How to Gain Competitive Insight With Social Media
Are you looking for that competitive edge? Want to know what your peers are up to?
Using social media to research competitors can provide useful information for any business looking to create a smart strategy. Learning about your competitors’ activities can give you insight into what works and what doesn’t.
The beauty of social media is that there’s a ton of information about your competitors that is public. And not only is their strategy public, but the reaction to that strategy is public as well. Let’s take a look at some of the things you can learn about your competitors through different social networks, search engines and other outlets. 
This Week in Social Media: The News You Need to Know
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 User Profiles Change: The new Facebook design collects more information from users (i.e., employer, languages, and location). This should make it easier to use Facebook for business networking. To help you implement these changes, you should read this article.
You now have to navigate through the sidebar to see the bio information in this new layout.
How to Control Your Privacy With Foursquare and Other Geoloaction Services
Geolocation is one of the hottest trends in social networking today. Users enjoy connecting with friends at nearby locations. Businesses are beginning to take note of the opportunity to tie their brick-and-mortar locations to their online marketing.
In addition to the main local social networking applications—Foursquare and Gowalla—Google, Facebook and Twitter have added geolocation features to their services to tap into this trend.
As users provide more information about their location, serious privacy implications are beginning to surface. For instance, a Webroot study released in July 2010 found that more than half of survey respondents who used geolocation services were worried their privacy was at risk.
How to Use Facebook and Twitter to Drive Traffic to Your Retail Shop
I’m always surprised at how few retail spaces take advantage of Twitter and Facebook (yes, there are exceptions). The costs are low, the risks are manageable and your customers are already using the platforms.
By engaging customers “where they live,” you can increase the foot traffic to your shop and grow your business.
Here are 5 steps to grow your retail business using Facebook and Twitter.
The Video Guide to Facebook Places for Businesses
In this episode of Social Media Examiner TV, Mari Smith examines Facebook Places. If you operate a local business, you’ve likely heard all the buzz about Facebook Places. As a user, you also might be concerned about privacy.
This video is designed to help you understand what Facebook Places could mean for your business. It also examines privacy concerns for users. At the end of the show, Mari shares a hot Facebook marketing tip you won’t want to miss.
Share your feedback, see the show notes and discover how you can be part of a future show below!
Introducing Social Media Examiner TV
Welcome to the pilot episode of Social Media Examiner TV with our host Mari Smith!
In this episode, Mari reviews Flipboard—a hot new way to consume social media news from your Facebook and Twitter contacts—along with her thoughts on Facebook’s 500 million users and a look at how Foursquare could help your business.
Share your feedback, see the show notes and discover how you can be part of a future show below!
12 Ways to Market Your Event With Social Media
Whether you’re planning a real-world event (like a conference, tweetup or political gathering) or a virtual event (like a webinar or teleclass), social media can be an inexpensive, cost-effective way to build buzz, fill seats, and turn a one-off gathering into a recurring event.
The trick is to know which social media tools to use and when to use them. This article contains 12 useful social media tips designed to help your events shine.
