Want to know why this is wise and how to do it? Keep reading…

Going Beyond the Customer

Many marketers have a relentless focus on a single dimension of social interaction: the brand-consumer relationship.

Thinking that the “social” in social media marketing is all about your relationship with consumers is constraining.

Rethinking the role of other relationships can dramatically improve the effectiveness of those very marketing efforts designed to engage your target customers.

While social channels facilitate new ways of tapping into “partners” and as the line between personal and professional relationships has blurred, it is important to view business relations in a new—and yes, more social—light.

The concept of “partner marketing” is not new. Traditional examples could be the independent mechanic being paid to put a Shell logo on her garage or the local hardware store receiving advertising dollars from Kohler for a yellow pages ad mentioning that they are an “authorized Kohler distributor.”

In this ad Southern Gulf Electric uses the Kohler brand to bolster its credibility.

When marketing shifted online, the value in partner marketing came largely from links on a partner website. Social media has created new opportunities for partner marketing and at the same time lowered barriers to forging partnerships, small and large, formal and informal.

Social Partnering Strategies

Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company or a small business, you can partner to increase the return on your social media marketing investment. Here are some ways in which you may be able involve partners in your social media programs:

• Co-brand with a partner to raise the profile of your campaign. You can provide additional exposure for the partner brand while they lend their brand equity to your marketing. If you have a promotional tab on your Facebook page, for example, consider incorporating partners into the design and messaging.
• Get partners to donate prizes for a contest or giveaway. This is often one of the first suggestions I make to our clients who are running promotions with prizes. Partners can provide access to prizes you might not otherwise be able to offer, both material and experiential. And often, companies have the ability to provide “in-kind” sponsorship (i.e., offering goods or services) when cash budgets are limited, so get creative.

This contest, developed by a client using the Strutta platform, is a good example of how to bring partners into your campaign.

In the Mezzetta example above, multiple partners contributed prizes and in return received prominent exposure on the online contest. This reduced the cost to Mezzetta while providing a “halo effect” for all those associated with the campaign.

It transformed the promotion from simply “create a Mezzetta pizza” to “create a Mezzetta pizza, watch the film ZooKeeper and win a trip to Italy courtesy of Delta.”

This gives the appearance of being a much larger, integrated marketing program in the eyes of the consumer.

While bringing partners into your campaign is valuable in its own right, don’t stop there…

Tap into partners’ social channels to amplify your message. Even if you don’t have a comprehensive partner marketing plan in place, ask partners to retweet (it helps if you give them an @ mention) or to cross-post on Facebook to give your communications an extra boost.

If you have an even deeper relationship, perhaps you can get mentioned in a blog post or included in an email newsletter. But don’t rely on serendipity when it comes to partners helping to spread the word. While you may be concerned about keeping communication genuine, there is nothing wrong with asking someone to share on your behalf.

While the above is a high-profile example, this type of co-marketing on social channels can greatly benefit small businesses that can combine forces to increase their reach.

So What Makes a Partner a Partner?

You might be wondering what differentiates a partner from merely a casual connection. Or where you should draw the distinction between a friend and a business contact. The answer: Don’t bother.

Nurture your connections to create partnerships. Image source: iStockPhoto.

Social channels have begun to render these types of distinctions a thing of the past. You can have relationships with thousands of people through Twitter with whom you may never exchange more than 140 characters. You can connect with someone through LinkedIn and make an important introduction without ever speaking face-to-face. When properly nurtured, any of these connections can become “partners.”

I’ve used the term “partner” in this article to encompass everything from a fully integrated co-marketing relationship to a more casual request to share a tweet or a post. One of the great things about social channels like Twitter and Facebook is that they make low-investment partnerships much easier.

While some companies are rightfully protective of what they publish, it’s still a lot easier to get mentioned in a tweet than it is to orchestrate a co-branded advertising campaign.

I can anticipate the comments already, so let me acknowledge that not all relationships are created equal. Just because it has become easier to connect online does not necessarily mean that our digital relationships are equivalent to those built up over years of personal interaction. And I certainly don’t want to imply that there should be any undue expectation put on a relationship that is based on nothing more than the act of following someone on a social network.

