Which Twitter client fits you best?

Great post from Business Insider on research carried out by one Ed Finkler on which Twitter clients people are tweeting from most, and according to the sampling, it looks like UberTwitter (for Blackberry) is the most used mobile app for Twitter.

BI writes:
"Almost 9% of Tweets sent out each day come from UberTwitter. The next most popular is Tweetdeck at 5%. Twitter for BlackBerry comes in at 4%. It's interesting that Twitter's official app for BlackBerry hasn't killed the upstart UberTwitter. And it's also interesting that while Tweetdeck gets the majority of attention from the tech press, it's not the most popular Twitter client. BlackBerry Twitter clients are likely the most popular because BlackBerry is the most popular smartphone OS out there."

Makes sense to me. My HTC Android phone offers up its own client called Peep, Twitter (for Android) and Twidroyd.

Last week for Social Media AZ discounts

Before you know it, September 9th will be here and that day in the Phoenix Metro area is Social Media AZ day, a one-day event held at Tempe's Madcap Theater.

Social Media AZ 2010 is the the third SMAZ conference, and presenters will be showcasing top tips and online strategies that have worked for their businesses or clients. Here's where you can learn the latest techniques in digital marketing and social media from industry experts and corporations that have worked and played in social media. Register here.

Here's more from a recent release:
"Our attendees have heard about what tools and sites are available to use during past SMAZ conferences," said Fred Von Graf, organizer of the SMAZ conference. "At this point, we felt that real world examples of how to apply this knowledge to increase web traffic, page views, eCommerce, social media monitoring techniques, and ultimately bottom line revenues would be most valuable to our attendees."

Speakers at the SMAZ conference include:
- Greg Chapman - President of Sitewire
- Laurie G Buczek - Enterprise 2.0 Program Manager, Intel Corporation
- Matt O'Brien - President, Mint Social
- Michael Roberts - President, SpyFu.com
- Sheila Kloefkorn - Founder & President, KEO Marketing
- Arnie Kuenn - President, Vertical Measures
- Mike Corak - VP of Strategy & Interactive Services, Tallwave
- Bret Giles - President, AgencySide
- Fred von Graf - President, Web3Mavens, LLC
- Tiffany Winman - Social Media Strategist, IBM
- Jeff Moriarty - Director Social Media, Sitewire
- Bart Steiner - CEO and Founder, Bulbstorm, Inc.
- Fionn Downhill - President, Elixir Interactive
- Linda Vandevrede - Public Relations Consultant & Author
- Evo Terra - Digital Business Strategist, Sitewire
- Dean Wright - VP Marketing, Tripware.com

Brands' Own Web Sites and Their Facebook Pages

What happens when a big brand's Facebook page becomes the go-to site of choice for like....everybody?

Advertising Age looks hard at this issue today in its piece called What Happens When Facebook Trumps Your Brand Site? Ad Age asks brands to ponder

The article notes that Coca-Cola and other brands are using TV ads to promote their social media presence, leading to a large upsurge in number of visitors to Facebook brand pages.

"Coca-Cola, with its 10.7 million Facebook fans, has three to four times the Facebook fan base as MyTown and Foursquare have registered users. (There are at least 11 brands whose Facebook fan pages have quietly grown bigger than the biggest geo-location providers.) That certainly trumps U.S. unique visitors to Coke's brand website, which fell by more than 40% to 242,000 in July compared to a year ago, per Compete.

Kraft Foods' Oreo is the No. 3 brand page on Facebook as tracked by DBM/Scan, with an 8.7 million fan base growing at a clip of 71,000 a day. But the multi-brand site where its web presence has been hosted, NabiscoWorld.com, has seen U.S. traffic decline from 1.2 million in July 2009 to 321,000 last month."

But as one commenter asks..."Even if they are "fans" and want communication, I think we'd all agree that it's not a deep seated level of engagement. The Facebook "like" connection is tenuous at best. I'd put it maybe a half notch above an unknown visitor to a web site." Good point. How deep are your branded connections on Facebook? I've followed brands cause I like 'em and use 'em. But perhaps it's not the same for everyone.

Click through to the article and check the comments too - it's all valuable learning knowledge.

