Consumers today more likely to be influenced by Twitter, Blogs

By Gillian Shaw, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER - Nobodies are the new somebodies.

They have become the key influencers and companies must remember that when they are trying to win people over to their ideas, products and services.

That’s the advice from Guy Kawasaki, managing director of Garage Technology Ventures who, as one of the employees behind Apple’s marketing of the Macintosh, pioneered evangelism back in 1984, turning consumers into avid advocates for the brand.

Kawasaki, who was in Vancouver last week for the Internet Marketing conference, shared his formula for “changing hearts, minds and actions.”

It all boils down to one word: “enchantment.”

“If you can change people’s hearts, minds and actions, you can change the world,” said Kawasaki, a venture capitalist, a columnist with Entrepreneur Magazine and author of nine books on marketing and entrepreneurship.

While old-school marketing saw companies seeking to enchant those they figured had the power to influence, social media has made that practice obsolete. “I think marketing is completely reversed,” Kawasaki said.

It used to be that companies sought favourable reviews from influential publications like Fortune and The Wall Street Journal, but today’s consumers are more likely to be influenced by blogs or by the Twitter users they follow.

“The new way is that nobodies are the new somebodies,” said Kawasaki.

Instead of top-down delivery, marketing happens from the bottom up, he said. “Someone you’ve never heard of embraces your product, they love the product and they spread the word. You never know which mommy blogger is going to make your product successful.”

Enchantment is more than a smile and scintillating conversation. Here are some more of Kawasaki’s tips on becoming enchanting:

1. Always default to a yes attitude. Kawasaki attributes this bit of advice to Vancouver’s Darcy Rezac, author of Work the Pond! Use the Power of Positive Networking.

2. You can’t enchant people if you’re not trustworthy. And if you want people to trust you, you have to trust them. Companies like Zappos, with its paid shipping return policy, are examples of how it can pay off to trust customers. Be a mensch, someone who can be trusted, who is honourable and has a world perspective. Think Nelson Mandela if you’re looking for an example.

3. Deliver a product or service that meets the enchantment test: Is it DICEE? Deep, intelligent, complete, empowering and elegant.

“It is easy to enchant people with something that is great; it’s hard to enchant people with something that is crap,” said Kawasaki, who points to Google as one company that meets that DICEE test.

4. Conduct a pre-mortem before you launch. Gather your team together and say, ‘Let’s assume our product failed and come up with the reasons why it failed.’ When you’re creating something, it’s very difficult to poke holes in it; this exercise is aimed at identifying the shortcomings without having the team at odds with one another.

5. Sell your dream. The iPhone is really $188 worth of parts and AT&T (at least in the U.S.) but Apple sells the dream, the smart phone that changes your life.

6. Follow the 10-20-30 formula in presentations. That’s 10 slides, 20 minutes talking and a 30-point font.

7. Rules of e-mail: Have a great subject line and a message that is no longer than five sentences and includes what you want, what your cause is, who you are, why the recipient should help you and what the next step is.

8. Use Twitter, the greatest marketing tool ever created, according to Kawasaki. Have a good avatar, no red eyes or out-of-focus photos; remember your profile is in a sense your resume, so make it good and when you tweet, provide interesting links.

How not to use Twitter for Business

It is important to learn how to use Twitter to promote your business without annoying your followers with bad twitter etiquette.

Here are some of easiest ways to annoy your followers:

1. Post Spammy Tweets.
If you don’t know what spamming on Twitter is and don’t know a single spammer, then you are probably one of them. If you are, it is important that you change the way that you tweet. Do not post something that claims to be about a popular topic just to send them somewhere else. People will feel tricked and be annoyed at you.
Post relevant and helpful information that keeps followers coming back for more. Make your followers really want to read your next tweet.

2. Follow Anyone and Everyone
You should only be following those whose thoughts and tweets actually interest you, post good information and/or are relevant to your brand.
Do not use auto-follow programs. They are not considered ethical since you are really only using them to increase your number of followers. Take the time to look through those who follow you and those tweeting about topics in your niche to determine whether someone is worthy of your follow.

3. Post Tweets Which Have No Relevance to Those who Follow You
If you have a shoe company and generally post about the shoe business, brands and new products...don’t tweet about things like cookie recipes or Justin Bieber (unless, of course, he is actually wearing the shoes!)
If you represent an online business about safely products, don’t promote web hosting.

It is simply not relevant and annoys your followers! Keep every post relevant to the people who follow you. Learn how to use Twitter to pass along information that is important to them and they will pass it on to others.

4. Post Automated Tweets That Are Out of Date.
Do not post about summer sales in the fall. Do not talk about Christmas gift ideas in March. While there is a place for automatic posting, make sure each and every tweet is relevant and valuable to anyone who might read it. Otherwise, this is just another form of spamming.

5. Discuss What You Are Doing Every Minute.
Tweet 1: I just got out of my bed.

Tweet 2: Have to go brush my teeth.

Tweet 3: Need to take a shower.

Tweet 4: Out of the shower now. Time for breakfast.

Tweet 5: Cereal or bagel?

Tweet 6: Cream cheese or butter?

Tweet 7: Better hurry…still need to get dressed
Trust us...they Don’t Care! Don’t bore followers with your details!


6. Ignore Everyone Who Reaches Out to You.
If you’re not going to be social with anyone else on Twitter, then you might as well not use it at all. The whole point of social media is to be social!
It does not take that much time each day to check mentions that you have had (like @BizSocialNet in their tweet), retweets and direct messages from others. Thank people for mentions and retweets.
If someone tweets you in their #FollowFriday (or #FF) list, thank them for that too. You may want to even return the favor on the next Friday!

7. Sell, sell, sell.
If all your tweets lead to a sales pitch, people will get sick of them really fast. People want information...not a constant sales pitch.
Make almost all of your tweets helpful and informative without a hard-sell agenda. Then if you do happen to tweet a sale or offer once in a while...the followers will welcome the information instead of running the other way.

8. Rarely Tweet.
If you only update your profile and tweet once every six months, people will probably unfollow you. If you are not tweeting regularly, what’s the point?


Not sure if you are using twitter to it's full advantage? Best to read up and harness the power of Twitter before it causes harm to your brand.

Twitter for Business: 2011 Directory of Techies to follow on Twitter

By Jason Hiner
If you’re interested in technology and you want to know who to follow on Twitter, here is a directory of leading tech journalists, commentators, and personalities, divided by categories and specialties.