At the same time, I know firsthand that social media has enabled me to make connections with people I most likely never would have met in the traditional offline world. Or it certainly would have taken a lot more to make that connection. However, making a connection is only the first step. Building a relationship, no matter what the medium, still requires genuine effort. Here again, social media has facilitated a regular opportunity to interact, even if not on a deep level, and thus to build rapport.

Whether online or off, relationships and the ability to make the most of them rely on the principle of social capital. It has just become much easier to build social capital online (i.e., “Likes” or followers) and to use those resources to facilitate partnerships. Yet when it comes to approaching a potential partner or asking a favor, common etiquette and principles of reciprocity still apply.

In summary:

• Use social channels to create connections you might not otherwise be able to make.
• Use those same tools to develop relationships with an equal level of thoughtfulness you would put into a face-to-face interaction.
• Don’t assume that those in your social network will automatically support your marketing efforts.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for support, assuming you have a genuine relationship. Ask nicely and perhaps offer something in return.
• Wherever possible, look for opportunities to involve partners more deeply in your social media campaigns.

What do you think? What’s your business doing to improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

All photos from iStockPhoto.

You’ve also seen her outstanding articles on Social Media Examiner pretty much since our inception, and she’s also the anchor of Social Media Examiner TV.

She now has a brand-new hot book out called, The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, and Profitable Network Using the Social Web.

Catch the full interview (audio) at the end of this article.

Mike: Your new book is called The New Relationship Marketing, and I want to key in on the word “new.” What’s new about relationship marketing?

Mari: Well, first of all, the phrase relationship marketing was coined way back in the ’80s by a professor, and I have for 10 years—long before Facebook was even on the map—called myself a “relationship marketing specialist.” And I love that term because to me it transcends the medium. It’s all about people doing business with people.

What’s new is the social networking aspect and the fact that business is much more personal now. Everything is out in the open with the advent and popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

People are being much more open. Consumers are sharing vast amounts of information about themselves online, and as a savvy marketer, you can use that in creative and respectful ways to actually reach out and forge new relationships and deepen existing ones. Marketers can actually use online social technologies to create new relationships with prospects, customers and potential business partners.

Let me give you a couple of examples.

Using information that people are sharing openly and publicly about themselves, a friend of mine has a key contact with whom he really wants to do business. He looks at that person’s Facebook profile and finds out what some of his favorite movies are. Then he does a little bit of research, and he’ll go onto eBay and find a piece of a movie set from that particular person’s favorite movie, for example, and he sends it to him. He told me that he’s gotten so much business from it. It blows people away.

Here’s another quick example of utilizing online social technologies. One time I was flying up to Seattle from San Diego. My flight was at noon and I showed up an hour early. I got to the desk—I was flying Alaska Airlines—and they looked at me and said, “Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Ms. Smith, your flight has been delayed five hours.” I said, “What?! The flight is only three hours long!”

I’m not the type of person to post anything negative or derogatory. I’m not going to complain about a brand publicly like that, but I wanted to express that I wasn’t terribly happy. As it happened, I had forgotten to bring my iPhone charger with me, so I just put a little tweet out @AlaskaAir indicating I forgot my charger and: “Oh, bummer about the five-hour delay.” I didn’t think anything of it.

I go off to a quiet spot in the San Diego Airport and I begin to do some work on my computer. I’ve got Internet. I’m okay. I’m plugged in, I’m wired in—I can always do stuff. Forty-five minutes later, I hear this voice, “Hello there. Excuse me, are you Mari Smith? We have an iPhone charger for you.” I was absolutely gobsmacked!

Alaska Airline’s headquarters are up in Seattle, and their PR department spotted the tweet, called down to San Diego and said, “Hey, there’s this lady…” and they described me. “Look her up. She needs an iPhone charger.”

They really went the extra mile, and to me this is what the new relationship marketing is. You can take publicly available information to build a relationship with a prospect or existing customer. I will now go out of my way to fly Alaska Airlines because of their emphasis on really caring.

It didn’t stop there. They have sent me vouchers in the mail for Internet access on their planes and things like that.

Mike: That’s pretty cool. That reminds me of Peter Shankman from Help a Reporter Out. He recently tweeted Morton’s Steakhouse and said something like, “Landing at Newark Airport in five hours. I’d love a 21-ounce porterhouse.” He was just kidding, but when he got off the airplane and he was going over to the luggage claim, there was a guy in a tuxedo with a bag, and inside the bag was a 21-ounce porterhouse steak. Can you believe that? The guy said, “We got your tweet.”