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Also worth your time: marketing guy Pete Blackshaw asks brands "Do We Really Need Websites"? He suggests yes, and writes that "what brands need today is a complete rethink and "refresh" of their site strategy. Flexibility and agility should be the orders of the day. They also need open feedback protocols and warm welcome mats (for example, the friendly and inviting "contact us") that drive consistency with the happy brand faces on all the external brand stands. They need to empower visitors with easy search and discovery, and enable tons of pass-along opportunity."

Phoenix ABC 15 to Debut New Social Media-Inspired Show August 30

Social media continues to be an influence on much of radio and TV outlets here in Phoenix. I hear more radio announcers referring to their Facebook feeds and their Twitter comments, and TV news channels have been using social media in their broadcasts for a while now.

Now, social media comes center stage at ABC 15 affiliate in Phoenix. The station is starting a new program called "Now@9" (note the edgy 'at' symbol in the title).

The station's website declares:
"On August 30th, we're launching a program that's different from everything else on Phoenix TV. It's a cross between news, buzz and social media, with YOUR voice at the center of the live discussion everyday at 9am. This won't be your typical newscast, and this won't be the same set of stories you saw the night before."

The hosts say in the teaser clip below "We're going to look at the hottest stories of the day" and "We're going to talk about what you guys are talking about"



Looks like a good kick in the pants to some of the tired TV practices we've seen for too many years. And hey, one of the hosts was holding an iPad - that's got to count for something!

Good Social Media Tactics for B2B companies

Kipp Bodnar has a useful post today at Hubspot on 11 ways (it's always the odd number, right Jay Baer?) that B2B companies can get better with their social media tactics in accordance with the company's larger online marketing strategies.

It's a good read, so you should hit in its entirety, but here are the highlights:

1. Make Marketing Documents Social - Use SlideShare and Scribd and share the good stuff.

2. Create Social Media Icons - Use a small, company image for Facebook and Twitter.

3. Claim Social Media Accounts - Claim those social media accounts today for the future.

4. Set up a Company LinkedIn Profile - Duh.

5. Write Blog Posts - Double Duh. You gotta have some URLs to tweet, right?

6. Equip Staff - Get cool gadgets and programs like Flipcams and Camtasia. Then edit your videos well. Content for the web.

7. Start Monitoring - Use free tools like Twitter Search, Alerts Grader and Boardreader to monitor search terms relating to your industry and business.

8. Set Employee Expectations - Set some social media policies or at least some general expectations for appropriateness' sake.

9. Set up a Bit.ly Account - Bit.ly rocks!

10. Make Your Web Browser Social - Browser extensions!

11. Install Analytics - Aha! The pitch! "Bbe sure to install web analytics software like HubSpot (ding, ding!) or Google Analytics to better understand where your visitors are coming from....."

US Home Broadband access (Pew Internet)

Great visual from Business Insider on the real reasons why people who don't use the Internet don't use the Internet.

The insights come from a new Pew Internet report on US home broadband access.

Business Insider writes:
"Why not? Almost a third say they're "just not interested." Others find it too expensive, too difficult, or think they're too old. Pew also says 22% of the people who don't use the Internet used it in the past but don't anymore."

My mom still checks her AOL email once a week. Diligently. :-)

Scottsdale's Mint Social Earns Social Media Optimization Recognition

Scottsdale social media marketing and online branding firm Mint Social was named as one of TopSEOs.com's Top 10 social media pptimization companies for the month of August 2010. TopSEOs.com is the independent authority on search vendors and recognizes and ranks the best social media optimization service providers in the industry.

Mint Social said on their blog: "We are very honored and humbled to receive this award," said Matthew O’Brien, Founder & CEO of Mint Social. "This is an impressive list of social media optimization businesses to be included with and we are especially grateful to our customers who helped make this award possible."

Mint Social and nine other media optimization service providers were selected over thousands of other companies after a comprehensive vetting process.

Mint's website highlights the four ways it brings value to its clients, including:
Online Branding – increasing online mentions (and Links) for your business name and trademarks, trade names and products
Personal Branding – establish yourself as the go to expert. After all, you are no different that anyone else, we want to work with the best and settle for nothing less. Do you look like an expert online (Most reputable doctor, best lawyer, most respected CEO, etc.)
Reputation Management – an offensive and defensive approach to managing comments and third party information regarding your business and personal brand online and in the social media space.
Social Media Optimization (Keyword Optimized) – also known as search engine optimization for increasing your rankings organically in the top search engines

You can follow Mint Social on Twitter.

