad experiences are broadcast just as fast and just as easily as the good, it pays for companies to pay attention to the one-on-one customer relationships forged via social media.

Lesson: Instead of only relying on big campaigns, make authentic, helpful relationships and communication the new campaign.

3. From 'Controlling Our Image' to 'Being Ourselves'

Of course companies need to have employee policies, and there is such a thing as bad press, but look at the most popular companies in the era of social media, and you'll generally find the ones that give their employees freedom to be themselves in online spaces. The goal should no longer be to create a very controlled and polished image that everyone in a company tries to reinforce, but rather to give employees the means necessary to be human beings that can put a friendly face on the corporation.

I am not sure how NBC directs the social media efforts of their employees, but in watching NBC newscaster Ann Curry (@AnnCurry) on Twitter it is clear that she is not simply trying to get people to watch her shows. Curry is someone who speaks out about women's rights, deeply cares about justice, and likes to quote the Persian poet, Rumi - there is a person there, not a company representative, and as such, I am much more likely to pay attention when and if she does talk about any of her television shows.

John Nack, the Principal Product Manager for Photoshop at Adobe, offers another great example. Adobe is a company that smartly encourages and provides the means for their employees to blog, and anyone who reads Nack's blog will notice that Adobe doesn't put many restrictions on what people write about. Nack's blog is focused almost exclusively on his area of interest - graphic design and photo manipulation - but he doesn't post solely about Adobe products. Many of the interesting art projects and articles he links to have nothing to do with Adobe and some may even have been created using software from competing companies.

Lesson: Forget the unified company image, give staff the freedom to be themselves, and trust that the relationships that they build will help the company in the long run.

4. From 'Hard to Reach' to 'Available Everywhere'

To engage with customers, it is no longer enough to have an email address and customer service number on one's website. Today, people want to interact with and engage businesses via their chosen means of communication, whether that is Twitter, Facebook, discussion forums, or a feedback site like Get Satisfaction.

If I want to communicate with a company, I tend to look them up on Twitter first. Knowing that I can communicate with a company on the networks upon which I am already most active makes me feel more comfortable doing business with them, because I know that if I have an issue, there is someone at the company I can communicate with through those means.

Companies like Dell, for example, have fully embraced multiple channels of support. Their community site lists all the ways customers can connect with them through Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, forums, blogs, email, and more. Dell wants people to be able to connect with them through whatever channel is most comfortable.

Lesson: Rather than expect customers to communicate through your chosen means, allow them to do so through their chosen means.

The New Business Paradigm in the Age of Social Media

In this new era of social media, companies are asked to be increasingly transparent and personal. Of course, traditional advertising and press releases will still have their place, but social sites such as Twitter and Facebook allow a whole new type of communication to take place that has previously been unknown to most businesses. Possibly more important for businesses than getting a large number of followers on social media sites, is following through on the opportunity to forge more genuine and direct connections with their customers.

Businesses who choose not to adapt to the new culture will be at an increasing disadvantage, as their customers slowly build personal relationships with their competitors. We are now in the age of open communication, engaged dialogue, and transparency, and business success may now have less to do with the size of ad budgets, but on the quality of interactions with customers.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Business blogging can be exceptionally rewarding. When done correctly, a successful blog can bring attention to your business, can attract new customers, and can turn your current customer base into the type of fans that companies like Apple, Netflix, and Ben and Jerry's have: people who will not only buy your product or service, but evangelize it to their peers. Of course, like anything, there is a right way to go about starting a business blog and a wrong way.

Creating a blog for your small business isn't easy; it requires hard work and the ability to think creatively about your work. But if you avoid the five big mistakes laid out in this post, your chances of building a successful business blog will be much better.

Mistake #1: Treating Your Blog Like a Press Center

The number one mistake that business bloggers make is to treat their blog as an extension of their current press center. Repeat after me: Your blog is not the place for press releases. Blogging is a conversation and it offers a way for your customers to connect with your business on a completely new level. Press releases, on the other hand, are the exact opposite. They're impersonal, they're self promotional, and most readers don't trust them. If you use your blog to republish press releases your customers will have no reason to keep reading and they'll also likely not trust your content.

How to Avoid: First, don't ever put out a press release on your blog. You can use your blog to make product or other business announcements, but do so with original writing and in a more casual voice. Second, do use your blog to write about things other than your core business. Share your thoughts on your industry, share insights into the day-to-day work life and processes at your company, and provide tips and tricks you have learned during your time in business.

Mistake #2: Not Blogging Regularly

Think about the blogs you read on a regular basis - how many of them publish only sporadically? Most successful blogs put out new content at least a couple of times per week and try to stick to a regular schedule. Consistently putting out quality content will keep readers returning and over time it will help you build a community and turn your customers into fans.

How to Avoid: Blogging regularly isn't easy, so to avoid burning out, brainstorm editorial ideas ahead of time. If you plan to put out new posts every Tuesday and Friday, for example, try not to start writing Tuesday's post on Tuesday morning. Get other people at your company involved so that one person isn't shouldering the entire blogging load, and even consider sourcing content from your customers. Remember that anything can provide fodder for a good blog post, so pay attention to the things you read or see on other blogs, newspapers, magazines, or television.

Mistake #3: Not Enabling Conversation

As I already said, blogging is a conversation, and not allowing it to occur on your blog is a mistake. It's true that blog comments can open you up to criticism, but blogging is an unparalleled opportunity to connect with your customers. You'll get a lot more out of blogging if you enable - and even encourage - your customers to respond to what you write.

How to Avoid: Obviously the first thing you need to do is enable commenting on your business blog. But beyond that, you need to remember that the conversation is two-way. Get in there and respond to the comments readers leave on your blog and you'll be more likely to develop a community around your writing that can help turn your customers into fans who will evangelize your products and services and provide you with quality feedback. You should also participate in the conversation on other blogs in your industry by leaving comments on posts elsewhere around the blogosphere. That will help you to establish your 'blogging brand' and bring new readers your way.

Mistake #4: Making New Content Hard to Discover

Your blog won't be very helpful to readers if they aren't able to easily find new content. You need to make your blog discoverable and you need to make sure that when you add new content, your regular readers will be able to find it.

How to Avoid: There are a few ways to make sure your blog content is more easily discovered.

- Make your blog easy to find by linking to it prominently from your company's web site and including your blog's URL in your email signature, on your business cards, and in sales and marketing collateral.

- Use a full RSS feed (because the goal with most business blogs should be to get read, not boost page views) and make it easy for your readers to find and subscribe to.

- Embrace social media technologies like Twitter and Facebook as a way to notify your fans and followers of new blog content, and make it easy for your readers to share content with each other through social media channels and via email.

- Optimize for search engines by putting relevant keywords in post titles and URL slugs and write about the things that your customers are most likely to be searching for - but avoid sounding artificial simply so you can stuff some more keywords into a post.

Mistake #5: Expecting Too Much, Too Soon

Blogging isn't a sprint, it's a marathon. Your blog won't be an overnight success, and for the first few months it might feel like you're writing for no one. It can take time to build up your readership and have a regular community of people who participate on your blog. Don't expect immediate returns from your blog and do expect to put in a lot of hard work.

How to Avoid: Set attainable goals and realize that you're in it for the long haul. Don't cancel your blogging efforts after three months - give it at least a year of regularly putting out quality, original content. And make sure that your blog is easy to find, and that your readers are able to easily comment and share posts with others.

More blogging resources from Mashable:

- 6 Tips for Customizing Your Small Business Blog
- 5 Rules for Better Web Writing
- Top 20 Ways to Share a Great Blog Post
- 26 Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog
- HOW TO: Support Social Good on Your Blog

1. Relevance - Your website needs to be interesting with important and up-to-date information.
2. Return - If you want your audience to come back, you need to give them a reason by updating your content regularly.
3. Reaction - Make an impact by getting your audience to react to what they see.
4. Results - Search engines like it when you add new content and better ranking leads to more traffic.

Accomplish all of the above by adding a blog to your site.

A blog is your place to keep your website relevant by updating it with information on your industry. As you learn, so should your audience. Post new blogs often giving people a reason to return. You can also use your blog to ask questions, post polls and get a reaction. Plus if you want search engine results you need to consistently add new content to your site. This means if you are going to start a blog, start it on your site and not on a third party site like Blogger.

Basic Blog Regular Price: $250

Why pay? Refer a new website customer to Digital Solutions by the end of Oct. 09 and when they pay you get a basic blog upgrade for FREE!

Do you have a reference, but already have a blog? Contact your sales representative.

New customers must purchase a minimum of a 5 Hour Website for $499 in order for you to qualify for this promotion. They must identify you as a reference upon contract signing. You will get your upgrade when the new website is fully paid for.

One of the key challenges for modern organizations is to define a social media policy. What's acceptable? What isn't? And how should you go about creating such a document for your workplace?

We've tried to aid with this process at Mashable through articles such as Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy? and 10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy. We've also published guides like Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don'ts of Sharing.

What's more, we've looked at what happens when these guidelines go to far, like the controversy over the Associated Press social media policy, and a similar situation at the NFL.

If you're looking to define your own social media guidelines, however, one worthwhile task is to read the policies of other organizations. Chris Boudreaux, author of the upcoming book 'Social Media Governance', has assembled 82 such policies on the book's website. From companies to charities to military organizations, it's a treasure trove for those struggling with social media guidelines.

We think it's super-handy: we hope you'll agree.

The acquisition will also strengthen Google's anti-spam technology

Juan Carlos Perez (IDG News Service) 17 September, 2009 05:23:00

Google plans to accelerate its massive efforts to scan tens of millions of books and periodicals with the acquisition on Wednesday of a company called reCAPTCHA.

ReCAPTCHA is a well-known provider of CAPTCHA technology, which is used to prevent spammers from using computers to automatically register for online services, such as Web mail accounts and Web site registrations.

CAPTCHA, which stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart," requires users to type randomly chosen words that appear as images, a process that is easy for humans but hard for computers to do correctly.

What attracted Google to ReCAPTCHA is that the company has linked its core authentication service with efforts to digitize print books and periodicals.

The search giant has a massive effort underway in that area for its Google Books and Google News Archive services.

ReCAPTCHA takes its word images from scanned print materials.

Every time people solve a CAPTCHA from the company, they are also, as a byproduct, helping to turn scanned words into plain text that can be indexed and made searchable by search engines.

"So we'll be applying the technology within Google not only to increase fraud and spam protection for Google products but also to improve our books and newspaper scanning process," reads a post in Google's official blog authored by Luis von Ahn, cofounder of reCAPTCHA, and Will Cathcart, a Google product manager.

The ReCAPTCHA service is used by about 100,000 Web sites, and it is helping to digitize old editions of The New York Times.

A recent survey from eMarketer.com seems to show that U.S. executives are warming up to social media usage in the workplace.

Out of 438 management, marketing and human resources executives polled, 81% saw social media as being useful for both brand-building and enhancing customer or client relationships. Just under 70% see it as a valuable recruitment tool, 64% think social media is useful for customer service, and a lower sampling at 46% saw it as improving employee morale.

Asked how they themselves actually used social media in the workplace, respondents listed brand-building as their top goal (82%), followed by networking (60%), and a long tail of other reasons including customer service, sharing project information, monitoring their competitors, prospecting for sales, research, and other.

Executive Fears About Social Media

Yet many executives still appear to have concerns about using social media in the workplace. Of those in the survey who reported not using social media, over one half listed the reason as not knowing enough about it.

Four out of ten executives worried about security and confidentiality issues, and almost as many as 37% also worried that employee productivity might drop as a result. Only 14% of the non-users said they were currently researching or planning to implement social media in the workplace.

These concerns echo an early study from February by security company Sophos, who found between 50 and 60% of companies surveyed actively blocked access to social networks from the office. The top concerns listed were employee productivity, fear of malware, and a worry that employees would share confidential information about the company on the sites.

Unfortunately the eMarketer survey doesn't break down the percentage of executives in the survey who used versus didn't use social media, but it's interesting to see the reasons both for and against social media in the workplace.

Do you use social media in your business? Have you worked in an office that wasn't social media-friendly?

Image courtesy of iStockphoto (), Akirastock

We've reported on the tremendous growth of both Facebook and Twitter month after month in the last year or so, but looking at Compete's stats for August, we've got neither good nor bad news, as the hottest social networks have stagnated when it comes to new visitors.

Part of the reason could merely be the lazy days of summer, which causes a drop in traffic on almost all Internet destinations. Since traffic growth was almost flat on Facebook and Twitter in both July and August, we can probably expect some healthy growth again in September. Summer hasn't been bad for everyone though, as some social sites have done very well in July and August.

Compete tells us that Facebook has had 122,220,617 unique visitors in August; a -0.37% drop compared to July, but it grew to 2,202,528,780 visits in the same period, rising 4.69%. Twitter's stats are almost the opposite: a small drop in visits (-2.99%, down to 148,651,794) but a tiny rise as far as unique visitors go, which were at 23,579,044, representing growth of 1.27%.

This numbers, while nothing to get excited about, are actually really solid. If we look at how some other social networks have been doing during the summer, we can see that it affected them strongly. MySpace has dropped to 55,599,585 unique visitors, a -6.73% drop. Bebo and hi5 have dropped -7.68% and -15.36%, respectively.

An exception to this rule is LinkedIn, which has grown to a respectable 14.2 million unique visitors in August, showing that its unique approach to social networking (let's not forget, it's one of the rare social networks with a clearly laid out business model) is still working great.

Another pleasant surprise of this summer is Digg, which has grown tremendously during this summer, beating competitors such as Reddit and Mixx into the ground.

August may have been a flat month overall, but Digg and LinkedIn have definitely surprised us with solid growth, while most others have been stagnating. It'll be interesting to see if this trend continues in the fall.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto (), Norebbo.

Brandon Mendelson is the coordinator for A Million High Fives. Follow @BJMendelson on Twitter () or add him as a friend on Facebook.

Every few days, I get an email asking this question: 'I have this awesome idea to help X, but I'm not sure what direction to take. Do I open things up to the crowd to collaborate and target a mass audience? Or do I put everything together myself and target a specific group?' This is a question everyone from the biggest brand to the smallest start-up is asking: should you go with the crowd or should you go niche?

But before you make a decision, let's take a look at these paths and what they offer.

