What a surprise! Some of you may thought that this is it – here are evidence that social media marketing works and brings in $$$. Folks, wait a minute! By getting more followers you don’t get more satisfied clients – they are the same fans you had before – they just clicked that shiny “follow” button now.

The real value is not the number, but a channel you have to make a “call to action”, to buy your product or use your service. Without that, there is no use of your fans or followers. So the real question is how to speak with them and what your customers want from you, as a brand.

It is logical that your fans tend to buy more your stuff that everybody else, but how to make them love your brand (I don’t man clicking the button), how to make them buy. What are your thoughts on this?

Via: emarketer.com

Of course I wouldn’t expect that all of you knew social recommendation site GetGlue because to be honest I discovered the site pretty recently. Anyway, to give you a brief background of GetGlue, the site is described as an innovative social recommendation network for movies, books, and music – three things which a normal human being like you and me definitely digs and most often than not get glued on.

With that explained, lets move on now to the latest updates from the GetGlue site. And this is being branded as Taste Neighbors which is described as a complimentary set of interesting people that you have lot of common with.

Glue will start calculating Taste Neighbors for you for each categegory where you liked 50 or more things.  The more you like more movies, books or music, Glue will figure out other members who have same time as your when it comes to movies, books or music. You will them, your taste neighbors in the sidebar of your home and profile pages.

To make it easier for you to subscribe to  neighbors, Glue will also display them in various categories – Top Boop Neighbors, Top Stars Neighbors, Top Movie Neighbors, Top Shows Neighbors, and Top Artist Neighbors.

Glue also rolls out the “Things in Common” profile view. This cool feature lets you view the things that you and your neighbor  have in common. This profile is also available for other Glue users as well.   To get to this view, visit the profile page, select specific category, like movies or books and then click the Things in Common toggle. On neighbor profiles you will also have a shortcut in the sidebar, under the Things in Common section.

So there instant, people-powered suggestions based on your tastes. If you haven’t checked out GetGlue yet, I suggest you visit their site now.

Although the iPhone OS 3.1 has been around for quite some time now, it is only now that LinkedIn’s iPhone app is being updated to adapt to the new version of the iPhone OS. But like they said better late than never, right?

So, what does the LinkedIn iPhone app 3.1. has to offer for us loyal LinkedIn members  who continue to maintain our own LinkedIn accounts aside from our Facebook and Twitter account? Pretty much actually. And all these feature enhancements were based on the feedback from users which the LinkedIn team have gathered and took into account of before they updated their iPhone app.

One of the major new feature of the LinkedIn iPhone app 3.1 is that it is now easier to mark a LinkedIn connection as favorite. Once you’ve marked a good number of your LinkedIn connections as favorites you can go through this list anytime you want to send them some updates or other information.  You can also filter updates that are being sent to your based on these list.  Of course you get to do that with a simple swipe of a finger.

You can also now update your status from your profile page. Other new features include:

• Easier to discover, build, and manage your Favorites list
• Easier to understand and use ‘Download All’ functionality based on user feedback
• Set your status directly from your profile
• You can now send messages to multiple people more easily
• Fixed a number of issues reported by our users – thanks everyone!

So, what do you think? Are you still maintaining a LinkedIn account? Will these new features entice you to be more active on LinkedIn?

Are you ready for Twitter’s internet domination? Well, if push comes to shoves, it looks like that’s where the Twitter folks want to bring their popular and widely use social communication tool. That’s the power to tweet, retweet, follow and unfollow no matter where you are in the internet. Or another way of putting could perhaps be making establishing a Facebook Connect  killer?

Believe it or not, soon Twitter will be all around the web. On Yahoo sites, when reading online newspapers, while watching a video on YouTube and practically everything  that you do online or every sites that you visit – Twitter will be there. This was announced on the Official Twitter Blog – the Twitter @Anywhere framework.

What is Twitter @Anywhere?  The Twitter blog defines it as a new set of frameworks that will add the Twitter experience to practically anywhere on the web.  It’s a different approach than the Twitter API since instead of APIs all you need to do if you want the Twitter functionality on your website is to add a simple line of Javascript. That’s right, now complex coding, not programming needed. Just the old, plain and simple ready to copy and paste – Javascript.