I would imagine one of the take-home points here is that it doesn’t really matter what kind of business you’re in—on the business side of things, you can be watching for these opportunities to make a difference.

Can you share one or two of the softer skills that you think marketers need to develop in order to try to build relationships with “strangers” via new media?

Mari: The first skill, without a shadow of a doubt, is empathy.

I think there’s still a lot of fear around embracing new media: fear of exposure, fear of it being all-consuming and fear of privacy concerns. But also, there’s the technology fear of knowing what button to press. Those are technical. Those are more hard skills: “When I click ‘send,’ what happens?”

But underneath it all, there are also the soft skills. Soft skills are like people skills. People skills have never been more important than now because things can be taken out of context and misconstrued. You can say something in jest and someone takes it seriously, and so forth.

But the empathy part, especially, on Twitter where the messages are limited to 140 characters, it’s really easy to take things out of context. You have to train yourself and build that muscle to read between the lines and read what’s not being said.

Mike: Can you give us an example of a situation you’ve been in or that you’ve heard about where empathy helped build a relationship in a place that it didn’t seem plausible?

Mari: Off the top of my head, an example comes to mind which may be not quite in line with what you’re asking. But one time, somebody decided to put up a big blog post and start a meme with a hashtag. The hashtag was just #Iloveyou. This guy was really imploring people, whether they were a professional or a business or an individual, to just really go with this hashtag #Iloveyou.

For this one girl, it was literally the catalyst she needed to make this profound shift in her life. She read this blog post, she got caught up in the meme, and she really, really felt connected with people when she hadn’t been before.

And she shared that nine years before, her mother had died, and they were on bad terms. Her parting words were rather harsh, and she just kind of got shut down. She closed down her heart and didn’t really want to be friends with people. She saw this meme go by and it made such a profound difference to her that she was able to open up and share more with people.

Let me give you another example on a grander scale. Recently, there have been a lot of hurricanes. Sometimes individuals and brands try to capitalize on a situation for commercial gain, and it ends up being devoid of empathy.

Recently someone had posted an image trying to build up their presence on Facebook. They were saying, “Click ‘Like’ to wish everyone safety during the hurricane.” Well, of course, they got all these likes. It was weird.

Somebody drew it to my attention and said, “What are your thoughts on this, Mari? Don’t you think it would have been better to say something like, ‘Our thoughts and prayers go to anyone affected by the hurricane’?”

Empathy, to me, is like listening between the lines, putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. This girl losing her mom and the “I love you” meme, putting myself in her shoes was like, “Wow, that was really brave of her.” She just put herself out there. She wrote up this big blog post that was completely transparent and it let people in.

To me, a large part of this relationship marketing concept is allowing yourself to be a little bit vulnerable and let people in. They naturally empathize with you, in fact.

Mike: Let’s talk about maybe one other soft skill that you think marketers need to develop.

Mari: I know that this one will resonate with you, Mike. It’s basically giving with no agenda. It’s helping people just because you can if you see a question on Facebook or on Twitter.

We’re talking a lot about online, and really, relationship marketing transcends and goes offline as well, but it’s basically giving with no agenda. It’s helping; it’s building what I call “social equity.”

When you do that, you’re building this grand social capital, and what comes back to you is that someone in that grand scheme will do business with you. It may not be the person that you directly helped initially, but if you keep contributing and giving with full intent of just being a genuine, caring person, that totally comes across.

It’s a fine line. I see people all the time who really genuinely believe that they’re giving with no agenda, but you can feel it. There’s a great line in the book Tribes, by Seth Godin. He says that people can “smell the agenda of a leader.” I think we can smell the agenda of anybody.

Mike: “Give to get” is this thing that so many marketers have been trained to do. “If you give something, you’ll get something in return.” I don’t think that’s a good reason for us to give.

I think when you just give in a genuine way, people know it and it’s an expression of care for them. It is an expression of love for your customers and the end result can be something positive.

I’ll share a brief little story. There was a lady who had to ask for a refund from one of our events. I felt really sad for her situation, and I said, “I’ll give you your money back and you can still attend.” She was blown away by that, and she ended up attending another of my events.