Two Paths Diverge Online

One path is called Shirky Avenue, named for Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations. The example you're most familiar with from Shirky Ave. is Wikipedia, a sprawling, self-policed online encyclopedia that at least one major study said was as good as its print competitors. On Shirky Ave. we find mass collaboration can lead to greater audience investment, and a potentially higher payoff in terms of purchases and donations. Who doesn't want to own a piece of something they invested their time in?

Shirky Avenue's motto: The crowd is the future of everything.

There's another path to consider, however, one called Godin Street, named for my hero, Seth Godin. If you read any of Seth's books, particularly Purple Cow, you know what's on this road: hyper-targeted, hyper-local, niche content designed to cater to a small and very specific audience. A 'Purple Cow' example would be Tucker Max's 'I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell' and Maddox's 'Alphabet Of Manliness.' The highly aggressive, satirical style of both Max and Maddox have propelled them from blogs to New York Times best-sellers by catering to their audience and no one else.

Godin Street's motto: Forget everyone else!

Your field and situation will ultimately determine the path you take. And while Godin Street and the hyper-targeting approach has a lot of advantages for traditional businesses or not-for-profits, I think there is success waiting on Shirky Avenue, and that's the path I recommend people take.

Who Is This Crowd And What Do They Do?

Now I know you're thinking, 'I read Microtrends and Bowling Alone. Where's this crowd'? Fair question, but the answer is right in front of you.

The more we isolate ourselves, the more the following is true:

1. We start to believe what others like us believe - and not what everyone else believes. Want proof? You've probably very recently heard someone say MySpace is dead, but it's still one of the world's most popular websites. MySpace is 'dead' because the vocal early adopters of the world have written it off, that doesn't actually mean it's dead or any less relevant.

2. We all want to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. There's a universal desire on everyone's part to connect with other human beings. You can find the proof in every story, in every culture, since the beginning. And if you want a more social media answer, just look at how many people are using social networks to connect with people.

The crowd is out there, waiting to be a part of something extraordinary. Here are some starter tips to draw them in to your project.

Five Easy Steps To Draw In The Crowd

1. Focus on The Need. Chris Brogan does a lot of things right, but the community he is building around his and Julien Smith's new book, 'Trust Agents,' is the best thing I think he's ever done. Chris found a common bond, something that goes beyond his network and touches everyone: trust. More specifically, how to earn and build on that trust. Listen to people. Anybody will do. When you listen to enough of them, you'll start to hear the same needs. Identify the need and build a solution from there.

2. It's Not You, It's We. You have to allow room for your project to evolve beyond you. 'Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country,' remember? Phrase everything in terms of being a team and working toward a common goal that benefits everyone, not just you.

3. Determine Your Touchpoints. A touchpoint is any point online where a member of the crowd can contact you. Your blog, Twitter, and Facebook presence are all touchpoints. You should aim for at least two to show up in search results because that's how most people find things. But be careful not to over extend yourself - it's better to have no presence at all in social media than to have an inactive one. It also doesn't hurt to link out to your active touchpoints from your blog as a way to let people know they can find you there.

4. Set Clear Goals. Mark Horvath of InvisiblePeople.tv has a clear goal: Give a voice to the voiceless. With Mark's project, you know what you're getting into by supporting it, and a cool thing happens: his audience forms a bond with each other. Now the members of the crowd have something to discuss and work towards together, allowing a community to form around the project. The motivation of each member of the crowd is different but your task is to allow the crowd to come in and easily identify the project's goal.

5. Let Go. Once the crowd understands the goal, take a step back. Follow Wikipedia's approach. The crowd comes in and makes edits, but there is still someone keeping an eye on things to make sure the goal is reached. When the project does evolve beyond you, let the crowd know how to police itself, and they will. You can see that in action on any Wikipedia Talk page. Your role is now to steer people coming to join the crowd in the right direction.

My challenge to you: I'd like you to give us your ideas and suggestions on how to draw the crowd to a project. All you have to do is leave a comment below.

Gerald Prolman launched OrganicBouquet.com in 2003 to sell sustainably grown flowers that are freshly picked and then gift-wrapped. But as the company grew, he needed a better way to meet the increasing demand from florists, event planners and other whole-salers. So in June, Prolman launched a microsite (www.organicbouquetwholesale.com) to make it easier for these customers to place orders.

A microsite lets you focus on a specific purpose, such as selling clearance or discounted items, selling products to businesses (vs. consumers), promoting new merchandise, or trying out a new product line. Sometimes the design and navigation of a microsite differs from its parent site. "[Unlike consumers], florists shop by variety and color, so the site is set up to help florists find what they need quickly," says Prolman, 46, who projects 2006 sales of up to $5 million for his San Rafael, California, company.

So why didn't Prolman just launch a separate section on his existing website to focus on wholesalers? Simple: to prevent consumers or future competitors from having easy access to the customized pricing available to wholesale customers. "The pricing is tailor-made for each customer based on volume," says Prolman. "Once approved as a wholesale account, they will be given access to the site."

Michael Parker, co-founder and director of marketing at Gravitate Design Studio, a web development and marketing company in Vancouver, Washington, offers the following advice for entrepreneurs thinking of launching a microsite:

• Consider the costs. Building a microsite costs essentially the same amount as setting up a traditional website--from $2,500 to $50,000 or more. Keep in mind, though, that a microsite may require additional employees. (To date, Prolman has added six.) "Maintaining another site--even a microsite--takes a lot of work," says Parker, who suggests evaluating whether the same results could be achieved using your current web infrastructure.
• Take your brand strategy into account. If you sell products with two totally different focuses or brand identities, "then you're a good candidate for a microsite," says Parker.
• Know your search strategy. Some companies create many microsites that point to the main site in an effort to rank high on search engines, says Parker. Others prefer to have a larger site with a lot of updated content. Before moving forward, check with your marketing department or the company handling your search marketing programs.

Social media may be for narcissists, but it's also proving to be a business utility. Retailers are shifting their marketing dollars such that social media budgets are swelling, and creative contests are popping up all over the web. In case you haven't noticed, social media marketing is big business.

Should you find yourself in a social media marketing lull, we think you can take inspiration from these five innovative and fresh ideas currently making their mark on both the online and offline worlds. The important thing to keep in mind is that whether you're trying to engage a unique audience, tailor deals using location, advertise in new ways, go bold, or tackle your Twitter fear head on, you're likely to find the most success if you can shake things up a bit.

1. Engage a Unique Audience with Themes

Mommy bloggers are all the rage, and there's been significant uptake when it comes to big brands turning to influential moms in creative social media marketing campaigns. Instead of repeating a common pattern, Sony, decided to put their products into the hands of dads, a relatively under-utilized segment in the social media realm, and empower them to tell their own stories using Sony products.

With marketer Chris Brogan's guidance, Sony created the DigiDads program to specifically target influential dads with a series of different projects where their unique take on gadgets and life could really add a little social media magic to the brand's new products. The three-month campaign, launched in mid-August, provides dads with Sony products - televisions, PCs, DSLRs - on loan (they're not being paid) that they will use to capture and share family experiences as part of their current social media use.

The campaign is so creative that it captured the attention of AdvertisingAge, and is likely to continue to make waves as the daddy bloggers produce their digital content. Sony took a now common practice of utilizing bloggers and put a fresh spin on it by crafting their initiative with an untapped audience in mind. It is certainly an interesting way to get consumers excited about electronics.

2. Deals for the New Generation

Coupons are not buzzworthy. The very nature of them makes them unappealing to younger generations of consumers who don't want to deal with the hassle of coupon clipping. 8coupons is obviously hip to this fact, as they recently decided to take their discounts on the road, tap into the advantages of GPS-enabled phones, and leverage one of the hottest location-based mobile apps around - Foursquare.

The marriage between 8coupons and Foursquare served up some innovative deals to New Yorkers during the limited promotion period. Foursquare users received automatic notifications with discounts when they were within a 3 block radius of an 8coupon deal. The result is that deals were delivered to people when they could actually benefit from them, no clipping required.

As more phones become location-aware, the opportunity for location-based deals are endless. The ingenuity of the Foursquare and 8coupons partnership demonstrates that concepts considered old-fashioned can be refreshed and re-presented to captive audiences.

3. Advertise In a Whole New Space

Advertisers place their messages where they hope people will see them, with spots purchased for television, print, web, and radio. But what about buying ad space on a person for a day? Now they're doing that too.

With more demand than ever, Jason Sadler's IWearYourShirt initiative is flipping the advertising world upside down. In a nutshell, you pay for any day of the calendar year, send Sadler your swag, and the entrepreneur and his business partner will wear your shirt and chat up your brand via various social distribution channels like Twitter, Ustream, and YouTube.

The best part about IWearYourShirt is that it's the cheapest ad buy you'll ever make, with prices starting at $2 for January 1st and going up by $2 p/day. Of course, you'll have to act fast for the best deals because the first half of 2010 is pretty much completely sold out.

4. Be Extreme

Normally we'd never advocate sending dead grasshoppers or death notices in the mail, but two very different businesses found great success and immediate buzz by doing exactly those things.

In a rebranding effort Grasshopper, an 800 phone number provider, spent months putting together a list of the 5,000 most influential people in the US. They sent each of them a care package with real chocolate covered grasshoppers. The end result was a barrage of mainstream media coverage and social media mentions.

In a similarly bizarre ploy, the Discovery Channel freaked out influential new media types with a large package that practically appeared to be a death notice. The Frenzied Waters campaign was launched in preparation for the cable network's highly anticipated annual Shark Week, and recipients received a jar with a note in it that read, 'This jar holds a story - the story of a single tragic incident that needs to be unlocked. Dive in, investigate the evidence and discover what lies beneath the surface of frenziedwaters.com.'

Among other things, the jar also included included a large warning sign, shredded swim trunks (presumably from a deadly shark bite), and a detailed obituary dated for July 9th (a future date at the time of the campaign). Because the focus was on the Frenzied Waters website and the ominous date, recipients were initially at a loss as to what the mysterious package was all about. So, they were forced to do a little online digging before they discovered that the Discovery Channel was behind the whole thing. The Frenzied Waters campaign was a clever, if a bit creepy, way to get the right people talking and build up anticipation.

5. Embrace the Twitter Effect

Twitter can be a scary place if you're in a business where breaking news could make or break your bottom line. Regardless of whether or not you believe that Twitter sunk Bruno, Hollywood has already accepted the reality of the 'Twitter Effect.' Instead of cowering in a corner as Twitter ruins their box office, they've decided to give Twitter the full red carpet treatment and embrace it.

Stephen Bruno of the Weinstein Co. recently told the Baltimore Sun that, 'I think Twitter can't be stopped.' So he's going to do something about it by taking a proactive stance. 'Now you have to see it as an addition to the campaign of any movie ... People want real-time news and suddenly a studio can give it to them in a first-person way.'

Eaamon Bowles, president of Magnolia Pictures, went on the record in the same piece to say that, 'people will be twittering during the opening credits - and leaving when they don't like them ... the next step [for the Twitter Effect] is for studio marketing to manipulate it.'

As self-serving as this sounds, it's actually quiet genius. In the case of Inglourious Basterds, which did extremely well at the box office and saw 78% of tweets being positive, the Weinstein Co. held a private screening of the movie, with tickets given away only via Twitter, during Comic Con. They also used Twittering celebrities to their advantage and held a Red Carpet Twitter meetup at the movie premiere. Clearly their proactive Twitter-specific engagement efforts are starting to pay off.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashableegularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

The more information you have about your customers, the better off you are. There's a reason that advertisers will pay generously for detailed demographics on potential shoppers and customers. On the web, we usually gather this information via web analytics platforms such as Google Analytics, which track things like where visitors come from, how long they stay, and conversion rates for events such as 'how often does someone buy shoes on our site?'

Sometimes though, you need to take your web analytics to the next level. It's not just about where your visitors came from or why they left, but what they were doing. One of the best ways to track this is by recording what parts of a web page a user clicks on, also called clickstream. What exactly is a clickstream? Why should you measure them? And how do you do it? This guide provides answers to all those questions.

What's a Clickstream?

A clickstream is the recording of what a user clicks on while browsing the web. Every time he or she clicks on a link, an image, or another object on the page, that information is recorded and stored. You can find out the habits of one individual, but more useful is when you record thousands of clickstreams and see the habits and tendencies of your users.

What Benefit is There to Measuring Clickstreams?

Short answer: You can build a far better, more usable, revenue-generating website.

Long answer: Clickstreams will tell you about user behavior. You could record 1,000 clickstreams and find out where people are clicking and where they aren't. This will help you set up your web page. Perhaps the top right corner has the best conversion, or using different text will get you more clicks. Perhaps you realize that lots of people are clicking to one specific web page. All of this information combined is valuable data that goes beyond normal analytics.

Clickstream tracking is ideal for e-commerce websites and websites that depend on ad clicks. You need users clicking in the right places to make money.

What Tools Are Available to Measure Clickstreams?

Many analytics programs, including Google Analytics, come with basic clickstream analysis functionality (in Google Analytics, it's called 'site overlay.') If you're a smaller company or website that really wants more though, we suggest CrazyEgg, which will not only track clicks, but provide a listed summary of where people clicked, a visual overlay of where users came from, and even a heatmap of clicks. There are other solutions for enterprise (e.g. Clickstream Technologies), but we suggest doing detailed research before picking any analytics provider.

In another move to increase personalized value by mimicking Facebook, LinkedIn has added a few new features to its homepage. LinkedIn has been tweaking its homepage for months now, and most of the updates have been very similar to what we see on Facebook. I'm sure it's common knowledge by now, but everybody is taking cues from Facebook.

This week seems particularly ripe for profile updates, however, with Facebook even getting in on the fun. But considering the classic Facebook approach and the new LinkedIn features, we thought it would be a good time to look at the two layouts and compare them head-to-head. Life's more fun that way.

Network Updates

This is something Facebook mastered. Who knew your friends could be so annoying without even being in the same room? LinkedIn has been working on ways to bring you relevant and up-to-date information on your colleagues and acquaintances, but Facebook takes the crown on this one.

Customizable Modules

On Facebook's end, such customizable modules would partly involve some of those applications that can quickly take over your profile page. Applications is something that LinkedIn hasn't layered in just yet, though they're on the way. But looking at what LinkedIn's modules provide you with for these new updates, and you'll be less than impressed. The modules are limited to People Search, Job Search, and LinkedIn Answers. These are functions that are pretty standard throughout the site and don't necessarily need to be customized for personalized profile pages.