As I’ve been saying for years, Twitter can be an extremely valuable tool for techies — if you know who to use it. The most important factor in making Twitter useful is knowing who to follow. To help people interested in technology, I published a list of 100 techies on Twitter in 2009 and then updated the list to 140 techies in 2010.

It’s time to update the list again, since lots of new tech commentators and personalities have joined Twitter during the past year and I’ve discovered some new names worth following. My list is up to 180. However, instead of simply adding to the numbers, I’ve decided to break the list into categories to make it easier navigate. In each category I’ve listed the people alphabetically.

For updates on the latest tech news you can find me on Twitter at @jasonhiner

If you’re new to Twitter, I’d recommend reading my article on the four stages of a typical Twitter user and my quick Twitter guide and glossary for business users. Also, if you’re new to Twitter and you’re clicking through the names listed below, there’s an important thing to note. You should ignore all of the posts that begin with an @username. Those are individual replies. You will not see those in your Twitter stream (unless you follow the user being mentioned, which will be rare). Focus on the posts that simply begin with text in order to get an idea of the kinds of things that the person posts on Twitter. That’s the stuff that will show up in your Twitter stream if you follow them.

Learn More » The people I’ve listed here are technology executives, journalists, pundits, and analysts who not only have a Twitter account, but also post actively about the tech industry. If there are people you’d recommend added to the list, post a note in the discussion at the bottom of the article.

I wish there was a way to simply let you follow everyone on this list with a single click. There was a utility called TweepML that used to let you create one-click lists, but it is currently down for maintenance. Once TweepML is available again, I will create a version of this list with that tool.
However, I have created this as an official Twitter list called Hiner Tech Directory so that you can also follow the list that way. In fact, if you have a desktop client like TweetDeck or HootSuite or Seesmic, you can simply add the Hiner Tech Directory list in its own column and view it as a feed separate from your main Twitter feed.

General technology

•Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) Editor in Chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail

•Michael Arrington (@arrington) Founder of TechCrunch

•Patrick Beja (@notpatrick) French podcaster and tech commentator

•Bianca Bosker (@bbosker) Technology Editor for The Huffington Post

•Henry Blodget (@hblodget) Controversial Wall Street journalist who covers tech sector

•Rick Broida (@cheapskateblog) CNET blogger scours the Web looking for the best deals in tech

•Brian Cooley (@briancooley) CNET car-tech editor

•Charles Cooper (@coopeydoop) Veteran tech reporter for cbsnews.com

•Dan Costa (@dancosta) Executive editor at PC Magazine

•Robert Cringley (@cringely) Long-time technology writer and pundit

•Chris Dawson (@mrdatahs) ZDNet blogger on technology in education

•Michael Dell (@michaeldell) CEO of Dell

•Sam Diaz (@sammyd) ZDNet news hound on the Between the Lines blog

•Larry Dignan (@ldignan) ZDNet Editor in Chief; prolific tech news blogger

•Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) Co-editor of Boing Boing; digital rights activist

•Jack Dorsey (@jack) CEO of Square; creator and co-founder of Twitter

•John C. Dvorak (@therealdvorak) Famously cranky tech pundit

•Esther Dyson (@edyson) Veteran technology pundit

•Mike Elgan (@mikeelgan) Widely-published freelance tech writer

•Rob Enderle (@enderle) Long-time analyst of the PC industry

•Michael Gartenberg (@gartenberg) Gartner analyst on consumer technology

•Denise Howell (@dhowell) Lawyer; commentator on technology and law

•Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) Canadian tech writer for GigaOm

•Shibani Joshi (@shibanijoshi) Fox Business Network reporter on tech and the NASDAQ

•Mitch Kapor (@mkapor) Lotus, Mozilla pioneer; angel investor

•Vinod Khosla (@vkhosla) One of the tech world’s most influential venture capitalists

•Adrian Kingsley-Hughes (@the_pc_doc) Technology hardware commentator at ZDNet

•Martin Lamonica (@mlamonica) CNET writer on green technology

•Leo Laporte (@leolaporte) Host of TWiT network and former TechTV host

•Cali Lewis (@calilewis) Host of GeekBrief.TV

•Katie Linendall (@katielinendoll) On-air geek tipster for CNN, CBS, and others

•Jim Louderback (@jlouderb) CEO of Revision3; former editor of PC Magazine

•Om Malik (@om) Founder of GigaOm

•John Markoff (@markoff) Science writer for The New York Times

•Harry McCracken (@harrymccracken) Founder of Technologizer and former editor of PC World

•Declan McCullagh (@declanm) CBS News correspondent on US tech policy

•Tom Merritt (@acedtect) Host of Tech News Today on the TWiT network

•Clayton Morris (@claytonmorris) Fox TV personality covering geek topics and social media

•Natali Morris (@natalimorris) CNET TV host of Loaded and tech correspondent for CBS News

•Walt Mossberg (@waltmossberg) Tech columnist for The Wall Street Journal

•Patrick Norton (@patricknorton) Tekzilla host and former TechTV personality

•Andrew Nusca (@editorialiste) ZDNet news writer; SmartPlanet.com editor

•John Paczkowski (@johnpaczkowski) Tech news hound for All Things Digital

•Jason Perlow (@jperlow) ZDNet technology columnist

•Chris Pirillo (@chrispirillo) Tech geek turned Internet personality

•David Pogue (@pogue) Tech columnist for New York Times and CNBC

•Jason Pontin (@jason_pontin) Editor in Chief of MIT Technology Review

•Seth Porges (@sethporges) Tech editor at Popular Mechanics magazine

•JR Rafael (@jr_raphael) Tech news writer for PC World

•Gabe Rivera (@gaberivera) Founder of Techmeme

•Jack Schofield (@jackschofield) Computer editor at The Guardian

•MG Siegler (@parislemon) TechCrunch news writer

•Dwight Silverman (@dsilverman) Technology editor for the Houston Chronicle

•Brad Stone (@bradstone) Technology reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek

•Robert Strohmeyer (@rstrohmeyer) Freelance tech columnist

•Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) Silicon Valley blogger for AllThingsD.com

•Baratunde Thurston (@baratunde) Editor, writer, and comedian; one of the funniest techies on Twitter

•Dan Tynan (@tynan_on_tech) Tech humor columnist and veteran tech writer

•Lance Ulanoff (@lanceulanoff) Editor in Chief of PC Magazine

•Padmasree Warrior (@padmasree) CTO of Cisco Systems

•Molly Wood (@mollywood) CNET TV host and writer; creator of the famed “Molly rant”

