G’day, amigos. We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience.

This week we bring you a group of articles on the ascending popularity of the geolocation feature present in places like FourSquare and Twitter and what it means for your business. In addition, we’ve got a bundle of articles on efficacy with small and big picture ideas of how you can get the most out of your social media.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

Geolocation Apps

5 ways to use FourSquare to market your location based business. As with most social media, it’s not enough to be just be on it. How are you going to use a geo-location device like Foursquare to get people checking into your business? Here are some creative tips!

How to add your business to Twitter places. In addition to Foursquare, Twitter Places was recently announced. If you’re wondering how you can take advantage of the popularity of Twitter in conjunction with the geo-location trend, well here are your answers.

Foursquare vs. Gowalla vs. MyTown: Which is better for business? Here’s the match up! Foursquare is still the most popular, but how long with that be the case? And in whatever case, which one do you need to keep your eye on for business? Discussion within.

Efficiency

What to Do About Social Media Overload, or How to Network Online and Still Have Time to Run Your Business. Even if your social media campaign is successful, to be sure it’s come at some cost–time. So to give you more time to run your business, Patrice-Anne Rutledge some advice on how to lower the time you’re spending on social media while still maintaining your successful status.

5 helpful iphone apps for the office. If we’re talking efficiency, what better to talk about than the magical, all encompassing Iphones?But with so many apps to choose from, which one’s will assist your business the most? Here are five.

How to be the Life of the Social Media Party. We’ll admit, this one is less about efficiency, and more a great article on approach. This is a particularly poignant article comparing success in the social media world to success in the social living world. Social media can and should bring out a character for people to like, and it all comes back to the individual behind the screen.

photo: photo courtesy of red5standindyby

Greetings, everyone. We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience. This week we have a nice bundle of practical articles in addition to an inspiring study.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

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Experts Agree: Gen Y Will Not Grow Out of Social Networking. Most millenials agree that the benefits of sharing personal information online outweights the consequences, and that social media is here to stay.

Six Social Media Sins. There are a few attitudes to have toward social media that will guarantee dismal times in your social media experience. These are six things thou shalt not do

More Social Media Policies: La Times, Harvard Law, Microsoft, and Cisco. It’s wise for many businesses to develop a social media policy. Here’s a look at what some big names are doing and what you can learn form them.

10 Ways to Boost CRM with Social Media Tools. Social Media has Customer Relationship Management built right into it. But how do you actually get results? These guys have ten ideas.

image from FastCompany.

We do so all love our Facebook Events don’t we? We might never have so many mixers to attend without it. But like all good things in social media, not everyone is using Facebook Events for good. Between invites to Events in cities we’ve never heard of to Events that aren’t even Events, we’re getting a little fed up.

One of our super-fans recently asked us to do a blog post on Facebook Events do’s and don’ts. We’re always happy to oblige our fans, but in this case I happened to be inundated with tons of inappropriate Event Invitations that same week, thus compelling me to get this one out as quickly as possible.

(As a side note, it will always amaze me how many people don’t know netiquette rule #1: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.)

Events That Go On For Weeks

When It’s OK: When the Event actually goes on for weeks. For example, a community theater might have a running showings for four weeks. It’s perfectly acceptable for the administrator of the event to make it last for as long as the show is running.

When It’s Not OK: When the Event isn’t really an Event in the true sense of the word, or you’re using it for multi-level marketing. For example, an individual wants their friends to vote for them in an online contest that runs for 3 weeks. While your friends are happy to help out, your event is taking up real estate in their Upcoming Events tab. What would be the appropriate to do this is to send a message to your friends letting them know about the contest, and then follow up throughout the contest time period with regular status updates reminding people with the link. This would be far more effective, not to mention polite, than the Ongoing Event anyway.

The Multi-level Marketing Events don’t really surprise us. Scams, shams and pyramid schemes will always find a way to SPAM you in such a way they think looks credible.

Gray Area: When the Event can only loosely be categorized as an Event. For example, an organization might be holding a membership drive for the entire month of August. Or, a retail location might be having it’s annual summer sale that lasts all week. For some people, this would be acceptable use of an Ongoing Event. For others, it’s a nuisance. Think about the people you’re trying to reach and ask yourself if they might be annoyed by this method of getting their attention. In social media, the old adage “All press is good press” is not true. You run the risk of looking like you don’t know what you’re doing in social media, and worse – that you don’t care about whether you are bothering your audience. You’ve just turned an opportunity for engagement into television advertising and SPAM.

In the case of the retail sale, if it’s not very long that might be information people find useful and helpful. I would say the use of an Ongoing Event is acceptable in this case, especially since it might be something I want to share with a friend who likes that store by inviting her to the Event.

Inviting Out-of-Area People to a Local Event

When It’s OK: When there is a reason you want them to see the Event, or there’s a chance they might actually attend. For example, a local chapter of an organization is hosting a member of another chapter as their featured speaker. It would be acceptable to invite people to the local Event from the other chapter, despite the fact they’re in another city, as a way of letting them know that the Event is featuring one of their own. If the Event is notable enough to drive attendees to travel to your city, then this is acceptable as well.