HootSuite Adds Freemium-Premium Plans for Businesses, Free Accounts Remain

For all you fans and users of Hootsuite's great multiple social media account service, there are changes a-coming. The company announced today new pricing levels for users.

The company's press release read:
"HootSuite Media, Inc., announce the addition of premium plans for their flagship social media dashboard product. With this "freemium" model, business and organizational customers can utilize advanced tools for social campaign management and analytic reporting while users with simpler needs can continue using the tool at no cost."

Starting today, Wednesday, Aug. 11th, all new customers will be required to select a plan when signing-up. Then, the following week, all current HootSuite users will be asked to choose a package. All customers (aside from Enterprise accounts) will enjoy a 30-day free trial to experiment and discover the benefits and features of the tiered plans.

You can take a look at the new pricing levels for their plans here.

If you're new to Hootsuite, the company describes itself this way:
"HootSuite helps organizations use the social web to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels. Using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Wordpress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics."

The Rise in Social Gaming

As my son plays more games on my Android phone and online, I'm noticing the immense growth of social gaming, and its impact on marketing and advertising decisions. (Reach customers where they hang out?)

eMarketer wrote at its blog:
Marketers will spend more than $220 million this year on advertisements in social games and applications worldwide, according to research from eMarketer. By 2011, that number will reach $293 million, up 60% from $183 million in 2009. "Social games put advertisers into the action," said Debra Aho Williamson, a senior analyst at eMarketer. "The key to success for marketers will be to include advertisements where they can add value -- otherwise game players will ignore them."

Inside Social Games seems to be the lead info source for all things in social and gaming. It estimates in its 2010 report that the US virtual goods market will reach $1.6 billion in 2010, and that social gaming market will contribute $835 million of that total this year.

Among the biggies is Zynga, which has the hugely popular Farmville game, among many others. The Wall Street Journal wrote:
"Zynga boasts 50 million to 60 million daily average users. If each of these users spends even $1 a month on virtual goods used in these games, that yields $50 million to $60 million in monthly revenue. (In reality, only 5% to 10% of the casual gamers are paying customers, but they pay tens of dollars.) But the tiny sums add up to large numbers. U.S. spending on virtual goods could reach $1.6 billion in 2010, according to a report by Inside Virtual Goods released late last year."

The huge growth is due to the avalanche of mobile devices, including the iPad, that have taken over our daily lives. In such a short time period, marketers and advertisers have been forced to consider these new advertising mediums.

Vator News (the trusted source for emerging tech) wrote:
"Zooming in on social games and applications specifically, Zynga, the largest social gaming company, registers 230 million monthly active users playing its games. Playdom, which was recently acquired by Disney, gets about 38 million monthly active users. And Playfish, acquired by EA late last year, says its games have been installed 200 million times. Even SGN, a mobile social game developer for iPhone and iPod Touch, says it has registered 18 million downloads of its games. And we haven't even begun to look at the countless smaller startups and businesses designing games for social networks."

It's an amazing new world out there. Marketers have to hustle to keep up. Google will most certainly announce something in social and gaming this year. Keep watching the space. It's exciting.

Register for this week's Advanced Marketing Strategy Seminar (Scottsdale, AZ)

For those of you in Phoenix-Scottsdale metro looking to smarten up your social media efforts for work and play, there’s a seminar this week that might do the trick. There’s still time to register.

Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible and Doug Bruhnke, CEO of Growth Nation are presenting a half-day Advanced Marketing Strategy Seminar this Thursday, August 12th at ASU SkySong in Scottsdale, AZ. Lon will do two presentations, focusing on strategy in social media: a "Social Media BIG Picture" presentation and a new "Five Steps To Social Media Success" from his book The Social Media Bible.

Here’s the morning schedule:
08:30 AM to 09:00 AM - Registration & Networking
09:00 AM to 09:10 AM - Let’s Talk About Growth – Doug Bruhnke
09:10 AM to 10:15 AM - Social Media - The BIG Picture – Lon Safko
10:15 AM to 10:30 AM - Break
10:30 AM to 11:30 AM - The FIve Steps To Social Media Success – Lon Safko
11:30 AM to 12:00 PM - Q & A with Lon and Doug, Moderated by Cricket Bo of Growth Nation
12:00 PM to 12:30 PM - Lon Safko will be available to autograph copies of his best-selling book, The Social Media Bible, published by John Wiley & Sons.