•Becky Worley (@bworley) ABC technology reporter, TWiT network host

Mobile computing

•Bonnie Cha (@bonniecnet) CNET mobile tech editor

•Jessica Dolcourt (@jdolcourt) CNET mobile tech reporter

•Bob Egan (@bobegan) Analyst on mobile tech; Wi-Fi pioneer

•Ina Fried (@inafried) AllThingsD.com mobile reporter

•Jonathan Geller (@boygenius) Founder and Editor in Chief of Boy Genius Report

•Kent German (@kentgerman) CNET mobile tech editor

•Nicole Lee (@nicole) CNET mobile tech reporter

•Stuart Miles (@stuartmiles) Founder of Pocket-lint.com

•Matthew Miller (@palmsolo) ZDNet blogger on mobile computing

•Maggie Reardon (@maggie_reardon) CNET reporter on mobile and wireless technology

•Sascha Seagan (@saschasegan) Mobile writer for PC Magazine

•Mark Spoonauer (@mspoonauer) Editor in Chief of Laptop Magazine

•Kevin Tofel (@kevinctofel) Mobile site editor for GigaOm

•Tony Vincent (@tonyvincent) Writer on mobile tech and IT in education

Enterprise

•Marc Benioff (@benioff) CEO of Salesforce.com

•David Berlind (@dberlind) TechWeb Editor-in-Chief

•Toni Bowers (@tbowers928) TechRepublic IT career columnist

•Tony Bradley (@tonys3kur3) Freelance tech writer specializing in security

•David Davis (@davidmdavis) Author, blogger, expert on Cisco and virtualization technologies

•Bill Detwiler (@billdetwiler) TechRepublic’s Head Technology Editor

•Erik Eckel (@erikeckel) IT consultant and TechRepublic writer

•Scot Finnie (@scotfinnie) Editor in Chief of Computerworld

•Steve Gillmor (@stevegillmor) Veteran tech journalist

•Bob Gourley (@bobgourley) CTOvision.com blogger; government IT expert

•Dion Hinchcliffe (@dhinchcliffe) Blogger and consultant on Web 2.0 for business

•Chuck Hollis (@chuckhollis) EMC CTO and blogger

•Alex Howard (@digiphile) Government 2.0 Correspondent for 
O’Reilly Media

•Doug Kaye (@dougkaye) Founder of IT Conversations

•Michael Krigsman (@mkrigsman) Watchdog of IT project failures

•Scott Lowe (@otherscottlowe) CIO, author, and TechRepublic columnist

•Abbie Lundberg (@abbielundberg) Former editor in chief of CIO Magazine

•Steve Ranger (@steveranger) Editor of UK IT site Silicon.com

•Don Tennant (@dontennant) Former editor in chief of Computerworld

•Rick Vanover (@rickvanover) Senior IT professional and TechRepublic blogger

•Werner Vogels (@werner) Amazon.com CTO

•Alex Wolfe (@awolfe58) Editor in Chief of InformationWeek

Microsoft

•Todd Bishop (@toddbishop) Seattle-based Microsoft reporter

•Ed Bott (@edbott) Microsoft Windows expert, blogger, book author

•Mary Jo Foley (@maryjofoley) Notable source on all things on Microsoft

•Bill Gates (@billgates) Microsoft co-founder and former CEO

•Mark Kaelin (@markwkaelin) TechRepublic editor covering Windows and PCs

•Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) PR chief at Microsoft

•Deb Shinder (@debshinder) Popular tech tip writer for TechRepublic and other publications

•Paul Thurrott (@thurrott) Microsoft Windows columnist, editor, and podcaster

•Stefan Weitz (@stefanweitz) Search chief at Microsoft

Apple

•Jacqui Cheng (@eJacqui) Apple editor for Ars Technica

•Jim Dalrymple (@jdalrymple) Editor of The Loop, veteran Apple columnist

•Philip Elmer-DeWitt (@philiped) Apple reporter for Fortune Magazine

•John Gruber (@gruber) Author of Daring Fireball

•Andy Ihnatko (@ihnatko) Apple pundit

•Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) Venture capitalist, former Apple employee, former Mac columnist

•Steven Levy (@stevenjayl) Author and columnist on Apple topics

•Tim Robertson (@mymac) Podcaster; founder of MyMac.com

•John Siracusa (@siracusa) Apple writer for Ars Technica

•Jason Snell (@jsnell) Editorial Director of Macworld

•Brian Tong (@brian_tong) CNET TV host of AppleByte and Prizefight

•Seth Weintraub (@llsethj) Columnist covering Google and Apple

Google

•John Battelle (@johnbattelle) Author and pundit on Google and Internet search

•Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) Google engineer, blogger

•Chris DiBona (@cdibona) Open source spokesman at Google

•Vic Gundotra (@vicgundotra) Google VP of engineering for mobile apps

•Marissa Mayer (@marissamayer) Google product development executive

•Andy Rubin (@arubin) Head of Android development at Google

•Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) Chairman of Google

•Gina Trapani (@ginatrapani) Host of This Week in Google podcast

Open source

•Matt Asay (@mjasay) COO of Ubuntu and open source columnist

•John “Mad Dog” Hall (@maddoghall) Free software advocate

•Doc Searls (@dsearls) Tech journalist, author, open source advocate

•Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols (@sjvn) Long-time Linux and open source columnist

•Jack Wallen (@jlwallen) Linux enthusiast, columnist, and tip writer

Web and social media

•Randall Bennett (@randallb) Founder of TechVi, Web video specialist

•Tim Berners-Lee (@timberners_lee) Inventor of the World Wide Web

•Paul Boutin (@paulboutin) Reporter for VentureBeat, The New York Times, and Wired

•Danah Boyd (@zephoria) Academic/researcher in new media

•Jason Calacanis (@jason) CEO of Mahalo, founder of Weblogs Inc.