Company News

For Facebook, the equivalent of Company News would kind of be like the mini feeds, which give you all the dirt on what your friends have been up to. Who's single? Who got poked? Who changed their profile picture? If this is what you're addicted to while sipping your coffee at 9:05 am, then that's fine. You're definitely a Facebook user.

For LinkedIn, the Company News consists of the items from across the web that your fellow employees are reading. Why not expand this though, and incorporate some news from your company's competitors? Perhaps even allow this to be a custom search tool that pulls information based on your designated keywords? Now that would make for a far more interesting custom module on LinkedIn.

Omnipresent Nav Bar

A lot of social networks have the personal side bar that follows you around no matter where you go on the site. Facebook's was always a bit limited in my opinion, and I wouldn't mind more custom options for this. Now LinkedIn has the left-hand side bar too, giving you quick and immediate access to the majority of the personal items and actions that pertain to your account. Should be handy, and give you easy access to the new Mashable Group on LinkedIn, after you join it! Click here.

Tired of delivering the typical stream of status updates on Twitter? Why not try some of the following ideas for other things you can do with the service?

Thanks to an open API and a philosophy of interconnectivity, Twitter's vast array of third-party services has you covered on a number of alternative uses for the famed microblogging tool.

Let's take a look at a few of them.

1. Share Files

A service called FileSocial provides a great way to send files smaller than 50 MB. Simply sign-in with your Twitter credentials to share your file with all your followers. FileSocial uses OAuth to log you in, which is more secure than asking for your Twitter username and password.

If you want to send a person-to-person file privately, check out FileTwt. You'll have to sign up for an account on the site to enable private file-sharing up to 20 MB in size. The downside is they don't use OAuth for authentication.

2. Exchange Business Cards

Routinely running out of those business cards made of dead trees? Work in an industry where almost everyone you meet is on Twitter? Check out twtBizCard, a simple service that lets you set up an electronic business card that can be easily tweeted to your new contacts by sending them an @reply with the hastag #twtBizCard.

When you sign up, the service will pull in the data from your Twitter profile as starter information, and you can add other details to customize your card.

3. Share Music

Music lovers have a lot of options in this category (see 10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter). Depending on exactly what you want to do, you might want to check out a few of these. For example, Blip.fm is very much like Twitter but specifically for music, and can integrate with your Twitter account to share what tracks you're listening to or 'blipping.'

To that list we'd also like to add Songza, a very easy to use music search engine that lets you easily tweet any track you're listening to by clicking the song name and selecting the 'Share: Twitter this' option.

4. Share Images

The media-specific Twitter tools abound, with a goodly number of options available for image sharing here too. Perhaps the 'classic' service here is Twitpic but even beyond image hosting services there are a number of alternative methods for sharing photos on Twitter by SMS, email and more.

To this list we'd also like to add that Flickr added Twitter posting earlier this summer as well, so if you already use Flickr to host your image collection, this is a great way to also share photos to Twitter in one fell swoop.

5. Share Videos

To round out the media-specific categories, there are also third party services lining up to help you share video on Twitter as well. From TwitVid.io to Tweetube (which handles other sharing duties as well), there's probably a service out there to cover your needs.

We'd also like to add TwitVid.com and 12seconds.TV to that list. The latter perhaps obviously limits you to only 12 seconds' worth of video, but it meshes well with the spirit of Twitter's 140 character homage to brevity.

6. Raise Money

It's still an emerging trend, but Twitpay is out in front of the microtransaction platform pack on Twitter. It's a hot space that Facebook is looking to get in on as well.

There are still some limitations to using Twitpay as a Twitter payment platform, but for the adventurous there could be money to be made from selling your own wares via the service. Or, take a cue from Wi-Fi startup SkyBlox, who used Twitpay to raise a portion of their funding via Twitter.

7. Lobby for Health Care Reform

Want to bring a little participatory democracy to your Twittering? Check out Tweet Your Senator, a feature of the President's website that mashes up Twitter with Google Maps to help you send a message to your Senator about healthcare reform legislation.

8. Screencast

Looking for a one-stop shop to whip up a quick screencast and distribute it on Twitter? Check out Screenr, a screencast tool with seamless Twitter integration.

You have 5 minutes to record your videos including the ability to pause and restart, and you can preview the screencast before sending it out.

9. Play Games

Love it or hate it, interactive Twitter-based game Spymaster can be addictive if you play it, or insanely annoying if you don't. If you're interested in playing, or just finding out more about the mechanics of the game and what it's all about, be sure to check out our comprehensive Complete guide to Spymaster. And please don't assassinate us.

Spymaster isn't the only game in town, either. Check out some of these other alternatives for getting your Twitter game on as well.

10. Social Bookmarking

Delicious, diigo, et al feeling like too much overkill? Or just looking for an easy way to archive the links you share on Twitter?

Enter Fleck Lite, a simple bookmarklet-based tool that will both generate a shortened URL based on the page you're sharing and archive the collection of links you've shared for later reference. If you share a lot of links on Twitter and want a convenient way to remember them for later, definitely give this one a try.

11. Be Someone Else

Ever wanted to know what Twitter looks like through another user's eyes? Wonder no more: cTwittLike is an application that lets you see the Twitter stream someone else would see. Just enter the Twitter name of the person whose shoes you want to walk in, and you'll get a list of the latest tweets from the users being followed by that person.

Unfortunately, due to lots of attention from the interwebs this app is currently down. But hopefully you'll be able to return to your regular schedule of Twitter voyeurism soon.

12. Start a Petition

Looking to change the world but don't know where to start? Petitions are a powerful tool organizers have been using for decades to raise awareness, demonstrate support for an issue, and bring people together around a common cause.

Check out several startups helping you start petitions on Twitter, from Act.ly to Twitition and more.

13. Find a Job

This is sure to be a popular one in today's economy, or lack thereof. No single service will seal the deal for you, but check out our guide to landing your next paycheck via Twitter.

From finding new people to follow in your industry to making use of tools like TweetMyJobs, Twitter offers an unprecedented chance to find out about new opportunities and connect with potential employers in real-time.

What else can you use Twitter for besides our daily dosages of pointless babble? Let us know in the comments!

Twitter has quietly given some developers access to a new feature, Sign in with Twitter, which uses Twitter's new OAuth technology to allow people to log into and access 3rd party websites using their Twitter accounts. Sound familiar?

On the surface, this has striking similarities to Facebook Connect, the Facebook version that allows users to access 3rd party websites using a Facebook account, as well as import their Facebook information and friends. So how does Sign in with Twitter work, and how does it compare to Facebook Connect?

How To Log In with Applications that Use FB Connect or Twitter Sign In

Sign in with Twitter: Sign in with Twitter is a three-step process:

1. Request to sign in via Twitter
2. Log in to Twitter
3. Authorize the application or website to let you log in via Twitter

For the user who is logging in, it is in fact dead simple. If you are logged into Twitter, the only thing you really have to do is authorize the website to let you log in via Twitter. After that, OAuth takes over, which basically allows the website or application to access information like your friends, followers, and bio. And like many Twitter applications, it also allows you to send out and receive tweets via Sign in with Twitter.

Because Twitter doesn't have the same detailed information that Facebook has (i.e. relationship status, colleges attended, news feed updates, etc.), Sign in with Twitter is not able to bring in as much information.

Facebook Connect: Facebook Connect is just as simple for the user - you request to log in to a website via Facebook and, if you're logged in, it will ask you to authorize the website to connect to your Facebook.

The real difference for the user is the information being imported and exported. With Facebook Connect, information on location, gender, and favorites can be imported, making filling out a profile on a 3rd party website almost unnecessary. It also allows users to send stories to his or her wall and news feed. With Sign in with Twitter, the strength is in the user's ability to send and read tweets, as well as information on friends and followers.

Technology and Implementation: Twitter vs. Facebook

Technologically, Facebook Connect and Sign in with Twitter are definitely different - the way the developer implements it as well as how users connect to another website are done via different methods, even if the result is very much the same.

Sign in with Twitter uses OAuth, the system which already allows users to log into Twitter applications without having to type in their username and password. Sign in with Twitter is really a small addition to OAuth, but has big implications. Developing for Twitter is generally known to be simple, mostly because the Twitter platform itself is simple, when compared to others like MySpace or Facebook.

This could convince more time-strapped developers to choose Sign in with Twitter over Facebook Connect. Twitter is also a more open platform (information is not limited to friends unless you specifically make your profile private), meaning things can go more viral and information is not as walled in as it is on Facebook.

Is Sign in with Twitter a Facebook Connect competitor?

The million dollar question still remains: is Sign in with Twitter a true competitor to Facebook Connect? The answer depends on your purpose for using either platform.

If the only thing you care about is allowing users to log into your website, then the answer is yes. If you want to have users promote your website by sending out tweets or news feed items, then the answer is yes. But for many developers, who are looking to leverage Facebook's detailed personal information for a more personalized experience, the answer is a no.

For most people, Twitter followers are not the same as Facebook friends - Facebook friends are closer, more personal connections. This makes seeing their updates and information on a 3rd party website more compelling than perhaps Twitter. Sign in with Twitter, however, may be better suited for more 'open' experiences, i.e. sharing links or meeting new people in your industry. Facebook Connect and Sign in with Twitter have different applications and purposes once you get past the log-in screen.

However, Sign in with Twitter is still a win for users and developers - it's easy to use, easy to implement, and gives everyone another alternative to Facebook Connect, MySpace ID, Google Friend Connect, and other platforms with similar functionality.

By now, many people have had some exposure to social media, and are aware of some of the more popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It's probably safe to say that many professionals, especially job seekers or those in career transition have used LinkedIn to some extent. With the rash of layoffs that began at the end of last year, one beneficiary was job networking site LinkedIn. LinkedIn saw a huge increase in visitors, as posted in the TechCrunch article on February 14, 2009, As The Economy Sours, LinkedIn's Popularity Grows.


So, now you have joined a few groups, created your LinkedIn profile, added a few contacts, and have done a few job or company searches - now what? Most users of LinkedIn are aware of the capability to connect with others to build a network, but perhaps not as many use a very valuable tool LinkedIn provides - the groups feature. For both the LinkedIn user with some experience with the groups feature, and anyone visiting LinkedIn for the first time due to a recent job layoff, a few 'best practice' guidelines for becoming a group member are worth mentioning.


Being an 'active', contributing member of a group, versus sitting on the sidelines, provides the opportunity to share your knowledge that may benefit others job seekers or those pursuing a career change. Much like networking, the focus should be 'how can I help someone else', rather than 'what's in it for me?'


By answering questions, starting a discussion, submitting a news article, or posting a job opportunity, a person begins to build their reputation as someone who contributes valuable information to the group. Sharing tools, tips, late-breaking news, website links, and career articles begins to build a personal brand, make a person memorable, and tends to differentiate them as a valuable resource that others will want to connect with.


'Way too many people join Linkedin, build their profile and sit back . . . waiting for people to come find them. Now, that does happen. Recruiters can now find you and that is a good thing. But, Linkedin is really not about being found, it's about finding others and building relationships with them.'


- Posted by Tim Tyrell-Smith on March 15, 2009 in Linkedin for Job Search
(see SpinStrategy blog for other top job search groups and great job search tips)

Joining a group

• In LinkedIn, click on the Groups link below the Home link and use the 'Search Groups' feature to find a group category that contains groups you might want to join, have an interest in, or want to learn more about. (Ex: 'non-profits', 'green jobs', 'social media', 'technology', etc.)
• After joining, be sure to check the Overview tab to see if the group owner has any special considerations or requirements for participating as a group member
• View the Discussions, News, Jobs, More* ( *has drop down menu for Updates, and Members) to read what members are saying, view the information they are sharing, and to get a 'feel' for the group

Contributing to a group

• Find a way to add value, help others by sharing your knowledge and expertise, provide a tip, share what you read on the web, answer questions, start a discussion, post job leads
• Take an interest in others, find a similar hobby or something in common, and interact
• Offer your services, volunteer, follow people in your locality or industry

Starting a group

• If you have some specific knowledge or expertise that might benefit others, starting a group is a good way to help others and build your brand, at the same time
• Share information, tools, tips, late-breaking news, start discussions, and invite new members to join the group
• Become a source of cutting edge information and share it with others
• Note: some have found this to be a way to generate more contacts, build brand awareness, and even get a job interview

Benefits of joining a group

• Network with other members and share career information, job leads, tools, and tips
• Join groups with members of similar interests to 'connect' with a wider base of contacts
• If you make yourself valuable / memorable, others will want to make you a part of their network and follow you
• Follow discussions, track industry news, post a resume (if group allows), view job postings

Tips & takeaways

• Take an interest in others, find a similar hobby or something in common, get to know people better (having common interests outside the initial group connection strengthens the relationship)
• Offer your services, volunteer, follow people in your locality or industry
• Interact: share your knowledge, provide a tip, share what you read on the web
• Don't just build a profile and wait for jobs / others to come to you, be an 'active' group member, and think 'what value can I add today'?
• Be a matchmaker, share contacts / information, build your network
• Maintain your network: staying in touch is more important than the original connection
• Find a way to add value, help others - comments can lead to contacts, contacts can turn into quality relationships

Many LinkedIn groups exist, and a few are worth mentioning. The bolded entries are some of the most popular networking groups serving the Richmond, VA area.


Recommended career/ job search / other professional groups
* About.com Careers and Job Search
* Career Prospectors
* Career Rocketeer | Career Launch Network
* Central Virginia Business and Networking
* E-Recruitment Group (Post Jobs) (Post Resumes)
* Indeed.com
* Interview Angel
* IT Careers in Richmond, VA
* Linking The LaidOff
* madison+main, the NEW MEDIA group
* Richmond IT Professionals
* Spin Strategy - Tools for Intelligent Job Search
* St. Michael Job Assistance Ministry - JAM
* TwitterJobSearch.com
* Virginia Career Network


LinkedIn's improved people search continues to drive a lot of new activity on the site. The groups feature, although not new, is often overlooked, and can be better leveraged for job networking, brand building, and creating quality relationships.