Register here. Cost is $50.

One Tab/Browser Option for Multiple Account Gmail Users

Google comes through again!

For any of you power Google users, this will come as good news (it is for me!). Google has created the ability of its users with multiple accounts to switch back and forth between up to three accounts in one browser window or tab. Google writes in a blog post:

"Now you can visit google.com/accounts and click the link next to "Multiple sign-in." After you sign into your first account, you can sign in with up to two additional accounts from the new accounts menu in the upper right hand corner of Gmail, then easily toggle back and forth between them. You can even open multiple Gmail tabs — one for each of your accounts."

Once you set it up, it looks like this:


Before this, one had to use a completely different browser (ie Firefox or IE 8 or Safari) to open a separate Google account. This feature doesn't work in all Google products yet (For Blogger and Picasa Web Albums, you will be defaulted to the first email account opened during that session).

When it comes to businesses using Gmail for different activities, this makes a lot of sense for the administrator of the multiple email accounts. Thank you, Google!

Twilio - Phone Services in the Cloud

Check the 6-minute video below of John Britton from the SF-based company Twilio. The video was shot earlier this week at a NY Tech Meetup (which I used to attend pretty frequently in the mid 2000s).

On its site, Twilio answers this question: What Problem Does Twilio Solve?
"We're always building web applications, and sometimes we want those apps to be able to interact with phone callers. Maybe we want a customer to be able to call in and get information, or maybe we need to coordinate our employees more efficiently. Before Twilio, you would have had to learn some foreign telecom programming languages, or set up an entire stack of PBX software to do this. At which point, you'd say "aw, forget it!" Twilio lets you use your existing web development skills, existing code, existing servers, existing databases and existing karma to solve these problems quickly and reliably. We provide the infrastructure, you provide the business logic via HTTP, and together we rule the world.

The presentation is fun to watch, humorous, hella-informative for developer types and worth a look all around. Thanks to Fred Wilson (AVC) for writing about it and catching my attention. And if you're a developer and looking at cloud-based phone servicdes, you should probably follow Twilio on Twitter.

Watch live streaming video from nytechmeetup at livestream.com

Read more about Twilio at TechCrunch.

How Much More Social Media are You Doing?

Last year, many people were just getting their fingers moving with social media. This year, it's a different game, says The Nielsen Company, which notes in their new research report that "Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, up from 15.8 percent just a year ago (43 percent increase). The research revealed that Americans spend a third their online time (36 percent) communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal email and instant messaging."



With the rise in mobile networking activity, there is a concurrent rise in the use of social networks as well, but it seems like email is still the predominant use by mobile users. Nielsen writes: "For mobile web users, there is a double-digit (28 percent) rise in the prevalence of social networking behavior, but the dominance of email activity on mobile devices continue with an increase from 37.4 percent to 41.6 percent of U.S. mobile Internet time."

NewsBasis beta launch - new service for PR communications to reporters

NewsBasis CEO Darryl Siry




NewsBasis is a new entry into the ever-evolving form-fit of communications between PR professionals and the media that cover their clients. It's another swing in the door hinge of professional courtesy, trying to find today's appropriate vehicle for delivering messages after the phone, email and DMs have all fallen short in getting heard.

Newsbasis uses a browser based software service to allow journalists to research and discover new angles for stories and connect with valuable source. So in essence, the service becomes part of the reporter's research arsenal.

From today's NY Times (thnks to a tweet from Sam Alpert):
"NewsBasis, a start-up opening on Monday, wants to change that with an online marketplace to match businesses and organizations that want to broadcast their messages with journalists working on topical articles. It also has a tool for sources to footnote articles across the Web with their points of view."

See more about the new service here:


The NY Times article also wrote "On NewsBasis, sources can also add a footnote to articles across the Web, so when reporters are doing research using their Web browser, a tab will appear indicating that a NewsBasis source has offered a different point of view or corrected a fact."

The service is free for the moment, though the CEO Darryl Siry told the NY Times that he eventually expects to charge for it. Follow the company's goings-on at Siry's blog.