•Pete Cashmore (@mashable) CEO of Mashable

•Mrinal Desai (@mrinaldesai) Tech startup founder; tech news junkie

•Caterina Fake (@caterina) Co-founder of Flickr

•John Furrier (@furrier) Silicon Valley entrepreneur

•Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) Professor and author who covers tech and new media

•Sarah Lacy (@sarahcuda) Freelance author covering Silicon Valley

•Shira Lazar (@shiralazar) Web video journalist covering the intersection of tech, culture, and new media

•Jennifer Leggio (@mediaphyter) ZDNet blogger on social media for business

•Charlene Li (@charleneli) Author and social media thought leader

•Amber MacArther (@ambermac) Tech journalist and broadcaster

•Richard MacManus (@rww) Editor and founder of ReadWriteWeb

•Andrew Mager (@mager) Web developer and ZDNet blogger on Web 2.0

•Caroline McCarthy (@caro) CNET writer covering Web 2.0

•Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) Founder of WordPress

•Rafe Needleman (@rafe) Editor of CNET’s Webware

•Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly) Founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media

•Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) Forrester analyst on new media technologies

•Aza Razkin (@azaaza) Former creative lead for Firefox

•Kevin Rose (@kevinrose) Founder of Digg.com, host of Diggnation

•Joshua Schachter (@joshu) Creator of Delicious, a.k.a. del.icio.us

•Erick Schonfeld (@erickschonfeld) TechCrunch co-editor

•Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) Tech writer and social media flag-bearer

•Stephen Shankland (@stshank) CNET News reporter, covering the Web

•Joel Spolsky (@spolsky) Co-founder of Stack Overflow

•Owen Thomas (@owenthomas) Writer at VentureBeat

•Alexia Tsotsis (@alexia) TechCrunch reporter

•Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) Tech venture capitalist in New York

•Dave Winer (@davewiner) “The father of blogging and RSS” (BBC)

•Jonathan Zittrain (@zittrain) Author and Harvard professor covering the Internet

Consumer electronics

•Donald Bell (@donald) Gadget reporter for CNET

•Veronica Belmont (@veronica) Host of Tekzilla and Qore, and former CNET TV host

•Ryan Block (@ryan) Former Engadget editor and co-founder of GDGT

•David Carnoy (@davidcarnoy) CNET editor of mobile gadgets

•Jason Chen (@diskopo) Gizmodo editor

•Brian Lam (@blam) Editorial Director of Gizmodo

•Erica Ogg (@ericainsf) Gadget reporter for CNET

•Nilay Patel (@reckless) Managing Editor of Engadget

•Don Reisinger (@donreisinger) Gadget columnist for CNET

•Peter Rojas (@peterrojas) Founding editor of both Gizmodo and Engadget

•Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) NPD head analyst on consumer technology

•Joanna Stern (@joannastern) Engadget reporter

•Jeremy Toeman (@jtoeman) Consumer electronics startup advisor

•Joshua Topolsky (@joshuatopolsky) Editor in Chief of Engadget

•Dave Zatz (@davezatz) Gadget and digital lifestyle blogger

Twitter for Business: A quick Twitter guide and glossary for business users

By Jason Hiner

For a service that is remarkably simple, Twitter is often difficult for new users to understand and to quickly turn into something useful. In fact, the simplicity of Twitter can actually be a barrier in the beginning, because there’s not much to help a new user get started.

So in order to assist business users and IT professionals in getting up to speed on Twitter, I’ve put together this quick collection of 10 core Twitter concepts that you need to understand in order to turn Twitter into a powerful 140-character communications tool.

Who to follow

The first thing you need to figure out is who to follow. This, more than anything else, will determine how useful Twitter becomes for you. For business users, I’d recommend following many of the colleagues you work with on a regular basis. While some of them may post useless ramblings, you’re also likely to pick up project updates, inside perspectives, and subtle red flags that you would not have seen otherwise.

Of course, what makes Twitter most powerful for business users is following experts and thought leaders in your field and industry. For tech workers, I’ve put together a directory of techies who are active on Twitter. I’d also recommend finding thought leaders in your specific industry. Directories like Twellow can help. But the best method is to find a few industry experts, then look at their profile pages to see who they follow. You’re very likely to find other industry experts.
Learn More » Never be afraid to follow new people. Give them a try. However, if they post useless stuff, simply unfollow them. You should regularly unfollow people who simply don’t provide much value. This is part of the regular rhythm of Twitter because Twitter makes it very easy to follow and unfollow new people. In fact, after a couple years on Twitter, I’ve now got a few people whom I’ve followed and unfollowed several times.

What’s a tweet?

The word “tweet” is a Twitter term used as both a noun and a verb. As a verb, it used to talk about a user posting something on Twitter. For example, “She tweeted that she was flying to a business meeting in Seattle with Microsoft.” When used as a noun, it refers to an individual Twitter post. For example, “He posted a tweet last week that included a link to screenshots of Mac OS X Snow Leopard.”

What’s a retweet (RT)?

The “retweet” (often shortened to “RT”) is something that was not originally designed by the Twitter team, but Twitter users invented in order to re-post something really interesting from another Twitter user. For example, if another tech journalist (e.g. Harry McCracken) posted breaking tech news on Twitter, I might quickly take Harry’s post and re-post it like this: “RT @harrymccracken Google announces it is launching its own private space program.”

The reason I would post something like this is because not all of the people who follow me follow Harry, and I find it important and interesting enough to share with as many people as possible. It’s the social networking version of word-of-mouth.

By the way, Twitter recently announced that it is officially adopting retweeting, with plans to streamline the process for users, integrate retweeting into Twitter.com, and build the new retweeting functionality into its API.


Replies and mentions

A “reply” on Twitter is when you directly respond to a post from another user. For example, Sascha Seagan (a PC Magazine editor) recently tweeted, “I’m back from vacation. What I learned: Yes, AT&T coverage is much better outside NYC.” I replied, “@saschasegan In Midwest, AT&T network is infinitely better than NY or SF, but still not as reliable or widespread as Verizon.”

As you can see, you start a reply with the @ symbol and then add the person’s Twitter username. The Twitter.com home page makes it easy to reply to a tweet by simply mousing over it and then clicking the reply arrow. It automatically populates @username in the posting field and then you fill in the rest. Twitter client software (see below) also makes it easy to reply to a tweet.

Similar to a reply is a “mention.” This is where you mention a person’s name and since that person is on Twitter, you identify the person by using the their @username. For example, I might tweet something like, “While I was in New York today I had lunch with @ldignan to discuss our coverage plans for Windows 7 on ZDNet and TechRepublic.”

Also notice that every instance of an @username is turned into a clickable link that will take you to that user’s Twitter profile, where you can then choose to start following the person. Plus, on the Twitter home page you’ll see your @username on the right column of the screen. When you click this, you’ll see all of the replies to your tweets and mentions of your username. This is useful because there may be times when people you don’t follow mention or reply to you and this allows you to catch it.

Direct messages

There may also be times when you want to reply to someone one on Twitter, but you don’t want everyone else to see the message or you just don’t think it would be useful for everyone else to see. In that case, you can send a “direct message.”

