Does your Twitter stream need a bit of a boost?  If so, you may consider adding some photos and video to your stream to make it a bit more fun, fresh or engaging.  Adding photos to your stream can be a great way to show your followers where you are, or perhaps give them a view of what you’re looking at.  In some instances, I have seen users give a sneak peek of products by using photos in Twitter.  An easy service to use is www.twitpic.com.  If you already have a Twitter username and password, then you already have a TwitPic account.  With your same name, you can log into this service and post your pictures.  When you upload your picture, you have the option to also add a description which will then be the Tweet.

If you are away from your computer, and you wish to upload a photo while on the go, you have a couple of options.  You can email a photo by using the email address that TwitPic assigns to you, or you can use one of the many mobile applications that TwitPic has partnered with.  The more common mobile applications include:

• Twitter for iPhone
• Twitter for Blackberry
• Twitter for Android

For those looking to add video to their stream, one service that can be use is www.twitvid.com.  Like TwitPic, if you have a Twitter username and password, you already are able to log in to TwitVid.  Once you log in you can upload video and attach a message that will go out with the Tweet.

Many third party tools and applications feature TwitVid, so it is easy to upload videos from anywhere.

When you add photos and videos to your stream, it gives your followers something new and fresh to look at.  It shows that you are constantly looking for ways to engage them, and they will appreciate that.

It’s almost hard to imagine a world without social media networks like YouTube and Facebook.  Many utilize these types of sites on a daily basis, but how are these outlets changing the world?

A short time ago, after the enormous success of her Superbowl commercial, fans of Betty White created a grassroots campaign on Facebook to have the 88 ½ year old Emmy Award-winning actress host NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL).  The initiative was so widely popular that not only did NBC take notice and book White to host SNL, but it was the first time in the show’s history that social media helped influence the selection of a host. 

Recent, a video emerged on YouTube of 12 year old Greyson Michael Chance playing piano and singing Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi.’  The video was viewed over 18,000,000 times, and was also featured on many national news programs including ABC’s World News with Diane Sawyer.  Ironically, Interscope Records, the same record label as Lady Gaga, saw Chance and offered the seventh grader a recording contract.

So you may be asking yourself, ‘what does all this have to do with my business?’  Since social media is putting more power in the hands (or fingertips) of the public, now is the time to use the suggestions, ideas and opinions of your customers to improve business.  White and Chance are prime examples that popular demand cannot be ignored, especially when it comes to social media.  Identifying trends within your social media channel can help you stay ahead of the competition.  Who knows, maybe your business will discover the next Greyson Michael Chance of your industry.

Many of us have become well versed in the various social networks. Whether for fun or business, the amount of time spent on social networks continues to grow. Companies, both large and small, have gone from a slight toe dip in the water, to swimming laps in Olympic sized pools. Though the number of social media channels continues to grow, this blog post will focus solely on Twitter.

Twitter defines itself as “a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.” This translates into everyday people being able to “follow” their favorite actresses every move (no kidding, some celebrities have been known to tweet on a minute to minute basis) and keep anyone interested aware in real time of hunger pangs, the difficulty of a spinning class, getting cut off in traffic, that they are at Starbucks, where they are going to dinner, etc.
So I guess that’s considered some of the fun stuff Twitter is known for, but what about the business component?

For some organizations, Twitter has taken the term customer service to a whole new dimension. This goes beyond setting up a company page, which every business ought to do, by the way.

A friend of mine recently tweeted, Oh Zappos I hate you!! Why don’t you have my size?!?!?! Within 30 minutes, she was contacted (via Twitter of course) from @Zappos_Service with: Oh no! We want to help you find perfect shoes. What size/style were you interested in? Maybe we can find them elsewhere. This is a perfect example of a company that is truly on their A Game. Personally, I think Zappos rocks in every capacity, so it is not shocking that they are savvy in Social Media.

How did Zappos know that my friend was tweeting about them, when she does not follow their company? They more than likely have some sort of “Twitter Alerts” (think Google Alerts) in place to monitor what is being said, as well as to protect their brand. Tweet Beep and Tweet Alarm are two of the many services you can utilize for this effort.

It is safe to say that customer service as we once knew will soon become obsolete; the days of sitting on hold with a representative are numbered. We are a society that is consumed with instant gratification and Twitter and other social networks provide us with the immediate support we crave.

No matter if you ever plan to “tweet”, or are active in other social media channels like Facebook or YouTube, I encourage you to sign up for a Twitter account and begin to follow some people / organizations. The reason to do this is because I believe that Twitter and whatever comes next is so dramatically different than anything before, you need to begin watching and learning. If you start paying attention now, as Twitter evolves you will have an historical perspective on what’s transpired, to appreciate and capitalize on where things are going.

A logical question would be…who should I follow? The answer would be anyone or any organization that interests you. For example, people who are leaders in your industry, places that you like to travel to, sports or sporting teams that you follow, restaurants you like, etc.

It almost doesn’t matter who you follow, because you can modify the list of people / organizations at any time. The point is that by dipping your toe in the water, long before you even think about actually tweeting yourself, that you should start watching how Twitter works. The potential uses of this real time publishing for businesses appear to be limitless and I think it will become an integral dimension of your marketing efforts in the not too distant future.

On April 21, 2010 Facebook expanded its presence across the web through the Open Graph protocol. This Open Graph enables any website to be a part of Facebook’s social environment without having a Facebook company page.  So if you are a business owner and don’t currently have a Facebook company page, but want to have a presence on Facebook, you can now do just that. 

You may have recently seen Recommend or Like buttons on some website’s pages.  With these buttons, users can easily share the website’s page with their friends on Facebook.  Below are examples of these buttons and how they may look:

You may see some sites that have these buttons with a bit more personalization. For example, it may show how many of your friends Like or Recommend the same content (when you are logged into Facebook) while viewing the page. If you are not logged into Facebook, you will simply see the number of people who Like or Recommended the page. You can choose whether you want to have Like or Recommend text within the button, but these are often used for different types of content.  For example, you wouldn’t really want to “like” an article about a natural disaster, but you may choose to recommend that article instead.

When someone Likes or Recommends a page, that page is pushed to the user’s Facebook news feed allowing their friends to see, and a link will be included back to the original page. In addition, your content can be included within the search results on Facebook and in user profiles. As the administrator or “admin” of the page, you will have access to Facebook’s new Insights for Your Domain.  These new insights will provide you with detailed information about how users share and interact with your content.

So how do you get your website’ to be part of Facebook? First you need to make sure that you tell Facebook specific information about your page. This is done by adding tags to your pages, following Facebook’s Open Graph protocol.  The buttons will need to be installed on the page as well.

Facebook has and will continue to make changes that will further enhance the capabilities for marketers.  This is just one step toward integrating any type of web content into Facebook and making Facebook more prominent throughout the entire web.