She sends me emails all the time, saying, “You’ve really taken great care of me in the past. You don’t know how much it made a difference to me.” So these kinds of things can be very rewarding.

Mari: For the longest time, my motto has been “Relationships first, business second.” And if you focus on building those quality, really connected, genuine, caring relationships, what happens is the business naturally follows.

But I think people tend to get a little fearful. They think that they have to focus on only the business and hopefully the relationships will follow, but you have to get it the other way around.

Mike: So how do you manage it all?

Mari: I usually see that social presence has two primary components and they both start with “C”—there’s “content” and there’s “connection.”

The content part is somewhat easy to systematize, even to outsource and delegate. Create a content calendar so you can decide ahead of time what you’re going to post on your various social profiles. You can have someone on your team who helps with that and goes out and looks for content to curate.

You can use pre-scheduling platforms. I’m a huge fan of HootSuite. I use it every single day for Twitter in particular. There are these studies out there where people are talking about, “You should be tweeting 20 times a day for optimal results,” and that’s pretty much almost once an hour, day and night. I think that’s far too much.

The thing is consistency. Less is more. At the end of the day, you want to be the voice that’s remembered, not just heard. So you send three to five really helpful, useful resources in quality posts, something profound—an inspirational quote or whatever it might be—both consistently and daily, which you can do with the scheduling.

Use rigorous time management, using a stopwatch if you have to or having a friend call you, if you find you do get drawn in and consumed. I struggle with this one on a regular basis, but I manage somehow to do it.

The content can be planned and scheduled. What ends up happening in the “connection” aspect—even if you don’t get around to replying to everything out there that people are saying to you or about you—if you reply to as much as you can, you will give the appearance of somebody who is conversational, connected and caring.

That’s what’s happened to me, in fact. Some people will say that about me. “Mari doesn’t get around to 100% of her @replies on any given day, but we know that she does her best to try to get to them all.” And people feel valued.

Mike: You talked about how you can schedule things, and I think you alluded earlier to the fact that it’s helpful to have people who can help you. In your book, you talk about the importance of developing a support team. Can you briefly explain why this is important and why people should do something like this?

Mari: Even if you’re a sole proprietor or solopreneur, at some level, you’ve got people supporting you. I really challenge people to think bigger, to dream bigger. If you have a talent or gift to bring to the world, if you surround yourself with really, really competent people, this will free you up to do more of what you’re good at.

I think that when you have terrific team members, that really can augment what you’re providing out there. It can help you have stellar customer service.

There’s a saying around hiring: “Hire slow, fire fast.”

I talk a lot in the book about values, and I use Zappos as an example. Tony Hsieh has 10 core values for the company. Out of that emerges this culture. I think that any company—I don’t care what size you are, small, medium or large—when you embody a really powerful value-driven culture, that comes out. It automatically permeates all your social interactions. Zappos really empowers their hundreds of staff to be discerning on their social profiles.

I think at any given time, you should know who’s on your team and what kind of stuff they’re putting out there. Are they representing you well? You don’t want to look like a broken-down store with half-baked profiles out there.

Mike: In your book, you talk about different circles of relationships with people. You talk about intimates, your friends, your key contacts, your acquaintances and the community at large. I want you to identify which of these groups are the ones we should focus on when it comes to relationship marketing.

Mari: Absolutely key contacts. It’s not always about the numbers. It’s not to go and just jam up your Rolodex with every top influencer and key contact that you can. If you get three to five stellar contacts who are aligned with your values and they’re willing to create a win-win venture, alliance or strategic partnership, that can be extremely lucrative for both parties.

In addition, you can expand beyond that three to five to have maybe 15 to 20 key contacts from whom you can easily call in favors. These would be people who would have a large following on any of the different social networks.

They might have a large email base and things like that, and they would support you in a heartbeat. If you message them directly and ask them if they could retweet something for you, absolutely, of course they would do it for you. They would want to be part of something that you’re part of.

So really look to see whom you can add to that key contacts circle and really nurture them using some of these relationship-building techniques we’re talking about.

Mike: This is kind of a crazy question, but I know it’s the one everybody wants me to ask: “How do I become the center of influence in my network?” I ask this carefully because I know that sometimes being the center of influence has pros and cons. But I think really where I’m going with this question is: how can I be someone important and perceived to be important to those within my network?