When It’s Not OK: When you’re simply inviting all of your friends without discernment of their physical location. Select All is the devil in Facebook. You should never be selecting all, unless all of your friends are 100 percent local. When you Select All, you SPAM. There are just no two ways about it.

If you haven’t already, create Lists for your Facebook Friends. On your home page, click Friends on the lefthand side of the page. Then, click Create List. From there, simply select the Friends that fit that category. I have my Facebook friends on multiple lists by geography/location (Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Rio Grande Valley, etc.), relationship to myself (family, high school, college, etc.), and where I met them (bloggers, Twitter folks, clients, etc.). I send out not just Event Invitations, but also Page Suggestions, according to whether they would be interested.

Gray Area: If the Event is in a city that is close enough to another city that traveling to an Event is not a major effort. Again, ask yourself whether or not the people you’re sending the Event Invitation to are interested enough to travel. Also consider whether your idea of “close” is the same to everyone else and that the Event date and time are amenable to short travel. For example, in my city of Corpus Christi we’re willing to drive 2 hours to an event in San Antonio if it’s on the weekend since there’s literally nothing around us for a 2-hour driving radius. However, my San Antonio friends would be hard-pressed to drive 2 hours to a 6 pm weekday Event that ends at 9 pm, putting them back home at 11 pm with work the next morning.

Events That Aren’t Actually Events

When It’s OK: In our opinion, never. It’s never OK to misuse an application when you have other methods of getting the word out. For example, you’ve launched a new website or you’re transitioning from a Facebook user account for your business (which you should never have had in the first place, as it is a violation of Facebook Terms of Service) to a fan page. These things are not Events. They are not happenings that I can purchase a ticket to, walk in the door to, etc. They are SPAM.

Though it requires more effort (Gasp! You mean, don’t just do what’s easiest for me instead of what’s better for my audience?!?), what would be the appropriate to do this is to send a message to your friends letting them know about this non-event, and then follow up for an acceptable time period with regular status updates reminding people with the link. Again, as with the Ongoing Event, this would be far more effective, not to mention polite.

Gray Area: There is none. I know you wanted to be the exception to this rule, but unfortunately there aren’t any exceptions. Try thinking about a way to make your non-event more interesting to your audience and give them ways to back up your cause. If you’re introducing a new website, post screen shots of it and boast about it’s new capabilities and tell us why you launched it. If you’re transitioning to a fan page, enlist your Friends to help you spread the word by telling them how they can share it.

But, hey, if you want to create an Event Invitation to this blog post and invite all the Event offenders on your Facebook, we’ll look the other way just this once.

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The moral of the story, kids, is that just because you can do it in social media, doesn’t mean you should. Careful consideration of how your audience would like best to be reached with a particular piece of information is a good measuring stick for what tool you use to do it.

Intro photo credit: Photos by Fitsum Belay/iLLIMETER illimeter.com

Aloha, everyone. We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience. This week we have two articles on mobile social media, so again, something like a theme here.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

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5 Companies Reinventing the way we think about mobile. Mobile devices have made some considerable technological advances since their inception. So who is it that’s been working on them, and what are they working on now?

Social media as small business strategy. In this article-video couple, Andrew Lock, small business marketing expert, talks about how you can track results in social media marketing, how to make money blogging, and using social media to provide users with surprise, special gifts.

6 Brilliantly Designed Mobile Sites. Many predict that by 2015 more people will browse the internet with mobile devices than with desktop devices. What will your mobile site look like? Mashable gives some stellar models to build off of.

Why Social Media Is Such A Challenge. Kip Cassino, vice president of research at Borrell Associates, talks to Media Life about the boundaries between advertising, promotions and public relations, what’s fueling social media spending, and why social networking is not a fad.

Howdy, everyone. We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience. This week we have two articles about the social sphere (cause-based initiatives) and social media, so we might even call that a theme.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

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10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics. If you’re a visual learner, these are ten images you need to see. Mobile phone usage, social media comparisons, demographics information, and much more. These infographics really allow us to see just what’s going on with social media today. Eye candy for a social media nerd if we ever saw it.

How to Get the Social-Media Generation Behind Your Cause. Do you run an issues-based cause? Ninety-Six percent of 18-34 year olds are on Facebook. Here are ten tips for getting youth involved in your ideas and activities.

6 Challenges to managing your brand on the social web. We talk a lot about the opportunities in social media, naturally. But what are some challenges that you’re going to face? Mashable gives us the top concerns of six different social media experts and how to address them.

How the Gulf Coast Benefit Is Using Social Media To Rally Support. Social media can play a crux role in any marketing strategy, whether it’s helping your business or, in this case, entering the social work sphere. What can other social causes learn from the Gulf Coast social media strategy?

Flickr credit BrianSolis