And with Twitter @Anywhere, soon you won’t be needing to visit Twitter.com anymore to post a tweet, reply a tweet, follow and unfollow people. You can do all of them right where you are.

But of course, to make this a success, Twitter needs partner sites willing to test the feature out. Luckily, there are already a handfull of online sites who’ve signed up to give Twitter @Anywhere a test drive.

Sites like AdAge, Bing, Digg, eBay, Meebo, Yahoo, YouTube, MSNBC.com, NYT, Citysearch, Salesforce, and Amazon are jumping in to Twitter @Anywhere.

Promising? Yes. Something worth looking forward to. Bring it on Twitter – show the web how you intend to conquer it.  Beat Google into it.

Funny how Internet giants could affect each not only in the negative way but positive as well. Take the case of Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine and its Facebook fan page. After running an ad campaign offer within Farmville, the most popular game in Facebook, Bing’s Fan Page was able to gain around 400,000 new fans from Monday’s 100,000 fans. The trick? – the ad campaign offers 3 Farm Cash to anyone who will become a fan of Bing’s Facebook page. Farm Cash, in case you’re not aware is Farmville’s virtual currency.

Now, you might ask what’s the big deal in  having tons of fans in a Facebook page? Well, if you’re a Facebook Fan Page administrator, that means a lot. It’s the sole reason why you are working as a Fan Page administrator – to promote the brand that you are campaigning and get as much followers as you can.

Here’s the more interesting part. According to published data, Farmville has around 84.1 million monthly active users. And last Tuesday alone, active users were around 28.7 million. This means that those who became fans of Bing’s Facebook Page were just a minute part of the total Famville users. Can you just imagine how positive its effect to Bing would be if more of those users sign up to become Bing’s fans?

What’s good about Bing’s ad campaign is that it is not senseless after all. In fact, Bing’s ad campaign is promoting how Bing could help Farmville players with some of the “pressing” issues they encounter on Farmville.  And that is by searching for answers to those issues using Bing search.

If the number of new fans who signed up in one day is not enough indication that Bing’s ad campaign is not working well for it, how about if we tell you that majority of those who’ve seen the ad campaign actually love it because of the Farm Cash?

Hopefully, as Bing’s Facebook Page fans grows bigger, those fans would actually take some time off to try using Bing if they are still using Google or Yahoo. Bottomline is, the number of fans will be useless if those fans will not use Bing after all.

But still, Bing’s awareness campaign through the Farmville-related ad campaign is pretty clever.  Something that others may try to emulate in the coming days. So, expect more of those ad campaigns showing up as you play Farmville.

Congratulations Twitter team!

Here is what they are saying:

Folks were tweeting 5,000 times a day in 2007. By 2008, that number was 300,000, and by 2009 it had grown to 2.5 million per day. Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day. Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day—that’s an average of 600 tweets per second.

Several days after it was rolled out, some users may have already buzz out of Google Buzz and totally muted out Gmail Buzz. While some continue to use it as I for one keeps on getting buzz updates from those I follow. The good thing about this is that Google quickly responded to various privacy concerns and other so called buzz kills that were aired by users.  Google has just dropped  the auto-follow feature, disconnected Google Reader and Picasa Web Album and added a Buzz tab in Gmail settings so that you can easily disable Buzz totally.

But there are still other buzz kills that Google need to address although I don’t think that these may affect Google Buzz own demised. Yes, folks whether you agree or not, I think that Google has successfully came out with a killer social sharing/communication tool once again. And I could see users continously buzzing out in the coming days. Here are five reasons why Buzz will continue to make a killing in the social blogosphere.

1.  Google Buzz is an effective communication tool

Whether you like it or not, people will continue to use Google Buzz, be it inside Gmail or on their mobile phone. Why? Because it’s an effective, no-cost, real-time communication tool.  Despite the noise it makes, Google Buzz effectively lets you share information and links, communicate with a group of people, find out about what’s going on with what’s going on with the lives of the people you follow and more. It’s a bit short of becoming Facebook and a bit more than a Twitter-like service.  