Mari: In essence, I really like to treat everyone as equals. I will interact with someone exactly the same whether they have 10 followers or 10,000 followers or a million followers. It’s all people to me, and I just like to treat everyone as equals.

Then also in regard to influence, I think we have it in our brains and perceptions that you need a massive audience to be an influencer. Ultimately, we all influence. In some way, shape or form, we have an environment around us filled with people whom we influence.

Essentially, you earn trust—and this will be music to your ears, Mike—by becoming a top-quality content provider. People realize they can come to you. They know you’re like a breath of fresh air because when they’re looking for a certain answer, they’re coming to you. You can do that even through curating other people’s content and having this attitude—as we’ve been saying throughout our chat here today—of being someone who’s kind, inclusive and generous.

And it’s also that you’re focused. I see a lot of people who are very scattered. They’re an expert in this one day and an expert in that tomorrow. But if you’re really focused, which I like to say stands for “follow one course until successful,” and you become this really kind person who’s consistently focused and providing great content, people are just naturally drawn to you.

Also, it’s expressing an opinion about the content that you’re sharing, not just necessarily retweeting everybody, but actually saying what it means to you.

Mike: This has been really spectacular stuff, Mari. I’m going to now ask you a question that might be difficult for you to answer. If there was such a thing as a “Mari reset button”—if you had to start all over from scratch and you didn’t have all the stuff that you have today except for the knowledge that you’ve gained, what would you do differently?

Mari: You know, I would absolutely think way, way bigger. If I was even to reset maybe 10 years ago, I would take far bigger risks, and I would step it up. I would live a life in alignment with my truth, my dream in my heart, my vision, my power and my light far sooner.

It took me a long time to get to the point that I’m at now. I joke about being an “overnight success” 10 years in the making.

Mike: That’s pretty quick by a lot of standards.

Mari: That’s true.

Mike: Well, you’ve done a really spectacular job. I’m very excited about your new book. And the new book, once again, is called The New Relationship Marketing: How to Build a Large, Loyal, and Profitable Network Using the Social Web.

Mari, where can people learn more about you and your book?

Mari: My main website is www.MariSmith.com, but I do want to direct everyone to the book site, which is www.RelationshipMarketingBook.com.

Mike: Mari, I really appreciate your time today and I wish you the best with the new book.

Mari: Thank you. It’s been a delight.

Listen to our complete extended interview below to hear more about Mari’s nine-step program for building a loyal network.

Click here to download MP3.

What did you think of Mari’s step-by-step plan? Leave your comments in the box below.

According to a recent study by Flurry, consumers spent 81 minutes per day using mobile apps, compared to 74 minutes of web surfing. Here’s where it gets even more interesting. Social networking is one of two categories that dominate mobile app usage with 32% and games are responsible for 47%.

In Search of Apps

As a social media marketer, you’ll likely want to find apps that will help you keep up with social networking and stay productive while on the go. Many of us hear about apps from friends and colleagues, from articles we read, from searching around on Apple’s App Store to see what’s new and through dedicated search engines such as Chomp.

Apps to help manage your time, projects and clients.

If the app is free or relatively inexpensive, then chances are we may be willing to give it a whirl. But with 500,000 apps on the App Store in numerous categories and apps literally being released every day, it’s hard to stay on top of them.

While Apple’s campaign “There’s an app for that” makes many of us now associate the topic of mobile apps with Apple, the reality is that companies such as Android, Nokia, Blackberry, and Palm all sell apps, too.

In this article, I’m going to focus on apps that are compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (iOS) because those are the devices I’m most familiar with and could access for the purpose of testing.

Useful Apps List

The apps listed below were recommended by a number of businesspeople through a query I posted on HARO, others that people had been talking about in blog posts, on Quora and social networking sites. The apps range in price; many are free and the most expensive one listed is $9.99.

Because new apps are literally released on a daily basis, it’s nearly impossible for this to be a conclusive list. But hopefully it’ll give you ideas about some apps you’d like to try. I hope you’ll take a few moments at the end to share a few of your favorites, too.

Here’s the list in alphabetical order:

#1: Analytics App

Analytics App consists of 55 reports, showing data up to 110 rows. You can check your analytics on the go. Never be away from your data again!

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#2: Battery Pro

Battery Pro monitors what your battery level is over a period of time and calculates the time remaining to empty or full.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#3: Check It!