- Daulton West, Jr. , aka '@dwestjr' on Twitter

Boris Epstein is the CEO and Founder of BINC, a Professional Search Firm that specializes in the Software Marketplace. Boris shares his thoughts about the recruitment industry, job hunting and career advice at AskBinc.com.

Ask anybody why they use Facebook, and most people will respond with reasons like staying in touch with friends, or being able to share pictures. Rarely does one's professional life ever get mentioned when describing the social network. When it comes to business networking, LinkedIn tends to take all the thunder, and Facebook is generally written off as a place just for fun. Yet, perhaps that's a mistake.

Facebook, after all, has 250 million active users compared to about 44 million for LinkedIn, and even though the atmosphere is clearly not as focused on business, there are still a ton of opportunities for professional networking that business users would be remiss to pass up. Once you look beyond the obvious social features like sharing pictures and poking friends, there are plenty of ways to tap into the professional community on the world's largest social network.

In this post we'll talk about how to setup your Facebook for professional use, how to find others to network with, Facebook features that work for professional networking, and ways to maximize the value from those features.

Setting up your Facebook for business networking

If you're like most people, your personal and professional lives have already blended. You share your personal stories and pictures with your work colleagues, you discuss both work and your personal life on your blog and Twitter, and you've probably let go of the notion that professional and personal must be kept completely separate.

But even with that blurring of our work and social lives, most of us still want some separation, and I would recommend actually splitting the two on Facebook. Once split, you can continue to reap the social benefits of Facebook with your friends and family while simultaneously connecting with your professional colleagues.

Here's how to split the two.

- Go to your friends list by clicking on the Friends tab at the top of your Facebook page.

- Click the 'Create a New List' button and create one called Professional.

- You can now go through your entire friend list and add all of your professional contacts into this new and separate business list.

- Once you're done, navigate to your profile privacy settings by clicking on the Settings link in the top right corner of your Facebook; then click on privacy; then click on profile.

On the profile privacy settings page you can begin slicing and dicing your Facebook world into personal and professional segments by restricting access to various parts of your profile using your newly created friend list. For example, if you don't want your professional friends to see any of your pictures, click on 'edit photo album privacy settings.' In the 'who can see this' drop down, click on 'customize' and then in the 'except these people' field type in your newly formed professional friends list. Now only your personal friends will be able to see your pictures.

Though these settings can get fairly complicated because of their granularity, you can control your entire Facebook experience from this area of the site and decide what parts of your personal life you would like your professional friends to be able to see. Bear in mind that there are no best practices here. Meaning, if you don't want your professional friends to see your wall comments, don't let them. If you don't want your professional friends to see your pictures, don't let them. It's your world and you can set it up exactly how you like.

Using Facebook groups for networking

One way to professionally benefit from Facebook's enormous user base and to grow your professional network is to participate in Facebook Groups. Facebook Groups is a feature that allows Facebook users to connect, discuss and network with each other within the context of a common interest or topic.

Finding groups

There are groups on Facebook representing just about every topic under the sun. To find the right group for your professional aspiration, think of topics that will motivate you, allow you to connect with others of professional interest, and will allow you to gain insight into your industry/skill set - groups around these topics are the ones where you'll find professionals you can network with.

Now that you have a direction in mind, enter your keyword into the search box on Facebook, and click on the 'Groups' filter to the left of the results. You can also filter down the displayed groups by drilling into a number of sub categories, including business (a good bet for many professional groups), common interest, geography, Internet and technology, and organizations.

There are, of course, other ways to find Facebook Groups. Here are a few techniques that should give you plenty of groups to get started with.

- If you have friends whose professional advancements you respect, go to their profile page and click on their info tab. Towards the bottom of the page, you'll see links to all of the groups to which they belong.

- On the main page of any Facebook Group, there are links to several other similar or related groups.

- Conduct an Internet search for 'popular Facebook Groups' coupled with some of the keywords that interest you. You'll often uncover blog posts, articles and people tweeting about a variety of groups, some of which may interest you.

Once you find a group that interests you, it's a good idea to evaluate whether or not it will be a good fit before joining and pouring too much time into it.

What to look for in a professional group

There are millions of groups on Facebook, so how many should you join and which ones? Joining too many might prove to be unmanageable, so it's a good idea to only join the ones that you can actually see yourself participating in.

Below is a list of the features you'll find in each Facebook Group and what to look for in each to determine whether a group is quality enough to be worth joining.

Recent News - This section contains news from group administrators that is either about the group itself or is about a topic that might interest the group. Is it up to date? Is it useful information or just self-promotion?

Member Listings - Lists all group members including their profile photos, location and link to their profile page. This is an easy access way to send a message to a specific group member OR to request them as a friend. You can also use this tool to evaluate the group before joining. Does the group attract people with similar backgrounds and interests to yours? Can you see yourself giving information to and appreciating information from these other members? Do they seem like people you would value interacting with?

Discussion Board - The group's discussion board allows members to engage in a discussion about topics listed by other group members. Before joining, use the discussion board to measure group activity and member engagement. Are discussions recent? How many are there? Are they interesting and on-topic? You should contribute to an existing discussion or start your own, once you've joined.

Wall Posting - This section is usually for member introductions or job postings. This is a great way to introduce yourself and your interest in this group. How recent are the latest postings? If there is any spam, how quickly is it cleaned up?

Groups also often have photos, videos, links sections, and event listings. You should evaluate these areas for recency and quality of information, as well.

Group participation

Once you've joined a group, it's time to start participating. This is where the real fun begins and the true business value will happen. Below is an example workflow I would recommend following upon joining a group for professional purposes. It's a great way to show your presence in the group and get some professional networking activity under your belt.

Post an introduction on the Group's Wall stating your interest in the group. If you're looking to network, say so. If you're looking for a job, say so. If you can offer advice, say so. The key here is to make this a simple introduction so the group knows who you are - not an advertisement for yourself or services, which may come across as spam.

Add links to interesting events, pieces of news or blog posts. Anybody who reads them will know you posted them, which will add to your professional branding efforts.

Go to the discussion board and comment on a few topics; don't be generic. Find a discussion where you could truly add value and help some fellow members with their questions or contribute to some discussions with your thoughts.

Post a topic for discussion. Ask a question or propose a thought-provoking topic of discussion and share your thoughts - the object is to engage your fellow group members. Check back on this discussion often so you can participate and remain an active part of it.

Add friends. Because Facebook was intended to be an online extension of your offline social graph, it is proper etiquette to know somebody before adding them as a friend. While being in the same group might satisfy that requirement for some people, I think it's a good idea to have some sort of further engagement with a member before requesting them as a friend. Once you've engaged someone (such as in a discussion board topic), request them as a friend but include a personal note letting them know you appreciated the interaction. That way, they will have some context for the request and will be more likely to accept. Once you're friends, make sure to add them to your professional friend list so that you are able to maintain that line between social and professional.

Now that you've gone through this workflow for each group you've joined, you can now consider yourself to be an active member. So what's next? Networking! Come back to each group often to post new links and videos, engage in discussions or start your own. You should also invite other existing contacts to join the group as a way to help spread the word and keep the group active. Also remember to befriend those with whom you've been active and take your professional relationship to the next level.

Once you have the basics down, professional networking on Facebook is very similar to professional networking in real life. The same rules and etiquette apply. As you build your professional network on Facebook you'll be able to use those contacts for job hunting, business development, and more.

Conclusion

Although Facebook was built as a social network and most people treat it as such - there is a tremendous amount of professional value that can be gained there. Once you're a member of a few groups and have completed the introductory workflow for each one, the professional value of Facebook should be evident and ready to be fully realized. Be creative, have fun, and remember: What you put into things is what you get out of them, so always try to stay active!

If you have any other tips for professional networking on Facebook, please share them in the comments.

Late last night [August 11 - Ed], news broke that Facebook was working on a 'Lite' version and had (perhaps accidentally) invited a number of people to try it out. In its own words, Facebook Lite is a 'faster, simpler version of Facebook.'

While it's still unclear exactly what the intended purpose of Facebook Lite might be - an even more direct competitor to Twitter or simply a Facebook that works better on slow connections - one thing is clear: Facebook needed a diet and Lite appears to be exactly that.

Facebook Has Become Complex

Once lauded for its simplicity, Facebook has evolved into an incredibly complex site. Many users still don't understand the difference between Pages and Profiles (a difference that's going to become increasingly blurred), or between Pages and Groups.

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of different privacy options which Facebook is now trying to streamline. And what was once a network just for college students now includes networks for high schools, companies, and, regional networks, though those are about to get killed off.

But Not Necessarily for the Better

And despite all of this feature bloat, many users still actually miss things that have been taken away or moved to the 'Highlights' area of the homepage, like birthdays and events. In fact, another rumor we recently reported on suggests that Facebook is set to soon 'undo' its Twitter-like homepage.

Could the social network be setting up to try and cater to two worlds: one that wants a focus on public facing status updates, and one that wants the information you used to get in the news feed, like new friends of friends and changes in relationship status? Perhaps that's what Facebook Lite is all about.

One Size Doesn't Fit All?

The biggest thing Facebook has going for it right now is that everyone is on it. Although admittedly I now spend more time on Twitter, I still often check Facebook because so many of my friends use it. But that's the exact same boat MySpace was in a couple years ago: the social network you checked because a big part of your social network was still on there.

However, at the moment, there are no signs that Facebook is slowing down, and overall, it's currently the Web's biggest time sink for users. All of this tinkering certainly makes it seems like they aren't resting on their laurels, but where exactly it's leading to is incredibly unclear at the moment.

But Facebook Lite - whatever it is - seems like an important part of keeping at least a certain segment of users happy. With a site whose population would make it one of the biggest countries in the world, offering more than one way to experience it might not be such a bad idea.

Do you remember two months ago when Facebook usernames went live? Millions of avid Facebookusers waited on a Friday night for the chance to claim their own custom URL. 200,000 were claimed in 3 minutes, 500,000 in 15 minutes, a million within an hour, and 3 million usernames by the next morning.

Still, that's just a tiny portion of the nearly 300 million users of the world's larger social network. However, it looks as if adoption of usernames hasn't stopped. According to a recent note from Facebook engineering, it was revealed that the company has reached over 50 million users. And that milestone was passed several weeks ago - there's no telling how many people have registered a vanity URL by now

In a post entitled 'Designing the Facebook username land rush,' Facebook's Srinivas Narayanan reveals the number while explaining the difficulties of building a system capable of handling 200,000 signups in 3 minutes and planning for contingencies (aka the so-called 'nuclear option'). These are subjects we actually discussed with Facebook's Jared Morgenstern and Guy Rom at Facebook headquarters the night of the launch.

It's a testament to the success of the usernames system that 20%+ users have signed up for it within two months. At some point though, there will be a ceiling where the registration of new usernames turns into a trickle. We're curious how many users will have vanity URLs by then.

David Spark (@dspark) is the founder of Spark Media Solutions, specialists in building industry voice through storytelling and social media. He blogs at The Spark Minute and is the author of '14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media' (PDF).

Traditionally, companies hold contests to get people excited about their brand and to gather names for mailing lists to push even more promotions. Now that social media is in vogue, there's no reason to limit a content submission to just a one-way promotional mailing list. Social media contests are multi-directional - they allow for increased customer engagement and content generation.

With creativity and a thoughtful connection to your audience, a contest can provide a host of benefits beyond just a list of names. Read on for ten examples of companies that ran social media-enabled contests, each successfully achieving a different goal.

Bring people together

1. Build community

Every weekday the Downtown Ithaca Alliance hides a garden gnome somewhere in downtown Ithaca, New York. They then post a clue to its location on their Facebook Fan Page. The first person to email or SMS the location of the gnome wins free coffee and bagels for their office. All types of local professionals, from lawyers, accountants, and university professors have gotten into the game, said Vicki Taylor, the director of marketing and events for the Downtown Ithaca Alliance. 'Some offices send out the gnome finding team as soon as the clue is posted,' said Taylor, 'The purpose is to make downtown feel like a community. We want people to be excited about being here.' Even though some contestants have been ruthless, Taylor claims, 'No gnomes were harmed in the game, so far.'

2. Connect your brand to an existing community

At the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference in Austin, Web application developers Iridesco connected with the social media savvy with SXSW Bingo, a game where contestants used Twitpic, Twitter, and the hashtag #sxswbingo to document people and items at the ultra hip social media conference. Examples included people playing Rock Band, a pie chart in a presentation, Gary Vaynerchuk drinking a glass of wine, and other Internet celebrities who were all very cool about being photographed as they became part of the game, said Michael Dolan of Iridesco. People had a lot of fun playing and SXSW Bingo got a lot of traditional and social media coverage. But more importantly, said Dolan, the game allowed Iridesco to introduce their products Get Harvest (time tracking) and Co-op (group communications) to an influential audience.

Trivia is simply fun

3. Promote a new service

For Comcast, and movie and TV trivia fans, every Tuesday is #TriviaTues, a day-long trivia event where Twitter users who follow @FancastTrivia answer twenty trivia questions to win free DVDs, movie tickets, and t-shirts. The goal of the weekly trivia game is to raise awareness for Fancast, Comcast's competitor to Hulu. The game requires a full day's commitment for fans online via Twitter, and the audience appreciates it as they've responded by really getting into the trivia and offering up some tough questions themselves. So far, according to Comcast, Fancast referrals from Twitter have increased 400 percent. But for a company as large as Comcast, they've still got lots of work to do; as of writing this article, @FancastTrivia has less than a thousand followers.

4. Raise awareness of your company

Improving recognition of your company and product is one of the most common reasons for holding a social media-powered contest. SmartyPig, a company that offers a simple online savings account application, runs a monthly Twitter trivia contest where followers of @SmartyPig are asked questions about SmartyPig's services, which forces contestants to learn more about the company. To pick winners of the $100 gift cards from those who answered correctly, SmartyPig conjures up some creative selection techniques that they perform on videotape. Watch them pick winners by dropping watermelons off a balcony, putting golf balls, and throwing snowballs.

Make business decisions

5. Bridge physical gaps between offices

To show off how great it is to work at their company, long term home healthcare operator Interim Healthcare decided to produce a documentary. The problem is they didn't know which of their 350 offices they should profile. Instead of guessing who would be the best, they created an internal 'A Day in the Life of a Nurse' contest where offices would shoot their own three minute videos to tell their stories. Even though staff members weren't video producers, ten percent of the offices participated. All the entries were then uploaded to Interim's Intertube site. While they ended up picking an office in Bakersfield, California to produce the documentary, they didn't expect the new closeness the videos created among all the offices. People were able to match a name with a face in a culture where everything was email and a voice on a phone, said Christian Boswell, creative director with bfw Advertising, the company that produced the contest.