To do this from Twitter.com, go to the person’s Twitter profile page and then go to the right column under Actions and the click the “message” link. However, keep in mind that you can only send direct messages to people who follow you. This prevents the direct message feature from being used by spammers.

I’ve also found that the direct message feature can work almost like an instant message to get someone’s attention, if the person is a regular Twitter user. It can often be a quicker way to message someone than e-mail, but less intrusive than a text message or instant message.

#Hashtags

Another Twitter convention that users developed without the input of the Twitter staff is hashtags. Hashtags are essentially keywords. For example, #techrepublic is a hashtag. When people post links to TechRepublic articles, they often identify them by adding the #techrepublic hashtag at the end of the tweet. Other popular tech hashtags include #windows7 and #iphone, for example.

Doing a Twitter search on a hashtag allows you to see all of the Twitter conservations that are happening around a specific topic. It can also be a good way to find people who regularly talk about a specific topic and then follow them.

One thing to remember about hashtags is that they are not case sensitive. So, #techrepublic is the same as #TechRepublic or #TECHREPUBLIC.


Posting links

Some of the most popular things to post on Twitter are links to articles, blog posts, video clips, etc. Some of the most valuable people to follow are the ones who post the best links, and that means not just the big stories that everyone is tweeting but also the really good stories that are under the radar.

The problem is that Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters and most article URLs are 50 characters or more. That doesn’t leave much space to post the title of the article or any brief thoughts about it. As a result, most people use URL shorteners such as TinyURL when posting links on Twitter. My favorite URL shortener is Bit.ly, because it allows you to shorten URLs to about 20 characters and it gives you some basic analytics on all of your Twitter links.

Desktop clients

Most habitual Twitter users don’t spend much time on Twitter.com. Instead, they migrate most of their Twitter use to desktop clients while they are working from their desk and smartphone clients when they’re on the go.
The most widely used desktop Twitter client is Tweetdeck, although Seismic and Twirl are also popular. Tweetdeck is an Adobe Air application that runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. It provides a columnized view of Twitter with columns for your main feed, your mentions, your direct messages, any #hashtag searches, and more.

One of the best parts of Tweetdeck is its ability to create groups. For example, I have groups for “Tech Journalists” and “CBS Interactive” (my work colleagues) so that I can view them in separate columns. Another nice feature of Tweetdeck is that it automatically refreshes, so you can just leave it open and let it do its thing in real-time.

For those who prefer to stick with Twitter in the Web browser, Twitter.com is still not your only means of accessing the service. Tweetvisor is a powerful browser-based Twitter client that puts a lot more Twitter functionality at your fingertips than the standard Twitter homepage. There are also a variety of Firefox plugins that can ramp up the experience of Twitter in the browser, including PowerTwitter, TwitterFox, and TwitBin.


Mobile clients

You know you’re getting addicted to Twitter when you start looking into how to use it from your smartphone. I know plenty of techies who use their smartphone as their primary method of accessing Twitter and the desktop is really secondary.

While you can use Twitter via SMS, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have an unlimited SMS plan. Plus, the Twitter mobile apps typically provide a much better experience by making it easier to reply, retweet, send a direct message, etc. Here’s a breakdown of some of the top Twitter clients on each of the big smartphone platforms:
•iPhone: Tweetie, Twitterific, Birdfeed, Tweetdeck, Twitterfon

•BlackBerry: UberTwitter, Twibble, TwitterBerry, TinyTwitter

•Windows Mobile: Twikini, PockeTwit, TinyTwitter, Twobile

•Palm Pre: Tweed, Spaz,

•Android: Twidroid, Twit2Go, CuTewit, TwitterRide

•Nokia Symbian: Gravity, Twittix,

Posting photos

Another interesting (and occasionally even useful) thing to post on Twitter are photos taken from your smartphone. This can be especially useful when you’re at trade conferences and industry events and you want to report on items of interest.

The most popular tool for posting photos on Twitter is Twitpic because you can use it from any cellphone with a camera. You simply take the photo with your phone and then email it to your customized Twitpic email address and you type your Twitter message in the subject line of the email. The challenge with this is that there’s no character count in the subject line of an email so you have to be careful to not make your message too long. If it’s over 140 characters it will simply get truncated.

Flickr has also come up a service that is virtually identical to Twitpic called Flickr2Twitter. So if you already have an active Flickr account, it makes sense to use Flickr rather than Twitpic because then all of your mobile photos get added to your album, rather than creating a separate album on Twitpic.

100 Geeks to follow on Twitter

By Nicole Bremer Nash
Keep up with the latest geek news and happenings by following Stan Lee, Felicia Day, Stephen Fry, Cory Doctorow, Neil Gaiman, and other people, organizations, and companies on Twitter.

We’re adding to Jay Garmon’s (@jaygarmon) list of 50 ubergeeks worth following on Twitter and his post of 30 more geeks to follow to create this roundup of more than 100 geeky people, organizations, and companies to follow on Twitter. Numbers 1-24 are my suggestions, and 25-100 are Jay’s recommendations (which include his captions, some of which have been updated). We also list TechRepublic writers and editors that you might want to keep up with on Twitter.

1. Keep up with serious science geek Stephen Hawking (@StephenHawking).

2. Stan Lee (@therealstanlee). The legend.

3. Neal deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) the astrophysicist, author of The Pluto Files, NOVA scienceNOW host, and Director of the Hayden Planetarium.

4. Jake von Slatt (@vonslatt) is the proprietor of The Steampunk Workshop. He was featured in our TechRepublic gallery, Steampunk: A way of life for some designers.

5. Jeff Potter (@cookingforgeeks) is the author of Cooking for Geeks.

6. Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) is a comic and actor who is also a self-professed geek. The title of his book Zombie Spaceship Wasteland kind of gives that away.

7. John Graham-Cumming (@jgrahamc), author of The Geek Atlas.

8. Gabe (@cwgabriel) from Penny Arcade tweets geek on a regular basis.

9. Jane McGonigal (@avantgame) is a game designer whom we featured in the TechRepublic blog Building a best-case scenario future through video gaming.

10. The CERN feed (@cern) has the latest updates about the LHC.

11. Know what the heavens have in store by following NASA (@NASA).

12. Douglas H. Wheelock (@Astro_Wheels) is a NASA astronaut.

13. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (@AsteroidWatch) tweets about the things whirling through space.