Driven by checklists? Check It! claims to be “The simplest checklist ever!” It’ll help you get some control over all the to-do’s in your life.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#4: Chomp

Chomp is a search engine that finds the iPhone (and Android) apps you want. Its proprietary algorithm learns the functions and topics of apps, so you can search based on what apps do.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.

#5: Documents to Go

DocsToGo lets you edit, create and view Word and Excel files (including Office 2007/2008/2010); view PowerPoint, PDF, iWork and other files; send and receive attachments using the device’s built-in mail app (iPad/iPhone 4/iOS 4); and includes a desktop app (Win and Mac) with two-way file sync (WIFI required to sync).

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later.

#6: Dragon Dictation

Dragon Dictation is an easy-to-use voice transcription application powered by Dragon^® NaturallySpeaking^® that allows you to easily speak and instantly converts your voice to text messages.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#7: Dropbox

Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring all your photos, docs and videos anywhere. After you install on your computer, any file you save to your Dropbox will automatically save to all your computers, your iPhone and iPad, and even the Dropbox website! With the Dropbox app, you can take everything that matters to you on the go.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.

#8: Evernote

Evernote turns the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad into an extension of your brain, helping you remember anything and everything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as it instantly synchronizes from your iPhone to your Mac or Windows desktop.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#9: Facebook

Facebook for iPhone makes it easy to stay connected and share information with friends. Use your iPhone to start a conversation with Facebook Chat, check your friends’ latest photos, status updates, look up a phone number or upload your own mobile photos to Facebook while on the go.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#10: Flickr

Share your photos. Watch the world. Flickr^® for the iPhone enables photo sharing on the go—from your phone to the world.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#11: Flipboard

Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through the news, photos, videos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, Flickr and Instagram. See your social media in a magazine layout that’s easy to scan and fun to read.

Catch up on the latest stories, videos and posts from popular publications and people such as National Geographic, The New Yorker, Wired, Rolling Stone, Oprah, Forbes, Robert Scoble, and Brain Pickings’ Maria Popova. Share articles and photos, comment on posts and like or favorite anything. Customize your Flipboard with sections created from your favorite news, people, blogs and topics.

Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later.

#12: Google Search

Get the most advanced Google search experience for your iPhone, now with Google Goggles, Voice Search and My Location.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#13: HomeBase

HomeBase is your social media “megaphone.” You can blast your announcements and even add links and pictures to your messages, to all your social media outlets. It brings social media marketing to a whole new level.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#14: HootSuite for Twitter

Compose and converse on the go. HootSuite for iOS is the perfect social media tool for Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. Join the conversation from anywhere with HootSuite for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Simple, elegant and powerful, HootSuite allows you to send and schedule Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare updates, track click stats and set up tracking columns to monitor keywords, #hashtags and lists.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later.

#15: Instagram

With Instagram you can pick from one of several gorgeous filtered effects or tilt-shift blur to breathe a new life into your mobile photos. Transform everyday moments into works of art you’ll want to share with friends and family.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.2 or later.

#16: Instapaper

With Instapaper you can save web pages for later offline reading, optimized for readability on your iPhone or iPod Touch’s screen. Great for long articles and blog posts that you find during the day and would like to read, but don’t have the time when you find them. Save with Instapaper and then read later when you’re commuting, in a meeting or waiting in line.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.

#17: Kindle

The Kindle app gives users the ability to read Kindle books on a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. You’ll have access to over 950,000 books in the Kindle Store, including bestsellers and new releases. Amazon Whispersync automatically syncs your last page read, bookmarks, notes and highlights across devices (including Kindle), so you can pick up where you left off on another device.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#18: LastPass

LastPass Tab Browser combines a full-featured tab browser for the iPad with LastPass integration allowing you to use your existing accounts or create new ones with ease. LastPass is the last password you’ll have to remember. It provides a safe and convenient method of storing your passwords while ensuring you can access them on any device anywhere. A form filler is also provided that allows you to easily shop directly from your iPad!

Compatible with iPad. Requires iOS 3.2 or later.