2. Google Buzz is neither a Twitter nor Facebook killer

Stop saying that Google Buzz is going to kill Twitter or Facebook – it won’t. There will always be loyal Twitter users as there are Facebook users. Soon, there will be loyal Google Buzz users, who may also be using Twitter and Facebook or using only Google Buzz to network and socialize. It’s just going to be a matter of preference.

3. Google Buzz is a Google Product/Service

I’ve always believe that if it’s from Google, it must be good somehow. Yes, despite the many flaws and shortcomings of the Nexus One, many still believe (including myself) that it is a great smartphone. And like the Nexus One, while we may have some qualms about Google Buzz, pretty soon those qualms will vanish as soon as we grow accustomed to Google Buzz’s intricancies and appreciate its merits.

4. Google Buzz is quick way to build social groups

Whether you like Google Buzz’s auto-follow feature or prefer the auto-suggest feature that was just rolled out by Google, Buzz is a great way to build social groups. Whether from your existing Gmail contacts or new contacts that you’ll stumble upon through Google Buzz’s nearby feature. Google Buzz instantly creates a social group where each member actively participates in the discussion.

5. Google Buzz is a noisemaker

Yes, I believe Google Buzz has created so much noise during its first week of run. It added some noise to my Google Reader account as the feeds shared by my Google Buzz contacts in their Google Reader accounts started showing up on my account. But while you may not like those noise, if you take a look at some of them, you’d find out that some of these noise are information, useful and helpful at some point or another. Noise can be a good thing some times.

CoTweet

CoTweet among many other features provides very handy and easy to use tweet scheduler. You will be able to schedule tweets for any date and time without any limits.

SocialOomph

SocialOomph is one of the best apps for auto-following users. As very powerful Twitter marketing tool it has tweet scheduler also. The best thing is that unlike auto-follow tool, tweet scheduler is available for free.

HootSuite

HootSuite is third powerful and feature rich application in our list  that includes also tweet scheduler. It is also very popular, web based multi account twitter client.

Twuffer

Twuffer is application built specifically for tweet scheduling. With this app you will be able to tweet pre-written posts and deliver to your followers remindings of upcoming events/podcasts/videos.

Su.pr

Stumble Upon owned URL shortener with some additional features including link scheduler for future publishing on Twitter and Facebook.

Twaitter

Twaitter actually is very powerful tool that may help you accomplish effective results in online marketing. One of the best features is that you can update all your social profiles as they have Ping.fm integration.

Taweet

Taweet, as they call it, is a social calendar – event promotion application for Twitter. If you are searching for application to do just tweet scheduling, this app is probably the best choice.

Tweet-U-Later

Tweet-U-Later is a small tool for tweet scheduling but I would like to see more features on this app, but if you search some very basic solution this may be your choice.

TweetFunnel

TweetFunnel is a multi user tool for Twitter where you together with your colleagues will be able to manage corporate Twitter account. Built-in tweet scheduler seams to be very standard with all features you may want from such tool.

FutureTweets

Future Tweets – I think name explains pretty well what does this application. This app build specifically for posting scheduled tweets and, with almost half million tweets delivered at the moment, it seams to be popular among Twitter users.

Number of Followers

According to RJMetrics the average Twitter user has 27 followers, down from 42 followers in August 2009. The percentage of users who follow zero users us up from 20% in August to almost 25% in December 2009.

Number of Tweets

Also if we take a peak on how much users are tweeting than percentage of users tweeted fewer than 10 tims is up from 75% in August to 80% in December 2009.

Also the percentage of active users is about 20% from all registrations and last month was in all time lowest point – 17%.

I hope that Twitter will find the way how to raise user engagement and continue steady growth in 2010.

Folks over Twitter Skin Fight have a great and entertaining project that can test how cool your page is comparing to others. Sign in and get ready to rumble!

How do you know you are the best?