14. NPR’s Wait Wait,.. Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal (@petersagal) is one hilarious geek guy.

15. John Moe (@johnmoe) of NPR’s Marketplace Tech Report tweets.

16. Science Friday (@scifri) tweets for science geeks.

17. Think Geek (@thinkgeek) has an interesting feed.

18. Official_PAX (@Official_PAX) is a good feed to follow if you want to be sure you get PAX badges before they sell out.

19. Maker Faire NC (@makerfaireNC) focuses on the upcoming NC Maker Faire, but frequently offers interesting links to science geekiness.

20. Hacker News YC (@HackerNewsYC) offers lots of links and other information of geek interest.

21. Check out Geek Girl Camp (@GeekGirlCamp) for some geek girlness.

22. Sweet on Geeks (@SweetonGeeks) helps geeks get some “wookie nookie”.

23. Jeri Ryan (@JeriLRyan) from Star Trek is still a geek favorite.

24. Seth Green (@sethgreen) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Robot Chicken, and Family Guy fame.

25. Wil Wheaton (@wilw) - Don’t call him Wesley Crusher, because he’s so much more awesome than that.

26. Felicia Day (@feliciaday) - Vi from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Creator of The Guild. Gaming goddess. She is also now on a six-part web series for Dragon Age (@dragonage).

27. Scott Kurtz (@pvponline) - Writer/artist of the Web comic PvP.

28. Tobias Buckell (@tobiasbuckell) - Caribbean-born sci-fi writer exiled to Ohio.

29. Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette) - Puppeteer, voice-actress, and sci-fi writer.

30. Warren Ellis (@warrenellis) - Profane and ingenious writer of comics, books, TV, and video games.

31. Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer) - Evangelizing astronomer, educator, and movie science geek.

32. LeVar Burton (@levarburton) - Actor/educator of Reading Rainbow, Roots, ST: TNG. Technophile.

33. Jon Favreau (@jon_favreau) - Comedic actor. Director of Elf, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and now Cowboys & Aliens.

34. Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) - Sublimely funny British actor, author, and comic.

35. Agent M (@Agent_M) - Insider blogger for Marvel Comics.

36. Chris Hardwick (@nerdist) - Musician, comic, actor, and Attack of the Show dude.

37. FragDolls (@FragDolls) - Hot babes who play video games for a living.

38. John Cleese (@JohnCleese) - Monty Pythonite and so much more.

39. John Scalzi (@scalzi) - Snarktacular science-fiction writer and blogger.

40. Valerie D’Orazio (@ohsuperheroine) - Writer/blogger/activist for women in comics.

41. Lore Sjöberg (@loresjoberg) - Wired magazine’s animator/artist/comic-in-residence.

42. John Hodgman (@hodgman) - Deadpan nerd-comic, actor, and Daily Show correspondent.

43. Greg Grunberg (@greggrunberg) - Web fanatic who plays Parkman on Heroes.

44. Brent Spiner (@BrentSpiner) - Faux-curmudgeon comic who once played Data on ST:TNG.

45. Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) - Writer of fantasy comics and prose that get made into major movies.

46. Penn Jillette (@pennjillette) - The vocal half of comic/magic/activist duo Penn & Teller.

47. David Hewlett (@dhewlett) - More than just the guy who played Rodney McKay on Stargate: Atlantis.

48. Martin Sargent (@martinsargent) - Manchild super-nerd from various tech TV shows.

49. Olivia Munn (@oliviamunn) - The hottie actress and former cohost of Attack of the Show.

50. Scott Beale (@laughingsquid) - Geek-blogger supreme from LaughingSquid.com.

51. Major Nelson (@majornelson) - Yes, Xbox fanboys, that Major Nelson.

52. Brea Grant (@breagrant) - Music-lover, actress, and geek known as Daphne from Heroes.

53. Jeph Jacques (@jephjacques) - Writer/artist behind the Web comic Questionable Content.

54. Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) - Co-founder of BoingBoing, copyfighter, sci-fi writer, etc.

55. Robert Bowling (@fourzerotwo) - Gaming blogger and employee at Infinity Ward.

56. Eddie Izzard (@eddieizzard) - Crossdressing super-nerd British comedian.

57. Amber Benson (@amber_benson) - Tara from Buffy turned writer/actress/geek.

58. John Joseph Adams (@johnjosephadams) - Leading editor and reviewer of sci-fi and fantasy.

59. Cherie Priest (@cmpriest) - Southern gothic fantasy/horror author exiled to Seattle.

60. Lar deSouza (@lartist) - Artist for Web comics Looking For Group and Least I Could Do.

61. MC Frontalot (@mc_frontalot) - Nerdcore rap star.

62. John Denardo (@sfsignal) - Blogger-in-chief at SFSignal.com.

63. David Willis (@Shortpacked) - Writer/artist for the toy-collector Web comic Shortpacked.

64. R. Stevens (@rstevens) - Writer/artist for the pixelated hipster-geek comic Diesel Sweeties.
65. Dave Zatz (@davezatz) - Consumer technology reviewer and insider.