#19: LinkedIn

LinkedIn for iPhone puts your professional network just a touch away. Walk into any interview or client meeting with the ability to look up the details and connect with over 100 million professionals worldwide. Get the latest updates and messages from your network and keep them up-to-date with your status in real time.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#20: LiveProfile

LiveProfile helps you stay connected with friends in real time. LiveProfile is the crazy fast, completely free, cross-platform messenger for iPhone, Blackberry and Android smartphones. Send messages, photos, videos, post status updates, customize your profile, set your profile picture and much more!

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#21: Mashable

The official Mashable iPhone/iPod Touch application delivers the latest coverage from Mashable.com. Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on web 2.0 and social media news.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#22: NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire is an RSS reader for iPhone—you can read news from the millions of blogs and sites that publish RSS feeds. You can star items or send them to Instapaper to save them for later. You can email articles or post links to Twitter to share with friends.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later.

#23: Pandora Radio

Pandora Radio is your own free personalized radio now available to stream background music on your iPhone or iPad. Just start with the name of one of your favorite artists, songs or classical composers and Pandora will create a “station” that plays their music and more music like it.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#24: PeakMeetings

Make good meetings great—or bad meetings suck less—with this powerful tool for capturing and organizing your thinking, and making meetings more efficient and effective. Peak Meetings™ is simple to use, and perfect for grabbing your thoughts in those moments when ideas hit you. With 7 different meeting types to choose from, you can focus your thoughts and plans to exactly what you’re trying to achieve.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.2 or later.

#25: PhotoRocket

PhotoRocket simplifies the task of sharing lots of photos simultaneously to people and sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Even though it’s simple, it also offers extra options such as captions and automatic online backup.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#26: PitchEngine

Pitch™ is the official mobile app of PitchEngine, a social platform that enables businesses and organizations to get the word out.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#27: Posterous

Posterous is the easiest way to share stories, photos and videos with the people you care about most. You can either post content to your public website or selectively share to a private group.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#28: Q & A: Quora

Social Questions will let you access and browse the Quora mobile website with cool shortcuts and fast navigation (faster than Safari mobile).

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#29: Quick Voice Recorder

QuickVoice is a full-featured iPhone/iPad voice recorder. Record ideas, voice memos, voice email, dictation, lists, meetings, classes or entire lectures! For professional, educational and personal use.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.

#30: Skype

Call, video call and instant message anyone else on Skype for free with Skype for your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#31: Snaptell

Use this app while shopping in a store to quickly find more information, compare prices, buy the product or to remember to look at the product later. Snap a picture of the cover of any book, DVD, CD or video game and within seconds get a rating, description and links to Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, IMDb, Barnes & Noble and more.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.

#32: SocialMedia

#SocialMedia hosts a weekly Twitter event on Tuesdays that brings together social media professionals from around the world. Each week a new moderator hosts the event and drives a unique discussion that aims to further the advancement of social media in business. The hashtagsocialmedia.com iPhone app allows people to follow the filtered discussion from anywhere.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#33: Spout

Instead of spending hours scouring the web, simply “turn on the Spout,” sit back and enjoy a steady stream of information specifically meant for you! Relax as a veritable flood of news, messages, tweets and comments pour forth from your Facebook, Twitter or Google Reader (RSS) feeds.

Words spill onto your device, swirling, twisting and scrolling across your screen, pooling in the center momentarily, like a leaf on a pond, before being whisked away as new social messages pour in.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#34: Toodledo

Toodledo is a powerful task and note manager for the iPhone and iPad. It will help organize your to-do list and notes and make you more productive. You can use Toodledo as a stand-alone application, or you can have it seamlessly synchronize your lists with Toodledo.com, one of the most popular online task managers.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later.

#35: Tumblr

With Tumblr you can post anything: share photos, video, audio, quotes, links and text. Multiple blogs: seamlessly manage all of your blogs. Advanced controls: save drafts, queue posts, customize tweets and more! Address book: find people to follow from your iPhone’s address book. Messages: view and reply to messages.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#36: TweetDeck

TweetDeck allows you to monitor, manage and engage in your social world by bringing together your Twitter and Facebook feeds in a powerful and flexible column-based dashboard.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#37: Twitter

Follow your interests: instant updates from your friends, industry experts, favorite celebrities and what’s happening around the world. Get short bursts of timely information on the official Twitter app for iPhone.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.