6. Seek out hard to find resources

Charles Orlando, author of 'The Problem with Women Is Men,' uses contests to garner data for future articles and books. As a relationship and sex writer, Orlando is often seeking very personal stories on very sensitive subjects. To get women to open up and tell emotional and revealing stories, Orlando will hold contests on his blog where he'll give away designer handbags and spa treatments for the best tales. It can be hard to get sponsors to pony up the expensive prizes, but they pay off. For his last contest, the prize was an $800 Marc Jacobs designer bag, and Orlando got 252 entries.

We'll promote you and in return you'll promote us

7. Show off your work

'Holding a contest is a great way for small business owners to launch their new products or services on a budget,' explained Jennifer Haubein, owner of web design firm, Best Biz Website Solutions. Having spent no money on advertising, Haubein hosted a 'Get Your Business Online' giveaway. Contestants entered on her blog and explained why they should get a free site developed by her. Haubein picked a winner and then produced the site live on Ustream over a series of episodes where people could watch and ask questions as she worked. She said the show has really helped build trust between her and her potential clients.

8. Get the best company testimonials

Franchised staffing company Express Employment Professionals wanted to produce testimonials that really resonated with potential employees. To find the best ones they created a contest for people they've placed to produce a video explaining how Express has helped them in their job search. The top vetted videos were posted on YouTube and anyone could choose their favorite. Voters won cash prizes as did those who produced videos. While the public voting helped determine which testimonials resonated most strongly, the video stories also motivated current Express team members, said Tiffany Monhollon Wilson, Express' Corporate Communications Supervisor.

Work for us

9. Get the best help for free

Boxee is an open source social media center for viewing online video content. A real grass roots startup, Boxee's staff was so small that they didn't have enough people to staff their booths at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year.

One thing Boxee does have in spades, however, is tons of passionate users. Reaching out to those super users, Boxee offered them a chance to come to Las Vegas and staff their booths. Turning the request into a contest, Boxee asked their users to send in a video of themselves demoing the product. The Boxee staff chose the presentations they liked the most and declared those people the winners, flying them out to Las Vegas and paying for all expenses.

10. Creative brainstorming

If you're looking for some new creative ideas, give people a reason to help you, like the incentive of a prize. TechPad Productions, producers of iMEvil, a soundboard application of scary lines voiced by notorious horror talent David Sobolov, asked its users how they've used their product to scare the pants off their friends. Entrants can submit through Twitter and the best stories will win a prize. The contest is in full swing and if you want to win, TechPad Productions' co-founder, Ben Fisher says, '[They'll] reward the fan who best personifies evil!'

David Spark (@dspark) is the founder of Spark Media Solutions, specialists in building industry voice through storytelling and social media. He blogs at The Spark Minute and is the author of '14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media' (PDF). See David's brand new article '20 Expert Tips on Running a Contest Powered by Social Media' for some great tips on how to produce a successful contest.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Hamster3d

It's no coincidence that Facebook launched a new real-time search engine on the same day that it bought FriendFeed and Google announced a new infrastructure project aimed at speeding up its indexing time. Make no mistake about it: people that know search believe that there's gold in real-time and social data, and Facebook's blockbuster acquisition of FriendFeed was a lob squarely across Google's bow.

Facebook has always been in a position to take a lead in real-time and social search because of the sheer amount of data the site has collected about what people are doing, the things they're interested in, and what their social graph looks like. About 15 months ago, Paul Buchheit, the founder of FriendFeed, actually wrote that the human link data at sites like Facebook 'could ultimately be more valuable than the link data from the web' that Google's search engine is based on - someone just needs to mine it. Now he may have his chance.

What Facebook Got

Here's the bullet point list of what Facebook got by purchasing FriendFeed:

- A collection of very smart, ex-Google engineers that really know real-time search

- A social status platform that is arguably better than Twitter's

- A powerful, ready-made real-time search product

- A small, but influential user base full of early adopters willing to try and evangelize new products

Some might think FriendFeed was a second choice acquisition for Facebook, since the company couldn't land Twitter last year. But FriendFeed was probably the smarter choice. At just under $50 million it cost less than 1/10th as much as Twitter would have, and comes with arguably a better platform and a team that's just as strong. Yes, Twitter has more than 20 times as many users, but the acquisition of FriendFeed was clearly about technology and engineering talent - one thing Facebook is not lacking, after all, is users.

Why Google Should Worry

Facebook has one major asset: users, lots of them. 250 million registered users, to be exact, 30 million of whom update their status at least once per day. What they don't have is users who are used to sharing their status updates with the world, but they're trying to change that.

Google still gets more than twice as many visitors as Facebook, but how might that change if Facebook and the new engineering additions from team FriendFeed figure out how to slice and dice that user data in real-time? No one has yet really cracked the real-time or social search egg, but if Facebook can do it, its approximately hundreds of millions of monthly visitors could become hundreds of millions of monthly searchers - and that's very monetizable and very dangerous to Google's core business.

And what of Microsoft? Let's not forget that Microsoft's Bing powers web search results on Facebook, already. What if the two companies mash it all together and Facebook's real-time, social web search results find their way out onto Yahoo! (which will soon serve Bing search results)? That's a very plausible eventuality, and another that's very dangerous to Google.

Facebook's Track Record

What should really worry Google, though, is Facebook's track record. Facebook has a knack for taking the technologies geeks love and adapting them for mainstream audiences. They did it with the news feed (FriendFeed), photo tagging (Flick), link sharing (Delicious), and even status updates, which Facebook had before Twitter, but only pushed to the forefront once Twitter got hot with early adopters.

Sometimes a vocal minority fights against these features when they are first introduced, but Facebook has proven that it has a knack for knowing when to tweak and change features and when to stand their ground to find that sweet spot for features that users eventually come to love and rely upon.

Given their past track record, it seems likely that Facebook will be able to get most of its tens of millions of active users to embrace whichever of FriendFeed's features it co-opts and if they can then succeed in convincing those users to use its combination real-time/Bing-powered web search - look out Google, you have a new and very worthy competitor.

Social media can be an incredible tool for your business, providing you with more customer insight, direct communication channels and the ability to measure the effectiveness of these conversations very closely.

But as the proliferation of social media platforms grow, participating can turn into little more than a giant time suck without some sort of structure behind it. With that in mind, we've put together a 5 step plan for kickstarting your company's social media participation:

Step 1: Listen

Social media is a term we use to to discuss the tools that facilitate conversations. Before your company can be a part of those conversations, you need to know what people are already talking about so you can determine how you can best contribute.

Setting up some tools to monitor conversations is easy. The difficult part is choosing the keywords that
will return the most usable results.

Here are some tools to get you started:

Social Media Firehose: Kingsley Joseph used Yahoo Pipes to create one RSS feed that aggregates results from Flickr, Digg, YouTube, FriendFeed and other social media sites.

Latest Blog Mentions Pipe: This is another Yahoo Pipe that will aggregate brand references across several major blog search engines, including Technorati, Icerocket and Google Blog Search.

Alltop: This website aggregates the top posts from the top blogs around the world. Because it divides the blogs into categories by topic, it's also a great place to begin building your list of relevant blogs to read.

Be as specific as possible so that your searches return fewer results more relevant to your brand. This will take some time, but once you've discovered which keywords yield the results you're looking for, you will discover a host of blogs, twitter profiles and videos relevant to your industry. We'll use those results in step two below as we develop an internal social media strategy.

Step 2: Prepare

Social media platforms help facilitate conversations between individuals, not companies. Once you have a sense of what people are talking about, it's time to identify the appropriate people inside your organization to participate.


Find the People

People want to have conversations with company representatives who are experts in their area, who are passionate about their work and who are empowered to act on the feedback they receive from the community. If you want to focus on the marketing vertical, then look to your marketing team. The same is true if you want to participate in social media platforms devoted to product development, engineering or package design. Part of this process should be to provide the proper training for these employees on social media participation.


Set Rules of Engagement

Make sure your company has a social media policy in place that offers guidelines to your employees on the appropriate way to engage in online conversations. Microsoft's Channel 9 Doctrine is a good place to start.

Define Your Strategy

Social media is comprised of many different platforms. Rather than trying to participate in all of them, begin with one or two that seem to make the most sense. Having an engagement strategy will help to determine how much time employees will devote to social media communications, what will be the focus areas for engagement and of course, it will help to measure success.

Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang posted a list of social media strategies from enterprise corporations that's worth a look.

Step 3: Engage

This is the fun part! Start leaving comments on blogs, uploading images to Flickr, building a community on Twitter or FriendFeed or whatever else that strategy entails that helps further the discussion and illustrates your company's commitment to developing these online relationships. It might also be useful for employees to create a social media editorial calendar so that it's easier to structure time to participate. You never know what might happen, as this example from Blendtec illustrates.

Step 4: Go Offline

As stated in step one, social media is simply a group of tools that help facilitate conversations, but there's really no replacement for face-to-face interaction. Use trade shows and other events as opportunities to build even stronger relationships with the members of your online community. This could be in the form of an exclusive session, an informal breakfast or even a group picture on the event floor.

Step 5: Measure Success

Unlike other campaigns, measuring social media success begins by asking more questions:

- Did we learn something about our customers that we didn't know before?
- Did our customers learn something about us?
- Were we able to engage our customers in new conversations?
- Do our employees have an effective new tool for external feedback and reputation management?

We also recommend using a tool like Trendpedia -a blog search engine that allows you to both track and graph topics as well as compare terms- to help benchmark your company against your competitors by running the exact same search and parameters before and after your engagement begins.

Conclusion

The potential payoff for corporate social media participation is enormous. These companies will have a better sense of how they are perceived by their target audiences, they will establish a two way dialog with key stakeholders and they will empower their customers to speak with them, not at them. But without a strategic approach to social media, it is difficult to succeed. Hopefully this 5 step plan can help your company get started.

What's the advantage?  Most importantly, security.  Facebook requires the sites that utilize Facebook Connect to authenticate using their trusted method.  The user has complete control over their privacy settings and permissions, all through their existing Facebook account.  Secondly, it eliminates the need to create yet another account for various popular third party sites to enable the interactive content such as posting comments or sharing articles.   Third, Facebook users are already using their real names and identities, and Facebook Connect allows these users to share content with their friends through Facebook instantly.

Facebook Connect is a huge asset to both users and site owners, as it is a step in the direction of data portability.  Facebook elaborates on this point, "We believe the next evolution of data portability is about much more than data. It's about giving users the ability to take their identity and friends with them around the Web, while being able to trust that their information is always up to date and always protected by their privacy settings."  This data portability means that if a user changes their profile picture, removes a friend, or updates their privacy settings, the changes will be reflected automatically in the third party site.

We have recently integrated Facebook Connect with Allen Theatres' site, allowing users to instantly rate movies they've seen and publish their ratings and comments to their walls, announcing it to their friends.  Check out Allen Theatres' site to see Facebook Connect in action.  Some other popular sites using Facebook connect include CNET, Digg, Gawker Media sites, and Vimeo.  As always, if you don't have a Facebook account, click here to create one. 

From BusinessWeek - Debunking Six Social Media Myths

Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don't plan on getting your whiz-kid nephew to do it for free

By B.L. Ochman

For companies, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social Web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn't putting itself out there, it ought to be.

But before you take the plunge, bear in mind the many myths that surround social media.

1. Social media is cheap, if not free. Yes, many of the tools that can be employed in social media marketing are free to use. These include Google's (GOOG) video-sharing site YouTube, Yahoo's (YHOO) photo-sharing site Flickr, the social-network building tool Ning, and content aggregators such as Digg and eBay's (EBAY) StumbleUpon. Free blogging tools abound too; among them are WordPress, Twitter, and FriendFeed.

However, integrating these tools into a corporate marketing program requires skill, time, and money. The budget for an effective social media marketing campaign begins at $50,000 for two to three months. I'm sure companies have spent less, and I know they've spent more.

Building a site that incorporates interactivity, allows user-generated content, and perhaps also includes e-commerce doesn't come cheap from anyone who knows what they are doing. Even taking free software like WordPress and making it function as an effective interactive site, incorporating e-commerce, creating style sheets that integrate with the company's branding, takes more than time. That takes skill, experience, and money.

As a rule, a $50,000 to $100,000 budget can cover the creation of a simple multimedia microsite that becomes the center of an online community. Add in some widgets to help distribute the content and form a credible group on Flickr, Twitter, or Facebook and other networking groups to enhance the community aspect of the campaign. Complex functions add to programming and design costs.

A high-yield, highly targeted blog advertising campaign to kick off and support the program will cost an additional $25,000 to $100,000 a month. Advertising through Google's AdWords, e-mail support, co-registration, and other tools that drive traffic would be additional costs.

2. Anyone can do it. A surfeit of whiz kids and more experienced marketers are claiming to be social media experts and even social media gurus. Search the bios of Robert Scoble's 56,838 Twitter followers using Tweepsearch (www.tweepsearch.com), an index of the bios of Twitter users, and you'll find:

* 4,273 Internet marketers

* 1,652 social media marketers

* 513 social media consultants

* 272 social media strategists

* 180 social media experts

* 98 social media gurus

* 58 Internet marketing gurus

How many of them have actually created a successful campaign for clients using social media tools? I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find half a dozen with real track records.

A successful social media campaign integrates social media into the many elements of marketing, including advertising, digital, and PR. Opinion and theory are no match for experience, and the best social media marketers now have more than 10 years of experience incorporating interactivity, blogs, forums, user-generated content, and contests into online marketing.

Video contests by companies hoping for viral buzz and Google juice are as plentiful as mosquitoes on a humid summer night. But, like their insect counterparts, most video contests suck.

It's the rare video contest that gets as many as 2,000 entries. Many, like Denny's (DENM) recent disastrous effort, get fewer than 10 entries. Apparently, 48 Denny's breakfasts over four years wasn't a big motivator.

3. You can make a big splash in a short time. Sure, sometimes a social media campaign can produce substantial and measurable results quickly.