66. Jonathan Coulton (@jonathancoulton) - Nerd-pop recording artist.

67. Rich Johnston (@richjohnston) - Comic book industry’s most notorious rumor-monger.

68. Brian Michael Bendis (@BRIANMBENDIS) - Writer of comic books, notably Ultimate Spider-man.

69. Jay Lake (@jay_lake) - Writer/editor/blogger of science fiction books.

70. Rob Corddry (@robcorddry) - Ascerbic nerd comic and actor.

71. Kevin Smith (@ThatKevinSmith) - Geekish writer/director/actor who gave us Clerks and Dogma.

72. Paul and Storm (@paulandstorm) - Comedic musician duo with a nerdy flair who participate in w00tstock.

73. Bill Amend (@billamend) - Creator of the comic strip Foxtrot.

74. Charlie Jane Anders (@charliejane) - Sci-fi blogger, author, and magazine editor.

75. Kevin J. Anderson (@TheKJA) - Sci-fi author famous for Dune and Star Wars tie-ins.

76. Elizabeth Bear (@matociquala) - Accomplished writer of sci-fi/fantasy short stories.

77. Jamais Cascio (@cascio) - Highly respected futurist and techno-cultural commentator.

78. Bill Corbett (@BillCorbett) - The voice and mind behind Crow T. Robot from MST3K.

79. Danielle Corsetto (@dcorsetto) - Writer/artist of the Web comic Girls With Slingshots.

80. Andy Diggle (@andydiggle) - British writer/editor of comic books.

81. Chris Eliopoulos (@chriseliopoulos) - Creator of the Web comic Misery Loves Sherman.

82. Matt Fraction (@mattfraction) - Indie comic book creator gone mainstream.

83. Irene Gallo (@IreneGallo) - Art Director for Tor.

84. Meredith Gran (@granulac) - Writer/artist for the Web comic Octopus Pie.

85. Jonathan Hickman (@JHickman) - Mindbending indie comics creator.

86. Grant Imahara (@grantimahara) - Grant from MythBusters.

87. Paul Levinson (@PaulLev) - Communications researcher, professor, and sci-fi novelist.

88. Robert “Bobby Lew” Llewelyn (@bobbyllew) - Kryten from Red Dwarf.

89. Rich Lovatt (@richl1) - Comics blogger and creator of the Web comic Mecha-Simian.

90. Kevin Murphy (@kwmurphy) - Human voice/writer behind Tom Servo from MST3K.

91. Theresa Nielsen Hayden (@tnielsenhayden) - Sci-fi editor and comments admin for BoingBoing.

92. Patrick Nielsen Hayden (@pnh) - Senior Editor at Tor.

93. Chris Pramas (@Pramas) - The man at Green Ronin Games.

94. Terry Pratchett (@terryandrob) - Yes, boys and girls, that Terry Pratchett.

95. Joe Quesada (@JoeQuesada) - Chief Creative Officer at Marvel Comics.

96. Michael A. Stackpole (@MikeStackpole) - Sci-fi novelist known for his Star Wars and Battletech tie-ins.

97. Kris Straub (@krisstraub) - Writer and artist of the Web comics Starslip and chainsawsuit.

98. Ben Templesmith (@Templesmith) - Stylish and profane artist for various horror/noir comics.

99. Rainn Wilson (@rainnwilson) - Dwight from The Office, only moreso, ’cause he’s real.

100. Weird Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) - Dude, seriously, you don’t know Weird Al?

Don't forget to add us to you list @IndigoOceans!

The BEST reason to use Twitter: Improve your search engine ranking

Google merges social with search results, excludes Facebook

The search engine this week announced that social search results will no longer linger at the bottom of the results page. Now they will be slipped in among other listings. But don't expect to see your friends' Facebook 'Likes' appear any time soon.

by Helen Leggatt

Social Search was debuted in 2009 and, in a nutshell, finds posts and activity from friends and displays them as search results when logged in to a Google account.

Until now, those social search results have been displayed separately to the main results. This has now changed with the recent announcement that the search engine will merge searchers' social media contacts' activities directly into search results.

Except Facebook activity - not surprisingly the search engine hasn't spent too much time on integration with this network, even if it is the world's largest and most-used.

According to Mashable's Ben Parr, "One thing this update doesn't include is Facebook "Like" data, a prominent feature of Microsoft Bing. Unlike Google, Bing has access to instant personalization and the user data behind Facebook's walled garden. As one of Google's archenemies, it's unlikely the search giant gave much serious thought to deep Facebook integration, instead choosing Quora, Flickr and Twitter as its inaugural integrations."

Some speculate that the move takes Google a step further towards a long-anticipated social network product all of its very own. VentureBeat's Anthony Ha believes "some recent upgrades to Google products suggest that the company is advancing with its social plans and may be laying the groundwork for the big launch."

Some pages may get a boost as the social search element can change a page's ranking based on the strength of connection to another individual, making a page rank higher than it would if social search was turned off.

With the emphasis consumers place on recommendations from friends and family, and social interaction, this move will certainly enhance the search experience and incorporate channels they value highly.

Social Media for Business

Where Are Social Media Marketers Seeing the Most Success? It may surprise you, but the answer isn’t Facebook

Source: eMarket Daily

More companies in the Inc. 500 are using social media as part of their business and marketing strategies, and they are seeing success and viewing social media overall as more valuable. These firms, which include the fastest-growing private companies, have been using a mix of tactics, with Facebook as the most popular. According to a study released in January 2011 from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, 71% of companies used Facebook in 2010, up from 61% in 2009. Twitter, at 59% in 2010, and blogging, at 50%, are also still high on the list.

If a company has used social media, it has most likely also seen success, the study found. Eighty-five percent of companies viewed Facebook as successful, a significant jump from 54% in 2009. Yet Facebook hasn’t matched message or bulletin boards, with 93% reporting it was a successful tactic. foursquare also saw a significant increase in usefulness; it wasn’t even measured in 2009, yet in 2010, 75% of companies reported it was a successful tactic.

As social media becomes more prevalent and valuable, the perception of it is changing. More companies view it as important, with 86% reporting social media technologies to be somewhat or very important to their business and marketing strategies in 2010, up from 79% in 2009. And growth is even stronger among those who consider it “very important.”

These fast-growing Inc. 500 companies see social media as increasingly important to their businesses because of the success they’ve seen, and marketers will continue to test various social networking sites to find the right mix for their company’s strategy.

Twitter for Business: 5 reasons Twitter makes sense for business -- and IT

OK - it's true. Scot Finney is my new favourite. Business owners ask me why Twitter. Scot sums it up concisely here.

Many IT shops consider employee use of social media a nuisance or time waster. And though LinkedIn and Facebook offer a measure of business value, it's not difficult to understand why.


Twitter might look like just another social media tool, but in truth, it's utterly different, with strong potential for business ROI. (See "Cashing In on Tweets.")

Technically, it offers little more than Facebook's status message, but the advantage comes not from the tool itself but from the community of people using it and the way they do so. Here's why Twitter is a much better social medium for IT professionals and other businesspeople:

1. It's got a real business use. More than any other social media site, Twitter is used by a great number of businesspeople, who are tweeting about professional topics. According to a comScore study, people aged 45 to 54 are 36% more likely than people in any other age group to use Twitter. You may be surprised to learn how many of your colleagues are tweeting -- and not just to report what they had for lunch. Meaningful discourse occurs on Twitter most every hour of every day.

2. It's OK to follow people you don't know. It's not cool on Facebook or LinkedIn to friend people you don't know at all. But Twitter is about information, and "following" people you don't know -- merely because of the interesting things they might say -- is the rule. Unless someone has invoked Twitter's "protect my tweets" setting (and very few do), you don't need permission to follow anyone. In order to spread your word, you need followers on Twitter. But you can still gain significant benefit along the way by listening.