Well, you can check out Top 100 (also divided by country) and if you can find yourself there, scroll for next paragraph.

If you lost…

Don’t panic – you can change your background within minutes but first take a look on these tutorials that can help you to design real killer twitter page.

• How to Brand Yourself with a Twitter Background
• Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices
• Twitter background guidelines

Well, I hope after tweaking your background you will be back in fight – if not you may want to setup Facebook fan page or something and fight with it! :)

Be green – don’t print Twitter – you can read it online here!

According to Nielsen, last year we spent 82% more time on social networking sites than we did in 2008.

The sites to blame for such increase of course are Facebook and Twitter – these networks shows impressive growth in their visitor numbers too:

United States with largest audience is also among the countries whose users spent over six hours per month on social media sites. Leaders is Australians spending nearly 7 hours networking online. Japan users somehow managed to limit their time online and it is almost twice as low as an average time spent by other users.

I’m wondering whether Facebook and Twitter, as the sites responsible for the most hours spent by users, will be able to hold (increase) the attention also next year.

via [ReadWriteWeb]

Such method can bring you a lot of potential costumers for your business and below you can find some of the best auto-follow by keyword tools – from free to advanced paid systems.

SocialOomph

SocialOomph is really great and very popular tool between online marketers. It will be the only thing you will ever need for managing your twitter account and it offers Facebook integration as well. Sign up for free account and test for yourself - unfortunately auto-follow feature available only for professional version.

AddNewFollowers

AddNewFollowers is one of the most advanced platforms for getting Twitter followers. It is the most complete tool that I have found and seams like it is working great. It can bring you a lot of attention on Twitter. Sign up for free account and try for yourself.

The features include automated tweets, auto-follow by keyword, hot trends chart, stats and many more.

If you are planning to use auto-follow tool for a long period of time it may be wise to purchase AddNewFollowers as it costs $37/$67 which is one time payment.

TwitterMass

TwitterMass is an interesting tool with some very useful features like local follow or clone user. Of course auto following/unfollowing tools included as well.

Twollow

Twollow is among the most popular auto–followers. It is very basic and , in my opinion, lacks different features that may be useful for such tool. But for those who think simplicity is a very important factor may find this tool very useful.

Twollo

Twollo is also a very basic tool for gaining new followers on Twitter. It have cheaper pricing than Twillow that’s why you may want to test this tool together with Twollow to see which can bring better results for you.

InstaFollow

InstaFollow is a free and manual tool for auto-following people on twitter based on your interests (keyword). As it is free you don’t get much but it is a place to start.

Hope these tools will help you to promote your brand. If you have some experience working with some of these tools or maybe you have your own favorite use comment form below to leave us some message!

Here is our blogs Twitter account worth:

And how much costs your twitter profile?

It works great if you tweet from the web or desktop clients, but as may of you use iPhone for tweeting it is nearly impossible to use special symbols there. But I have found a way that will let you, at least, use some of the symbols – follow some simple steps described below to add this feature.

1. Enable Kana keyboard

Go to Settings>General>International>Keyboards>Japanese and enable Kena Keyboard

2. Switch to the Symbols

3. Click for more symbols

4. Choose your symbol

And here you go – it’s far from the complete list of special symbols but at least something you can fund here and use in your tweets and status updates.

There is also this Twitter Symbols ~ Spicy Tweets app for iPhone designed just for twitter and have more special symbols you can use, but it only works with twitter.

found via [MxBlog]

Below you can find some of the best tools including South Park and Simpsons character generators. Of course that’s not all – you can find many more apps for this online. Feel free to share your findings in comments!

Simpson Avatar Generator

Face Your Manga

WeeWorld

South Park Avatar Maker

Yahoo Avatars

Portrait Illustration Maker

When you first start your updated application you will be asked to allow push notifications, but remember to configure them trough settings later to leave only important updates pop up.

Another great feature is address book syncing. Now you have the option to add Facebook profile picture and homepage to your contacts saved on iPhone. You may leave already assigned pictures and links that are on your device.