Social media is great if you're already a star, but that doesn't happen overnight. Amid the recent launch of my T-shirt design business, Pawfun.com, I have relied heavily on my 4,000-plus Twitter followers and 120,000 readers of my What's Next Blog, which I've updated as often as five times a day since 2003. Because that network already exists, with not one dollar spent on advertising, we were able to generate more traffic in our first three days than some major companies get after years online.

ZapposChief Executive Tony Hsieh, whose company has millions of customers who are evangelists for the great service that built the brand, quickly became a Twitter star, with more than 32,000 followers. When Dell (DELL), JetBlue Airways (JBLU), the Chicago Bulls, and other love-'em-or-hate-'em brands joined Twitter, they immediately developed huge followings.

Tweets can be used to drive traffic to articles, Web sites, contests, videos, and so on - if people already care about your brand, or if you have a truly original idea that people will want to share with their followers.

One recent example of a Twitter-generated success is Savvy Auntie, a community for aunts, godmothers, and "other women who love kids" that was launched six months ago by Melanie Notkin. She has counted on Twitter to drive traffic, help her find suppliers, products, and even investors. She developed a Twitter following before launching her business, then tapped into it for help when she launched.

4. You can do it all in-house. Wrong! You need strategy, contacts, tools, and experience - a combination not generally found in in-house teams, who often reinvent the wheel or use the wrong tools.

It is rare indeed to find an in-house team that can not only conceive and execute a social media campaign but also drive traffic to it with effective e-mail segmentation, search optimization, blogger outreach, blog advertising, Google ads, and more.

5. If you do something great, people will find it. Quite simply, that never was true. Until you can drive traffic to your social media effort, you've got a tree falling in the forest, heard only by those standing nearby. A great number of tools can drive traffic, including StumbleUpon, Digg, and Twitter, but nothing works better than word of mouse - one friend telling another, "Hey look at this!"

6. You can't measure social media marketing results. You can use a variety of methods, including mentions on blogs and in media; comments on the content; real-time blog advertising results, and click-throughs to your company Web site. You can get very precise statistics from a variety of sites, including Google Trends, Twitter search, Google Analytics, BackType, and Compete.

The tools are there. The gurus who know how to use and interpret them - not so much.

Ochman, president of Whatsnextonline.com, has been creating new media marketing and online brand strategy since 1995 for companies including IBM, Ford, McGraw-Hill, Budget Car Rental, Stacksandstacks.com, and American Greetings. She tracks online marketing trends and campaigns in What's Next Blog.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

LinkedIn, through its networking, question and answer, and application features (which I recently wrote about on OPEN) is already a powerful tool for maintaining and establishing relationships in the business world. But it can also be an enormously valuable way to attract top talent to your company, especially if you use all of the options available to you.

While posting a job to LinkedIn is similar to any other job website - adding details about the position, skills, and requirements - where the site separates itself is with company profiles, allowing you to provide potential candidates with a lot more information about your company and the people that work there. Here's how they work and how to set one up:

1. To get started, go to the "Companies" menu on LinkedIn. From there, select "Add Company".

2. Enter basic information about your company, like its description, number of employees, and industry it operates in.

3. Follow LinkedIn's wizard for creating your company profile - you'll be able to add a logo, locations, and a feed for your company blog.

Once you've completed LinkedIn's steps for getting setup, your company profile will be available. Now is where it gets interesting though. In addition to showing off the basic information you provided, LinkedIn will pull in data about your company from around the site.

So, for example, all of your job listings will automatically show up on your profile, along with links to the profiles of all current employees, former employees, new hires, and recent promotions. LinkedIn also does analysis of your company and the connections that your employees have on the network. For example, it will automatically calculate your company's median age, top schools, and other companies that they are well-connected to.

As you can imagine, all of this aggregate data about your company gives potential candidates (as well as anyone else interested in your company) a lot of information to dive into and help determine if it might be a good fit for them. And for you, once it's setup, it all happens automatically as you and your employees use LinkedIn, though you can always make edits to your company's basic profile information.

LinkedIn recently also added a premium product - Custom Company Profiles - that lets you add more features, like videos about your company and positions, interactive polls, and several customization options for recruiting. These are worth considering for larger companies (they come at a price), but for small businesses, a basic LinkedIn company profile should be enough to add lots of efficiency to the recruiting process - both for candidates and for you.

Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also authors a PR and social media blog and is the founder of #journchat.

It doesn't matter if you're on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr; your online personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you and your business. So, who is the face or voice of your brand and what do they share? It's a very important decision in and of itself.

Just as you create branding guidelines and key messaging guides, so too should you dedicate time to creating your social media personality. There are multiple combinations that you can use to increase your brand visibility and converse with your customers.

Be transparent and authentic. Be human.

Don't want the worst day of your life to be played over and over again like Groundhog Day? Then don't talk, share, Tweet or write about it via social media. That said, no one is happy, or perfect all of the time. It's okay to let people into the "real" events which happen in your life. Social media for business is about return on engagement. Connect with people, build opportunities through dialogue which would not have otherwise occurred, then connect them with your business.

Think in terms of "bad driver just cut me off" instead of "just got served papers for a lawsuit." The first example connects people and encourages dialogue. Who hasn't been cut off by a bad driver? The second example has the potential to make people uncomfortable or turn them "off" to your brand.

A great example of "what not to do" is posted on Peter Shankman's blog, How an "accomplished communicator" communicates. The sender of this email has now publicly shared a not-so-nice side of his personality in a VERY public setting.

A profile pic is worth a thousand tweets

A major part of your social media personality is your avatar and your profile bio. The first rule for avatars and bios is to stay consistent across social platforms. If you're sharing information from your business account, decide whether you want your avatar to be your company logo or the face of the president. Each sends a completely different message and requires a different messaging and branding approach. 

Who is doing it well? Here are a few of my favorite business and/or personal branded avatars and profiles on various social media platforms:

Facebook

Businesses have many options when it comes to creating a Facebook personality. There are options for "group" or "fan" pages versus a personal account.

*; Benjamin Leis and his pet project's group page, The Campus Buzz for College Media: Ben uses The Campus Buzz as his avatar to reinforce the importance of his project and brand. He is becoming one with this identity.

* Carrie Kerpen and her company's fan page, the Kbuzz: Carrie's profile is on par with her personality-smart and helpful, a loving wife and mother.

YouTube

* Blendtec's Will It Blend? - The company offers a full library of "Will It Blend?" videos on its YouTube account with a profile perfectly suited to match.

Twitter

* @VeronicaDLcruz - Tweeting from the CNN newsroom in New York City.
* @jasonfalls - Social media explorer for a brand building agency.
* @PRnewswire - Vicky Tweets on behalf of PR Newswire.

An inviting avatar may include one of the following attributes (along with great content): a smiling face, a full color photo (as opposed to black and white), or a familiar logo.

Leaving a legacy

Your social media personality becomes part of your brand's legacy. Don't brand your personality for the day, the month or the year. This is serious stuff. What you post stays around for a pretty long time and the information (good and bad) isn't too hard to find. Your social media posts offer vast archives of information about you.

This means, what you share, post or tweet today should reinforce your brand tomorrow. Think about each message you share via social media as an email which has gone public to your entire organization and all of your stakeholders. Now, imagine if they are reading this email and RESPONDING to it. That's part of the power of your social media brand.

Who is leaving a legacy aligned with their brand on Twitter?

* @BreakingNewsOn - Why? All breaking news, all the time. I'm not confused about what I'm getting from them.

* @dannybrown - Why? He walks the talk on business with a strong emphasis on philanthropy.

* @barefoot_exec - Why? Her messages completely align with her goals-to empower women, celebrate success and encourage greatness.

Don't be a social schizo

Multiple personality disorders do not work well in social media. If you confuse, you lose. If you are a business expert one day, a media maven the next and live news feed after that, people will ultimately stop connecting.

A very simple approach is to make a short list of what you WILL talk about via social media. Stick with it. The pay off? When someone thinks about an expert in interior design, they will think of you because you will have BRANDED yourself as one. (DISCLAIMER: This is not an opportunity to "play a doctor on T.V." You should actually be an expert in the areas you claim to be.)

The same concept applies for joining multiple networks. Keep the same personality for each. 

Ever heard the compliment about a truly admired person, "he or she is the same in public as he or she is behind closed doors?" This is what I believe to be the golden rule of your social media personality. Live your brand across all networks (including offline).

The following people blog or vlog about specific topics and continue the dialogue via other social media platforms consistently:

* Aronado Placencia: (@Aronado) This man lives to promote entrepreneurs and new startups. With a goofy sense of humor and an ability to connect quickly, he is ultimately all about promotion (in a good way).

* Jeff Pulver: (@JeffPulver) Usually looking for social media speakers, getting ready for the next social media summit, or just talking about social media - he really does live "in" social media.

* Melanie Notkin: (@SavvyAuntie) She has branded the new, hip way to be an aunt. Her blog and online personality co-exist harmoniously.

Social climbing not the best approach

Social climbers beware. As you build your social media personality, don't only connect with people who have a lot of "followers," "friends," "connections," etc. It makes sense to engage the "big dogs" of social media, but it's even better to connect with other quality audiences. Spending too much time looking for the big fish may take away from an entire school passing you by. Go grassroots and begin to build your personality one social media platform at a time.

A relatively easy approach on Twitter:

Use the search function and type in keywords associated with your brand. Reach out to everyone talking about these items with a personally crafted "Tweet." Do not resend the same thing over and over. People you interact with will read your Twitter stream and want to see what useful information you provide.

Check out networks, groups, or fan pages on Facebook:

Creating a group or fan page for people to become a member of both gives you a new to interact with current customers and offers the opportunity to grow your reach exponentially. The Creative Commons fan page is a great example of a fan page doing it well. Their fan page has several discussion board posts (similar to a blog) and many wall posts - which demonstrates that people are engaged. They also have "REAL LIVE" employees who participate on the fan page.

Start a conversation on Seesmic, a video blogging community:

Post a 30 second video blog on Seesmic, asking for feedback and you'll get it. There is a small, but mighty network of users on this video platform. If you're looking for a way to jump on the video bandwagon this is a great way to get started. Todd Jordan (@tojosan) is an engaged member of the Seesmic community and offers "tell it like it is" advice. He gets that it's not all about the numbers, and follows people who enjoy frequent video conversations with him.

It's not a one-stop shop

There is no one-size fits all personality for your brand. In fact, think you know your brand? Explore social media and see how people really experience what it is you're selling. You may need to adjust or reflect on your brand.

What is your brand offline? Social media isn't an opportunity to reinvent a new brand, but to widen your brand's reach. It's all about the experience, right? People should get the same (or similar) experience with you online that they get offline.
For example, a business owner talks up an impressive customer service experience at his or her business online without ensuring his or her staff truly delivers this service. Making a promise you can't keep is worse than never having engaged your audience at all.

Remember Motrin Moms? Sharing information via social media without someone there to interact is a giant NO NO! A "must have" when branding on social media is being available to your public.

Return on engagement

It's all about ROE - return on engagement. Is your social media personality working? You'll know when opportunities arise that never would have been possible otherwise. A few ways to "quantify" engagement:

* Track incoming traffic from links

* Number of people subscribed to RSS feeds

* Number of people in social media groups, fan pages, etc

* Trackbacks or linkbacks to posts

* Conversation tracking tools like Twitter Search (Mashable guest writer Dan Schawbel previously discussed free and fee-based brand monitoring tools)

* Comments on blog posts

* Increased sales and general inquiries

Best advice? Don't take anyone else's advice

You know your brand better than anyone. Learn some of the social media fundamentals, then apply and find what works best for you.

Sharlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com.

Companies are realizing that people are talking about them whether they like it or not. As a result, they're deciding whether they should consider having a social media presence, and hence, a policy. A social media policy outlines for employees the corporate guidelines or principles of communicating in the online world.

Social media is quickly moving from an emerging form of communication to the mainstream. So, just like in the old days when companies had to figure out how to deal with email, now they have to figure out how to deal with Facebook and all other new media venues. Let's talk about the Five Ws to adopting a social media policy.

1. WHY have such a policy?

As a human resources professional, I'm constantly accused of being all about policies. But besides the pre-disposition of my profession to policies, there are legitimate reasons to establish some guidelines for social media.

Unfortunately, you have to contemplate what might happen if someone says or does something stupid (like employees doing gross things to food and posting it on YouTube). So I asked one of my attorney tweeps, Eric B. Meyer, who's an Associate in the Labor and Employment Group of Dilworth Paxson LLP, what companies should consider from a legal perspective in developing a social media policy. Meyer reminded me of two important points:

1. Employers need to be upfront with employees that they have no right to privacy with respect to social networking. "Employers reserve the right to monitor employee use of social media regardless of location (i.e. at work on a company computer or on personal time with a home computer)."

2. Employees "should be made aware that company policies on anti-harassment, ethics and company loyalty extend to all forms of communication (including social media) both inside and outside the workplace." People need to remember that bashing your organization/boss/co-workers online can lead to consequences at work.

2. WHAT can social media do for my organization?

Shannon Seery Gude, VP of Digital for Bernard HODES Group, told me that forming a social policy should start with an understanding of how your employees are aligned with your company values. "It's important that authenticity can exist without the need for what may be perceived as forced company morality."

In addition, social media can strengthen your "brand' not only as an employer but as a company. Take Dell for example. A recent report claims that Twitter has made Dell $1 million in revenue over the past year and a half. So what are you waiting for?

3. WHO should the policy cover?

Media is for everyone...not just your marketing department. So for it to really be effective consider expanding the policy to all employees, not just for a handful of people. One way to think of it is, while it's called social media, it has a vibrant customer service component to it. You wouldn't take the phone or email from your employees, so why take social media away from them.

"Companies have existing communications policies," explains Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company, "directives that spell out the company's expectation when employees use the phone or email." Since the conversation has moved to the Web, "it's important for organizations large and small to acknowledge that and extend their existing communications policies to include online sites."

4. WHERE should you let employees know about this policy?

When you give all of your employees the ability to interact with the whole world...well, then you have to provide them with some training on how to use it properly and effectively. A great example is Zappos. They encourage all of their employees to have Twitter accounts so they can interact with current and potential customers. And, they actually train their employees on the proper use of Twitter during new-hire orientation.

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh says that their company uses Twitter in a big way. "We've found that it's a great way to form more personal connections with both employees and customers."