3. Twitter delivers news, unique perspectives and stellar information. This is the key benefit, and it doesn't get talked about as much as it should. Like Digg and Slashdot, Twitter has a large content-recommendation culture. The tool is designed to do that with a built-in URL shortener. And with Twitter, the best content bubbles to the top. People tweet or retweet (forward someone else's tweet) only the most interesting things. Spend a couple of hours following smart people on Twitter, and you'll likely learn things you might not learn any other way. That makes it an excellent environment for following trends, gathering information, gauging buzz and researching topics of interest. You can also interact with people and pose questions to get discussions started.

4. You can mark your company or personal brand. Twitter can be used for many business or professional goals: building your personal or company brand, enhancing your business relationships, interacting with customers, doing market research or selling. Once you build up a large enough following, Twitter becomes a microblog. It's a powerful one-to-many tool that reaches a very influential, engaged audience.

5. There are no cliques or hurt feelings. You fully control the stream of tweets you see. Don't like someone's bald self-promotion? It's easy to "unfollow" someone, and it doesn't send them a message such as "Scot Finnie stopped following you and therefore clearly doesn't like you anymore."

A couple of tips for smart tweeting: Follow only people you're genuinely interested in. Following everyone may help you get followers, but it defeats half of the benefit of Twitter: reading the thoughts of the most insightful people.

With a tool like TweetDeck, you can create multiple groups consisting of the tweets of people who are generally focused on a specific topic. You can also follow hash tags -- or Twitter searches -- to see tweets on specific topics. I used Twitter for over a year before I tried TweetDeck. Once I did, the value of Twitter increased markedly for me right away. There are many other Twitter tools. To learn more, see "8 Free Twitter Clients for Better Tweeting."

Scot Finnie is Computerworld's editor in chief. You can catch him at twitter.com/sfinnie, or contact him at sfinnie@computerworld.com.

Social Media Stats: Demographics & Growth

We came across this blog by Danny Brown and it has an outstanding amount of Stats on Social Media. 52 to be exact! There are some very compelling reasons to adopt Social Media for business.


Facebook
1. The average Facebook user has 130 friends.

2. More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) is shared each month.

3. Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application.

4. More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month.

5. Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.

6. There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

7. People that access Facebook via mobile are twice as active than non-mobile users (think about that when designing your Facebook page).

8. The average Facebook user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events.

9. People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

10. There are more than 1 million entrepreneurs and developers from 180 countries on Facebook.
Statistics from Facebook press office.


Twitter

11. Twitter’s web platform only accounts for a quarter of its users – 75% use third-party apps.

12. Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.

13. There are currently 110 million users of Twitter’s services.

14. Twitter receives 180 million unique visits each month.

15. There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day.

16. Twitter started as a simple SMS-text service.

17. Over 60% of Twitter use is outside the U.S.

18. There are more than 50,000 third-party apps for Twitter.

19. Twitter has donated access to all of its tweets to the Library of Congress for research and preservation.

20. More than a third of users access Twitter via their mobile phone.

Statistics from Twitter and the Chirp Conference.


LinkedIn

21. LinkedIn is the oldest of the four sites in this post, having been created on May 5 2003.

22. There are more than 70 million users worldwide.

23. Members of LinkedIn come from more than 200 countries from every continent.

24. LinkedIn is available in six native languages – English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

25. Oracle’s Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Epstein, was headhunted for the position via his LinkedIn profile.

26. 80% of companies use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool.

27. A new member joins LinkedIn every second.

28. LinkedIn receives almost 12 million unique visitors per day.

29. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn.

30. Recruiters account for 1-in-20 LinkedIn profiles.
Statistics from LinkedIn press centre and SysComm International.



YouTube

31. The very first video uploaded was called “Me at the Zoo”, on 23rd April 2005.

32. By June 2006, more than 65,000 videos were being uploaded every day.

33. YouTube receives more than 2 billion viewers per day.

34. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.

35. The U.S. accounts for 70% of YouTube users.

36. Over half of YouTube’s users are under 20 years old.

37. You would need to live for around 1,000 years to watch all the videos currently on YouTube.

38. YouTube is available in 19 countries and 12 languages.

39. Music videos account for 20% of uploads.

40. YouTube uses the same amount of bandwidth as the entire Internet used in 2000.

Statistics from YouTube press centre.


Blogging
41. 77% of Internet users read blogs.

42. There are currently 133 million blogs listed on leading blog directory Technorati.

43. 60% of bloggers are between the ages 18-44.

44. One in five bloggers update their blogs daily.

45. Two thirds of bloggers are male.

46. Corporate blogging accounts for 14% of blogs.

47. 15% of bloggers spend 10 hours a week blogging.

48. More than half of all bloggers are married and/or parents.

49. More than 50% of bloggers have more than one blog.

50. Bloggers use an average of five different social sites to drive traffic to their blog.

Statistics from Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009.


Bonus Facts

51. 90% of Internet users know at least one social network.

52. The average social user has 195 friends.

Statistics from Online Media Gazette.


Did you know...

The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004. Half of all workers have been with their current employer for less than five years. There are roughly one billion searches performed on Google every day — more than ten times the number just four years ago. It took radio 38 years to reach a total audience of 50 million people; it took the Internet just four years to reach that number, the iPod three years, and Facebook only two years. There will be more pages of unique information published this year than in the last 5,000 years combined.

Twitter Best Practices: Top 10 Twitter activites

If you are new to Twitter, here are some best practices that will help you be successful:

1. You want to turn strangers into advocates - write your 140 character message with that in mind
2. Choose a handle that will be easy to search or has meaningful key words "CRM" "Sales" "Telecom"
3. Leverage the Twitter background to expand upon you and your business
4. Add a photo or image. There is nothing worse than looking at an egg instead of a face. It just doesn't make you want to follow that handle
5. Follow people, lots of people and search by interests or key words. Search and follow your customers, vendors, competition and "friendlies"
6. Follow people back! This is the fastest way to learn & grow
7. Use links! Link back to videos, web sites, articles - anything that is more than 140 characters
8. Retweet. What's that you say? Taking someone elses message and resending it to your network
9. Use Direct Messaging. Respond to people who show interest in your tweets. It's like texting.
10. Have some fun with it! You don't need to go for the jugular with twitter. Be genuine and share ideas. Sharing ideas and knowledge is the foundation of Twitter.

So who uses Twitter? Well, you might be surprised - middle class, up and coming, obviously the cool kids that are progressively minded. I use the cool kids reference in jest. Actually, Twitter is a fantastic B2B tool. With Twitter being only 5 years old, it is a treasure chest that is growing exponentially.