Top 10 Social Media Blogs: The 2012 Winners!
Are you looking for some good blogs to read? Look no further!
Our third-annual social media blog contest generated nearly 600 nominations (almost twice as many as last year’s contest).
Our panel of social media experts carefully reviewed the nominees and finalists, analyzing the quality of their content, the frequency of posts and reader involvement (among other things).
With that in mind, here are ten blogs that need to be at the top of your reading list. 
Google+ Updates: This Week in Social Media
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
Google+ Allows Nicknames: Over the next week, Google+ will provide “support for alternate names—be they nicknames, birth names, or names in another script—alongside your common name. This name will show up on your Google+ profile and in the hovercards which appear over your name.”
To add an alternate name, go to your Google+ profile, click Edit Profile, select your name and click on “More options.”
3 New Apps to Manage Your Social Networks
Are you looking for a better way to manage all of your social accounts?
With the growing number of social networks, it can be a pain to keep on top of them all.
Below I’ve highlighted three tools to help you manage your various social networking accounts from one neat dashboard.
#1: Alternion
Just recently out of private beta testing, Alternion packs a punch with the number of networks and social profiles you can manage.
Each profile or account is added by logging into the original site and allowing Alternion to access your account.
Facebook App Integration: This Week in Social Media
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
Facebook Announces Tight Integration of 60 Apps to Timeline, More on the Way: Facebook now allows developers a tighter integration with Facebook’s Timeline. “More than 60 apps are immediately going live, including such favorites as Pinterest, eBay, Foodspotting, Airbnb and Foursquare.”
Check out the new apps to add to your Facebook Timeline.
Can Social Media Actually Make You Money?
If you’ve ever asked the question, “Can I make money with social media?“, you might have heard a variety of answers such as, “No!”, “Maybe” or “It depends.”
Rarely (if at all) have you heard the confident and unwavering response, “Yes, you can!”
In their book, How to Make Money with Social Media—An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business, Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah explain that there’s a big difference between people who make money with social media and people who don’t.
9 Small Business Social Media Success Stories
Are you curious what small businesses are doing to achieve success with social media marketing? Look no further.
This article highlights nine small businesses of various sizes and industries that have transformed their online presence with innovative social media marketing practices.
You’re guaranteed to find inspiration for your social media marketing efforts here.
These tactics will work for just about any business—from solopreneur to multi-employee manufacturer. So let’s dive in!
3 Successful Google+ Pages and Why They Work
Have you created a Google+ page for your business? In this article I’ll show you what three top pages are doing.
Still in its infancy, Google+ has become a very hot topic.
Amid concern that this “new kid on the block” couldn’t compete in a social media landscape owned by Facebook, some have opted to dismiss the platform entirely.
While Google+ and Google+ business pages are still in the early stages, there is growing evidence that they’re here to stay.
Google Search Adds Google+: This Week in Social Media
Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What’s New This Week?
Google Search Integrates Google+: Google transforms “into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships,” and introduces three new features: personal results, profiles in search and people and pages. This means that your Google search results will be even more personalized, thanks to information shared on Google+.
Win Free Tickets to Small Biz Success Summit 2012
**UPDATE: We have announced our two winners. The winner of the comment/blog portion of the contest, receiving two tickets to Small Biz Success Summit is Paulette Salvia, read her comment here.
The winner of the Twitter contest is Ali Goldfield. Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest. We look forward to seeing you all at the Summit.**
Want to win a free ticket to the largest online social media marketing event for small businesses?
Social Media Examiner has secured some of the top names in the industry to bring you Small Biz Success Summit.
And we’ve come up with a fun way to get you involved.
First, what is this event?
Small Biz Success Summit 2012 is a large online conference dedicated to helping small businesses master social media marketing.
More than 800 small businesses have already signed up—people just like you.
Finalists: Top 10 Social Media Blogs 2012
We received over 570 nominations for our third-annual Top 10 Social Media Blogs contest (the blogosphere’s biggest contest for social media blogs).
The list of 20 finalists is pretty impressive! Take a look for yourself below.
The Judges: Our judges include Andy Sernovitz (author, Word of Mouth Marketing & CEO, SocialMedia.org), Rick Calvert (CEO, BlogWorld) and Michael Stelzner (CEO, Social Media Examiner & author, Launch). They are currently finishing up their reviews of these sites.
Here are the finalists (in alphabetical order):