5. WHEN is the right time to implement a policy?

The time to think about drafting a social media policy is now. Twitter is growing at a rate of 1,382%, and it's just one of the many social networking applications in the market. Companies are using social media tools to establish value in terms of marketing and branding.

Social media or new media is really media. Plain and simple. Many organizations with any kind of formal structure have a policy in place for working with media. You know, the policy that says any requests from the media need to be directed to the Corporate Director of XYZ for response. Add to that, the communication policies you have in place. The ones that say you won't do anything illegal, immoral, unethical, etc. So this is really no different. Social media is merely an extension of what you currently have in place.

Monty agrees. "If anything, existing policies should already be in place; amending them to include the changes to communications platforms and anticipating future changes - should occur ASAP."

So it's time for companies to start thinking about social media in the same context as all other forms of communication. According to Gude, "the case has been made that common sense should be all that is needed, but when done right, formal policies can drive effective practices." That means developing guidelines for its use, training people to leverage the benefits, and proactively creating a positive social media presence for the organization.

There are things that can't be showcased too often. For instance, beautiful blog designs. We have presented hundreds of beautiful blog designs in the past and now it's time to provide our readers with a fresh portion of tasty design inspiration.

All blogs listed below have an original, unique design. They aren't based upon some ready-to-be-used WordPress templates, but are the result of a hard, time-consuming work - therefore they deserve respect and admiration. Yes, many of these design are quite "heavy" on graphcs, not only because they look impressive on a tiny 550px-width-screenshot.

Below we present 50 new, beautiful, creative and (hopefully) inspiring blog designs. We feature many various styles and designs - hopefully, everybody will find some inspiring elements and design solutions for his or her next design. And, of course, thanks to all designers and artists featured in this post! All screenshots are linked to the original designer's site.

Beautiful and Original Blog Designs

Duiwaigh

Iemai

Douglas Menezes

A Crayons Life

Blog me Tender

Nice Web Type

Foodtease

Mike Matas

Questionable Characters

idsgn

SushiMonstr

Brown Blog Films

Addicted to New

Nalden

The Klog

Guns & Donuts

moradito

Daustralala

Digital Mash

Jack Cheng

Huwshimi: A robot blog

Cocoia Blog

Metalab

Mateus Neves

Ryan McMaster

Rin & Wendy

Markup & Style Society

Get and Give

The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely

Fritz Quadrata

Argee

Steven Mullen

Owltastic

Snailbird

Henry Hoffman

Guillermo Esteves

Skylab

Gary Nock

5Pieces

Ethan Marcotte

Dino Latoga

theCpeng

Darren Hoyt

Elliot Jay Stocks

From The Couch

Mike Rundle

Boris Forconi

Nasendackel

Twitter is immensely useful as a utility for joining in the global conversation and sharing thoughts, opinions, information, and media. But for new users, there's also a fairly steep learning curve. For many people new to Twitter, the site doesn't immediately "make sense" and it can be a bit daunting. But there are things those users can do to make the service more useful from the get go.

Below are five steps for new users to take in order to make the Twitter experience more enjoyable from the beginning. New users have both third party services and built-in tools at their disposal to make Twitter work for them, and this post highlights some of the best.

STEP ONE: Find People You Already Know

I joined Twitter later than most early adopters, but once I finally became a Twitter newbie in early 2008, it was much easier to jump into the conversation when I was following some people I already knew - people who I was sure were already talking about things I was interested in and would value my input.

The best tool available for new users directly on Twitter is the Find Friends on Other Networks tool, which lets people allow Twitter to scan their AOL, Yahoo!, or Gmail address books and see if anyone they know is on Twitter. Once you've synced your address book, Twitter will locate and suggest users to follow that you likely already know outside of Twitter. When you follow those friends, they'll get an alert message saying that you've followed them.

New users can also turn to third party Twitter people search engines like Tweepz, which take things up a notch by offering more detailed and easily scannable search results than Twitter's own built in people search. Also check out our recent Twitter people search round up.

Another way to find friends is to check out the Twitter Facebook app and see if any of your friends on Facebook are also on Twitter. Of course, not every Facebook user that uses Twitter also has that application installed - the app has just 250,000 monthly active users, so the number of friends you find via this method might not be too many.

STEP TWO: Find Like-minded Users

One of the most clearly beneficial things for new users to do is to find other Twitterers that talk about the topics they're interested in. Getting fed a stream of tweets on topics you actually care about will go a long way toward making Twitter more useful and interesting, right off the bat. One tool new Twitterers can use to find like-minded users is Twitter Search. Twitter's own built-in search engine lets users search for others who are talking about the things they're interested in by searching for keywords. However, it's also a bit of a slapdash method of finding users to follow. Because the search is real-time, you'll only ever find the users who were most recently talking about a specific subject, not necessarily those who talk about it regularly.

Fortunately, there are some third party services that new users can turn to in order to find other like-minded users to follow. Twitter directories Twellow and WeFollow organize Twitter users based on topic, and are great places to find other users who will regularly tweet about things you're interested in.

You should also look into third party sites like Twubble and Twitterel, which attempt to give people friend suggestions on Twitter, based on the friends of your friends and the things you're interested in.

STEP THREE: Find People in the Area

When I first started using Twitter, I used it for a couple of months, then got bored with it and stopped using it for a while. Recently, I have begun to follow a lot more people in my local area, and I've noticed that the service has become much more useful. I get updates about local meetups, stay abreast of local issues, and am able to connect with people around things that only those in my city would understand.

I would have loved to have known how to find local users to follow when I first began using Twitter - I may never have taken a hiatus from the service if I had. A good place to start your search for local tweeters is Twitter search. By using the advanced search options, you can limit results to only those tweets originating from nearby to a specific location.

Of course, third party apps, such as TwellowHood and Localtweeps, generally offer better results. Be sure to check out our recent guide to finding local Twitter users.

STEP FOUR: Get a Desktop (or Mobile) Client

Once you really get into Twitter and start using it to have conversations with friends and followers, you'll want to upgrade from the Twitter.com web interface. Using the web for tweeting becomes difficult when you start following a lot of people and doing things like sending and receiving replies and direct messages. But don't worry, there is a solution: a desktop client.

Desktop clients are software built specifically to utilize Twitter. Clients for the desktop generally do very helpful things, like let you put the people you're following into groups, so you can be sure you won't miss a tweet from those you care about the most, alert you when you get a new direct message or @reply, search Twitter without having to visit a separate page, or help you share images or videos. In other words, they help you get the most out of Twitter and not miss anything important.

Our current favorite desktop client is Tweetdeck Seesmic running a close second. Be sure to check out our round-up of 19 Twitter desktop clients, for the skinny on a large number of available options.

Mobile users can also download applications to help them get more out of Twitter, those users who tweet on an iPhone especially have plenty of options. There are some web-based Twitter clients available that make Twitter easier to use, as well, such as Mixero and PeopleBrowsr.

*Disclosure: TweetDeck partnered with Mashable to create MashDeck, a branded version of the software.

STEP FIVE: Learn the Ropes

Twitter can be very daunting for new users. It has its own set of jargon (#hashtags, @replies, retweets, direct messages, etc.), its own set of commands, confusing rules about who sees your tweets, and a sea of third party clients to navigate. That can be overwhelming for someone new to get into. One place to start learning about Twitter, is the site's own help portal and Getting Started forum aimed at new users. They're not the most user friendly sites, though, and might raise more questions than they answer for some users.

At Mashable we just recently launched our Twitter Guide Book, which attempts to help both new and experienced users learn how to use the service and get the most out of it. You should also check out Twitter app directory Twitdom, where you can learn about many of the cool things you can do with Twitter.

Popular social networking site Facebook is breaching Canadian law by holding on to users' personal information indefinitely, a report has concluded.

An investigation by Canada's privacy commission found the US-based website also gave "confusing or incomplete" information to subscribers. Facebook says it is aiming to safeguard users' privacy without compromising their experience of the site. More than 200 million people actively use Facebook.  They include about 12 million in Canada, more than one in three of the population.

Name: Sharein

Quick Pitch: Sharein is a simple bookmark tool that helps you to share links to email, Facebook () and Twitter from the browser.

Genius Idea: Whether it's great content, funny videos, or just can't-miss-this web finds, the nature of Twitter and the popularity of retweeting has proven that we like to share links with our friends and followers. Sharein, a just launched service with a super smart bookmarklet for your browser, makes it incredibly simple to share and track the things you find on the web with anyone via email, Twitter, or Facebook.

As with all bookmarklets, all you need to do to start sharing is drag the Sharein tool to your browser (though there is a Firefox Plugin you can use instead). Once you create your account, you can click the browser button anytime you discover something on the web you want to share privately via email (you can import contacts from Gmail (), Yahoo, and Windows Live), publicly via Twitter (), or directly to your Facebook friends. With both Facebook and Twitter, you also don't have to worry about handing over your passwords, as Sharein uses Twitter OAuth and Facebook Connect.

Another big selling point for Sharein is that it does more than just let you share things. For everything you share, the tool will conveniently create a shortened URL and provide you with URL analytics and overall internet reach (ie. reshares across any platform) to track your influence. Plus, you can view an activity feed around your shares, take a look at what other people are sharing, and get an idea of what's popular across the Sharein community. It's basically a URL shortener, bookmarklet, sharing analytics tool, and meme tracker all rolled into one service.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the "new CloudApp()" contest - use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP () app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines)."

You have insightful tweets, write amazing blog posts, and can make a viral video like it's nobody's business. So why don't you have 500,000 followers, 50,000 views per video, and your own personal social media army?

People have been setting some strange, unrealistic, and possibly misguided expectations recently in social media. While you might believe that you're only worth something in social media if you have a huge audience, the simple fact is that it's not true. Understanding what you want out of social media and having smart goals can mean the difference between frustration and enjoyment. This guide provides and overview of some ways to avoid the pitfalls of social media expectations and how to manage smart goals on the social web.

Popularity game vs. real value

The desire for social media popularity has been a growing phenomenon in recent years. There is an (unfair) perception that more followers or more readers = more value, and thus people have done some crazy things to grab attention. Even Facebook is succumbing by adding Facebook profile fans.

Yet while it's true that more attention can mean more shareability in general, you aren't going to gain anything from people that don't truly care about what you have to say. The value of social media drops dramatically if your accounts and activities are filled with people that don't engage with you and don't share what you have to say. There are so many ways to utilize social media beyond the popularity game that you are doing yourself a disservice if you obsess over your RSS reader count.

So the first step in managing your social media expectations is this: don't get caught up in the popularity game. Find your own path in the social media world, one that is linked to your enjoyment and education. You don't need to be the most subscribed-to person on FriendFeed to share music socially, to use social media for enterprise, or to make millions.

Avoiding pitfalls

The biggest pitfall you can fall into when managing your social media expectations and goals is frustration and despair. And when you are frustrated or desperate, you make bad decision and say things you'd like to take back (i.e. how Astrospace destroyed its Twitter brand in minutes).

Control your emotions. Be aware of your emotions and how they can direct your interactions on social media. Because you have less n connections doesn't mean they are better or more popular. Here are the best tips for generating value and starting conversations with people that each side will care about:

Reach out: You will always be surprised by how many people reach back. Reaching out always builds real connections. And in the case of one person, reaching out even got her a job.

Focus on helping others: Give people a reason to follow you. Saying "I want you to follow me" isn't a reason to follow someone. Check out some common reasons why people won't follow you back on Twitter.

Be authentic: Authenticity is one of the key pillars to social media. You're probably tired of hearing about it, but we'll say it again - using a persona that is not your own will not end well. Sarah Evans highlights the importance of authenticity in her article Social Media for Business: The Do and & Don'ts of Sharing.

Be conscious of the pitfalls that can cause frustration, and then focus on real value.

Setting goals

Goal-setting, and writing those goals down, is an essential component of success. It's also essential to really managing your social media expectations as well. When you have something to work for, rather than despairing over what you don't have, you're just more productive.

Why set a goal? - Set a goal to give you focus, to avert frustration, and most of all, to understand why you're blogging and using Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace anyway. Is it just to connect with friends? Is it to promote a business? Or is it to build a reputation of expertise? Goal-setting is always an exploration of purpose, so take the time to explore.

What goal should I set? - Don't be stuck with the mindset that the only metric that matters is popularity and the number of readers, followers, friends, subscribers, and viewers you can amass. Chatting with a new person every day or writing a great article on your blog every week are worthwhile goals for yourself and for others.

What if I don't reach it? - Don't stress: these goals are for you to have focus, not for you to pull hairs about. The key thing is to understand why you're using these social media tools and to set your expectations and goals accordingly.

If you want a nifty tool for goal setting, one good choice is Goalforit.

Remember, it's not a race

Social media is about people, conversations, friendships, education, and communication. Social media is not a race. If you get over-competitive with people over followers, retweets, and popularity, you lose sight of the communication and learning aspects of social media, and the fun gets sucked right out.

When you are setting your social media expectations and goals, remember to avoid pitfalls that many enter. Really assess what you want to get out of your experience. If you do this early, you can avoid the frustration of aimless wandering quickly.

We've highlighted the problem of malicious links and spam permeating Twitter trends several times before, but the problem is getting worse, fast. If Twitter doesn't fix it soon, Twitter Trends will simply become a huge pile of irrelevant content, spam and links that lead to viruses and spyware.

Case in point: "Bruno" is trending right now. I've clicked the trend to see some early user reviews, but instead I got overwhelmed with spam, pointing to http://stream-onlinemovies.com or http://buffermovies.com/, sites that offer "full movie downloads." Since this is a legitimate trending topic, many of the tweets are real, but if spammers start infusing their links into trends for every hit movie, finding useful tweets will become a chore.

Then, there's "Pirates". It's a Facebook game, and it's trending because a bunch of spammy accounts are linking to it. It might have started from another Somali Pirates incident, which happened a couple of days ago, but right now, it's a completely illegitimate trending topic, overwhelmed with thousands of messages such as "Hey, just did a Plunder in Pirates, can you send me an Energy Boost?" Interestingly enough, it seems that other spammers are freeriding this topic to infuse links to their own sites; for an example, check out this tweet (but don't follow the link). Yes, it's that bad: spammers are spamming other spammers.