To be honest, I noticed that some of the pictures added to my contacts isn’t right – maybe that’s just me naming my contacts awkwardly.

Add yourself as a fan on RotorBlog’s fanpage.

Facebook for Adobe AIR

If you need an app just for Facebook than this is my choice Nr.1 – very easy to use and clean application running on AIR, that has all necessary features to be a great tool for real Facebook addicts. You can download this app here.

Tweetdeck and Seesmic

For me Tweedeck and Seesmic are almost identical apps – looks and works very similarly and if you already use one of those for Twitter than that’s should be your choice. Of course those little things makes them different (to be honest I’m more as a Seesmic dude) and you should try out them both to see which one works for you best. BTW, Tweetdeck have also LinkedIn support.

Fishbowl

Fishbowl is Windows only Facebook client that is directly designed to work with Facebook only. It also looks very interesting from user interface perspective and have all features to become your main tool to communicate with Facebook friends.

Socialite

Socialite is very powerful social networking tool unfortunately for MAC only. It isn’t limited to Facebook only – it bay also be your RSS reader, Twitter client, Flick uploader and much more. And if you are looking for great native MAC app you should defiantly go with this one.

Hey, we also have our page on Facebook – check it out and become a friend!

Twitter

Chromed Bird – Really cool twitter client integrated right into your Chrome browser. You can also try Chrowety, Tweetings or some other built-in Twitter client.

TwitterBar – easy to use plugin for posting to twitter – no unnecessary features just type in and post.

Fast Twitter Search – this extension adds Twitter search button to the toolbar so you can quickly find something on twitter.

What the trend – very interesting plugin to see what’s are the top trending topics on Twitter right now.

TwittMark – small extension that let’s you to post bookmarks directly to twitter.

Facebook

Facebook for Google Chrome – extension for quick access to your Live feed and notifications. Using this extension you also can quickly update your status.

Facebook – this extension offers more functionality than previous one and if you are communicating a lot on Facebook maybe this suites you more.

Facebook Adblock – very simple but useful plugin that hides ads on Facebook and Facebook Lite. To me ads on Facebook isn’t big issue but maybe you have other thoughts. Check out also AdBlock.

Alwittizer Facebook Enhancer – only one Facebook beautify extension that actually makes things better not worse. Probably the smartest thing is to use Facebook as it is because installing plugins like Beautify Facebook actually makes things look worse.

Feel free to check out these great Chrome extensions and if you know more cool and useful tools others may use – share your thoughts in comments.

If proxy don’t work for you or you feel it’s not the solution you like to use – try Virtual private network services (VPN). Other great advantage of using VPN is hiding your personal information online.  VPN services hide your real IP address and encrypts transferred data so you can be sure nobody tracks your activities online.

So here are some of the best and free VPN services available today:

AlonWeb – Free VPN service

Choosing AlonWeb you get almost premium service absolutely for free. All your traffic is encrypted and compressed using this service so there is no need to worry about privacy. Check out also premium version with VoIP support and no traffic limits.

Hotspot Shield

No doubt Hotspot Shield is most popular VPN service right now and many users trust this software. It has it’s downside too – some of websites (Hulu for example) are fighting to block users who use Hotspot service. But anyway it is a great soft and you can defiantly try it out. Hotspot Shield have support Windows 200/XP/Vista and Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard.

GPass

GPass also is a great solution for anonymous web surfing and accessing blocked websites and services. It has support for streaming audio/videos, email, instant messaging, download managers encrypted socks tunnels and backup tunnels using Skype and Tor

UltraVPN

UltraVPN is a VPN service based on OpenVPN. This soft gives you possibility to use VoIP software like Skype, connect to MSN if it’s blocked and use Hulu for example or other services restricted to US users only. Of course you get total privacy as using other VPN services.

CyberGhost

CyberGhost gives you 1GB of traffic/month with free account and up to 40 GB with premium accounts. Premium accounts have also speed guarantees which can be very important for people transferring a lot of data.

Share your experience and techniques of accessing blocked services, websites in comments below – our readers will appreciate it!