July 7th, 2009 | by Stan Schroeder

Analytics company iStrategyLabs has examined the demographics stats from Facebook (Facebook)'s Social Ads platform, and they've reached some very interesting conclusions. Facebook's userbase, as a whole, is getting much older very fast.

As you can see in the chart below, the overall number of users between 18 and 24 years of age has grown only 4.8% between the fourth of January and the fourth of July of 2009. In comparison, the number of users aged 25 - 34 has grown 60.8%; the number of users aged 35 to 54 has grown 190.2%, while the number of users older than 55 years has grown a tremendous 513.7%.

If the iStrategyLabs numbers are correct, Facebook, simply put, is not a young site anymore. Most of the users (20,3 million, or 28.2% overall) on the site belong to the 35 - 54 age group. Compare that to the age group that was once Facebook's bread and butter - the 18 - 24 group - which is now in third place with 18 million (25.1%) users, behind the 25 - 34 year old group, which makes for 25.2% of Facebook's user base with 18.1 million users. The number of users aged 55 and over has grown from negligible 950,000 to 5.9 million in mere six months. 

Now, although it may seem like the number of young users has declined, this is not true. The overall number of users of all ages is growing. But they are growing at very different speeds, and therefore the percentages have changed significantly; on a site like Facebook, which lives on advertising, this is a big deal.

However, although the number of young users has increased, the number of high school and college students has declined by -16.5% and -21.7%, respectively. This can indicate several things: first, that the data that iStrategyLabs is incorrect or very rough (which is a possibility, since Facebook doesn't guarantee that the data provided to advertisers is absolutely accurate); secondly, it's possible that Facebook users simply don't think that their education, or the school/college they're in are very important so they're simply not entering the data. It's probably a little bit of both, but it'll be interesting to see and compare Facebook's own demographics data with these numbers. 

In any case, these are significant changes. If you show the same ads to Facebook users now, they will react vastly differently than they would have half a year ago. If you're an advertiser on Facebook, you should take these changes into account and react accordingly, because your campaign might not be as effective as it was a couple of months ago.

* Anyone with a message can and should use social networking to spread the word.

* It's like Business After Hours Online.

* Allows a more personal relationship with customers.   People can see the human side of the organization. Turn friends into customers & customers into friends.

* Low to no cost to reach potential & existing customers with your message.

* Can be used to drive traffic to your website aiding in SEO.

If the video does not play, please click here.

Social Networking from Jason Crowson on Vimeo.

The more complicated answer involves taking a good, long look at the industry your site is a part of. If your site becomes outdated, customers immediately wonder if you're still in business. If the information in your field is constantly changing and evolving, like with the financial sector or technology, you will want to update your content to reflect the latest changes. That could be every day, if there is enough to write about. On the other hand, if your website is purely to inform the community around you of your presence (think doctors, banks, etc.) then you might not have to update as frequently - once every month should be more than adequate.

That being said, it's important to remember that updates for your site should be well thought out and planned in advance. Your website should be consistent and familiar to visitors (and search engines!), so constant layout or navigation changes might confuse your users. Have all of your new text and images ready to go all at once, to avoid "breaking" portions of your site, or forcing your users to see "under construction" or "coming soon" pages.

Why is it important to keep your site maintained with new and fresh content? Simple - search engines, like your human readers, enjoy and value fresh content and will keep an eye on your site more regularly if there are consistent updates. You will know it's time to update your site when you release a new product, make staffing changes, change or add locations, or change the pricing on products or services, just to name a few.

A few ideas on how to add extra content without crowding your site:

Add a calendar of events for your company or the community.

Add a blog to announce any major developments or partnerships in your business, or even to brag about a recent job you've completed.

Add a few testimonials from your customers. This is great for two different reasons. One: your customers will write this for you, and two: it shows potential clients how you do business and instills a sense of trust immediately.

Remember - search engines don't read your site like human visitors. Robots scan the text of your site for words and phrases, and the more relevant keywords your site contains, the higher on the search results page you'll be. We can help you keep your site updated with a variety of SEO plans. Contact us today.

Free Designs

Free designs are all around the web. No HTML skills? Don't have a copy of Photoshop? A free template looks like the easy way to a website. A few questions to ask yourself: how many other people are currently using the same free design you've chosen? How "generic" does the design look? Will the template design make your company stand out and be memorable from all the millions of other websites on the internet?

On the technical side, template designs are often coded poorly and using outdated languages and standards. These templates are full of badly formed HTML, and are often bloated with excess code that causes every page to render more slowly than it should. These issues will make Search Engine Optimization (SEO) extremely difficult for your site, and end up costing you lots of time trying to fix the outdated code.

Free Hosting

Free web hosting is never really "free." Most free hosting is supported by advertisements placed on your site, by the hosting company. If you wanted to try to monetize your site with your own advertising, forget it. Most free hosts don't allow that as part of their terms of service to you, the end user. In fact, you will have very little say over what is placed on your pages, since pop-up ads and flashing glitter banners are common among free hosts. If you want to have those eyesores removed, the hosting company will offer to move you to a paid hosting plan.

Another limitation to free hosting is the lack of space available for your site. This problem is twofold: first, the amount of space allotted for your actual website files and images (storage), and second, the amount of computing power it takes for the host to display your webpage to a user (bandwidth or transfer). If your site spikes in popularity, is linked by a bigger site, or you just have a big flood of page views, your free host will often suspend your account for exceeding the monthly ration of bandwidth. If the server hosting your site goes down unexpectedly, rest assured that the hosting company will address the free accounts and their issues last, and often without any email or telephone support.

Free Content

Free content is advertised to many businesses, offering a copy and paste alternative to sitting down and writing informative text about your company and services. First of all, if the text is free and available for you to copy and paste into your site, that means many people are already using the same text. The content on your website will look like keyword stuffing or so vague it could describe any company or any service.

As a business owner, the main point of having a website is to promote yourself and your services, in hopes that your visitors will be converted to customers. A website is your company identity online, and customers need to have faith in you to use your service or buy your product. Think for a moment about the kind of trust that a poorly-planned website instills in your customers. Would you buy anything from a company who's web address was yoursite.555-best-free-hosts.com?

Building a face-to-face relationship with a web company used to be the only way to do business. Business owners often neglected email, chat, and phone conversations as alternate forms of communication, under the excuse that electronic communication could only go so far. Now, with webcams, video conferencing, and screencasts, you and your web company can hold a virtual meeting in the exact same way as a face-to-face meeting, but from the comfort of your respective offices. Never again will you have to reschedule a meeting because you forgot an essential file at the office.

If you think of a question at 10pm, is your web company likely to be open? No. It is now much easier to shoot off a quick email at any time of day with questions for your web design company, rather than arrange a face-to-face meeting over the details of your site or graphics. One important detail to pay attention to is time zones. If you are located in New York, and your company is based in California, you will both need to understand what specific "office hours" you can discuss your project's details.

Building a working relationship with your web company is by far the most important. Both you and your web company need to establish a level of trust. You, as the business owner, need to be assured that your web company will deliver what they specify and carry out the contract. Your web company needs to make sure that you are a serious client. There must be a foundation of good communication between both parties, regardless of location.

As you begin to choose your web company, you will need to do some research to find out if they have a good reputation for delivering what they promise to their clients. Determining if a web company is reputable is as easy as finding previous clients, examples of their work, their work in the community, or awards they have won. We showcase our client's work right here on our website, so you are welcome to take a tour of what we've done and where we're going with new web technologies. We have a list of our clients available on our affiliates page, as well as testimonials from a few of our very satisfied clients. You can also take a look at the awards we've received.

Choosing a web company should not be based on your current location, but on the web company's reputation and body of work. If you feel confident that you can trust the company, and feel they will be able to communicate as quickly and effectively with you as a local company, that is all that matters.

An API is provided by a company (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) to be the building blocks of an application. The programmers and developers then take the building blocks and creates the application for the purpose needed. APIs are great from the end-user standpoint, since all programs that share an API will have similar interfaces and allow users to learn new programs more easily. APIs are managed by the companies that created them. Most APIs require that a developer request an API key before they are allowed to access the development files. This API key is often bound to one specific website and directory, so the API key cannot be used multiple times across different sites. The signup process for a developer creates the ability for the managing company to track issues in the development process, offers click traffic and method analysis from users, and limits what developers can and cannot do.

We have recently been using several APIs to integrate into client websites, such as Facebook, Google Maps, and Twitter. Have you seen Google Maps on a real estate site, detailing home listings on the maps for your area? If so, you've seen Google Maps' API at work. Paying for a service or item through PayPal, checking the latest weather or stock information, or getting a feed of the top news stories are all made possible with APIs. APIs allow the programmer a great deal of flexibility and power over the applications and how they are integrated with a website.

Check out some of our sites that have used APIs:

Twitter: ASNMSU, Organize My Dad

Facebook: Conrad Awards, Evelyn Bruder's Real Estate Blog

Google Maps: Steinborn GMAC Real Estate, P2erls

How do companies begin a viral marketing campaign? The use of social networking is essential, and often a company will release a series of viral videos, interactive Flash games, ebooks and more to those following on Twitter or Facebook. Users of those social networks are encouraged to relay the company's marketing message by referring their friends to whatever the "freebie" is that the company is offering.

The company releases this "virus" out to their followers and fans, which in turn link to and refer to their friends. The term "viral marketing" is an analogy to a computer virus. Once a machine has a virus, it usually tries to replicate to other computers to infect as many as possible . With viral marketing, the company hopes that their campaign will spread from person to person, and bring in new leads or increase interest in a specific product or service. Instead of infecting computers and damaging the systems, viral marketing hopes to use the same principle and cause their "virus" to spread to as many users as possible, who will be informed about the company and their product or service.

Viral marketing can be very subtle to users. Hotmail and other free email services attach a simple message at the end of any email sent from any account encouraging the recipients of email sent from their service to sign up for their own free account. This follows a simple idea of marketing -- attaching the company name to a service your current clients are already using, so clients won't forget who is providing the service or product. The hope is that the current client's friends, family, business contacts and acquaintances will inevitably see the advertising placed there and remember the company when they are in need of a similar service.

Providing your users and potential clients with a funny video, an entertaining Flash game, or even a free ebook about a related product or service you offer is a great way to begin a viral marketing campaign. If successful, your clients will refer your video/game/etc. to their friends, and so on and so forth. The key in beginning this type of campaign is to remember that whatever you are offering should be free and easy to share or transmit to others. Potential and current clients alike are always happy to find that you offer them a service, or even a few moments of entertainment for free, where your competitors are charging for something identical or similar.

It is key to remember that each person has a close "network" of 8 to 12 people that they communicate with consistently. If your viral marketing campaign is not successful or innovative, you will lose not just one client, but potentially hundreds. Worse yet, they may refer to your company in a negative light.

Remember - viral marketing is supposed to be fun, and is supposed to make the viewer or user share it with friends. Ask yourself, "would I pass this along?" when creating your viral marketing campaign, or contact us for ideas.

More examples of viral marketing -

Viral Marketing Princples

The Top 10 Viral Marketing Campaigns of All Time

5 Successfully Executed Viral Marketing Campaigns

For the readers of a RSS feed, it saves time by only updating you when the content has been changed or updated. You don't need to visit a site as often, or at all. You can set up RSS feed readers, also called aggregators, to grab the various feeds from websites you visit and display them how you choose. Many feed readers are already a part of email programs or existing web email sites, such as Outlook, Gmail, and Yahoo mail. It makes it possible to read your feeds while checking your email, eliminating the need to check multiple sites for updates on a daily basis. RSS puts all your news in one place.

By subscribing to RSS feeds, you also eliminate privacy issues since you do not need to sign up for each website's individual email newsletter. You choose whether or not you want to read the feed, or the individual feed items, instead of having your inbox overflowing with multiple site newsletters that might get caught by a spam filter.

Once you have set up your reader or email client to receive RSS feeds, it is only a matter of finding the syndicated content. Many sites have icons with RSS, Atom or XML to let you know that they are syndicating content.

They look like this: 

We can create RSS feeds for your site, much like we have for Everything Alamogordo and the Conrad Foundation. You can decide if you'd like to display news feeds from other sites, such as CNET.com or news entities like CNN, or syndicate your own content to your readers.

Sites like Mashable offer many news channels to browse, all syndicated content from other web sites, but in one easy-to-find location. To begin to see how you can integrate RSS feeds on your site, check out this RSS Widget Creator that allows you to customize any feed and display it on your site.

With most tag clouds like ours, you'll notice a difference in font size based on the amount of entries for a specific keyword. Under our Locations tag cloud, you'll see that our home location of Las Cruces, NM is by far the largest in font size. That is because we have the most amount of content with the Location tag of Las Cruces. Tag clouds help users find what they are looking for by ranking the keywords based on the frequency of use. The keyword "Las Cruces" has the most pages (and in our case, websites) associated with it, and it creates more visual draw to that specific keyword over others in the same cloud due to its size. This makes it easier for our visitors to find websites that are located in Las Cruces. Our tag cloud is also listed alphabetically, which allows a user to scan the entire cloud for the specific term they are looking for.

Once a user clicks on a keyword in the tag cloud, they are immediately taken to a page that lists all pages (in our case, websites) that match that keyword. Clicking on the Photo Gallery tag would take the visitor to a list of all the websites we have completed that contain a photo gallery. If you have a large amount of content or examples on your site and would like to make them easier to navigate for your users, you might want to consider using a tag cloud. Additionally, tag clouds can be used on blogs for similar results, like helping to guide a user to a similar page or article on the same topic.

Each update is called a "Tweet" and immediately broadcasts your short news blurb to your followers and the Twitter community. This type of quick communication has become known as the "micro-blog." It's a quick and efficient way to get the word out on your latest news, events, and announcements. Your tweets spread through web services, widgets, or RSS feeds.

Here at Digital Solutions, we've created Twitter applications to mimic our customers' blogs, newsletters, and event calendars. Our customers only have to update in one place for their site, and it automatically updates their Twitter feed for them. We currently use our Twitter account to broadcast when a new site goes live, or when major events happen here at our company.

One of our recent sites, The Conrad Foundation, is currently using Twitter to spread the news of award recipients. On the homepage of their site, you can see their Twitter feed, which updates automatically each time they write a new tweet. Each individual team within their competition has a separate Twitter account as well, to give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the team and their work.

Click here to check out our latest tweets, or sign up for your own account.