#38: Twitterrific for Twitter

Now a universal app for both iPad and iPhone, Twitterrific is the friendly, award-winning Twitter client that’s beautiful to look at, easy to use and full of elegant features. Effortlessly read and compose tweets, search Twitter.com, filter message types and much more.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#39: Vignature

Vignature allows you to sign a PDF document online, anywhere, anytime. It’s fast, easy and secure.

Compatible with iPhone 4, iPod Touch (4th generation), iPad 2 Wi-Fi, and iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#40: Wired PR Works

Wired PR Works is your always-on PR and social media marketing mobile app. Access tips, ideas and strategies to grow business, build brands, increase influence and connect with communities with social media, marketing and PR. Listed on Alltop and AdAge Power 150. Stay updated with conference coverage, digital public relations guides and new media marketing tactics for entrepreneurs, small businesses and non-profits.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#41: WordPress

It’s easy to manage your WordPress blog or site from your iOS device. With WordPress for iOS, you can moderate comments, create or edit posts and pages, and add images or videos with ease. All you need is a WordPress.com blog or a self-hosted WordPress.org site running 2.9.2 or higher.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1.3 or later.

#42: WorldTube

The only app in the App Store to allow you to check/watch/share the current top videos by countries in 16 categories. Explore what the world is watching right now.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

#43: Xmarks

View bookmarks and open tabs from your favorite browser right on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Simply download the Xmarks client from xmarks.com to your desktop or laptop computer. Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari for Mac are supported.

Once your bookmarks (and optional open tabs) are synchronized to Xmarks, you can use Xmarks for iPhone to view them while on the go!

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

#44: Zinio Magazine Newsstand & Reader

With this app, you can choose from digital magazines, subscribe or purchase single issues.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.

What apps do you recommend? What would you add to the list? Leave your comments in the box below.

Special thanks to the following people for providing their app recommendations for this post: Megan Colyer, Stage of Life; Amanda Goodhue, Excelamktg; Danielle Lerner, Publicist; Tanya Mahr, Revolution Public Relations; Jessica Nunez, Jessica Nunez PR Group; Matt Spradley, Vignature, Inc.; Mike Stelzner, Social Media Examiner; Elgin Subwaysurfer Boiling, Creative Caricature Marketing Consultant; Marian Thier, Expanding Thought, Inc.; Robin Tilotta, Chomp; and Shrey Verma, Buzzvalve.

What if social gaming wasn’t all about beating levels, planting crops or killing bosses? What if the players were real and their actions drove your success or failure? If that were ever the case, the social game you come up with might be called Empire Avenue.

Empire Avenue is a social game where you can buy stock in real people whose values rise and fall depending on their interaction. Think Klout meets SimCity.

Buy virtual shares in your favorite people on Empire Avenue.

While the idea of buying ownership in people originally gave me pause, I noticed that a TON of people were absolutely raving about Empire Avenue, so I decided to dig in and set up an account for myself.

A virtual stock market without Wall Street.

What’s the Point?

Honestly, I looked at my screen for a full five minutes before I had any clue what to do. Then I actually logged into the platform again as if some epiphany would strike me… it didn’t.

The platform screamed at me from all angles to do something. From the achievements popping up as it parsed through my online life I had connected to it, to my net worth changing before my eyes, to the ubiquitous requests for me to buy shares in people I didn’t know from both the chat window at the bottom of the screen and the unsolicited posts on my “wall-like” area to the right of my screen.

Clearly outmatched by this social juggernaut in front of me, I did what any self-respecting intellectual would do: I called up one of the co-creators of Empire Avenue, Dups Wijayawardhana, and asked him what the hell I was supposed to do with this thing.

In return, I got one of the coolest conversations with one of the smartest guys I’ve met on the planet… to date. Luckily I recorded it for you guys to listen in:

Click here to download MP3.

What makes Empire Avenue cool?

Three things:

• It can “just” be a game
• Passionate user base
• Connect where you want

It can “just” be a game; there’s no business requirement to play.

If you listened to Dups’ call, you might have noticed him saying that they understand that some people will use Empire Avenue just as a game. These users won’t care about their social influence; they just want to make virtual dollars off your hard work.

While some might wonder why this is important to an audience on a social marketing blog, let me fill you in. Empire Avenue found that people wanted to use their platform in a way that they may not have (or totally may have) expected, and decided to just “roll with it.” Giving your community the option to use your platform the way they want to is a level that most controlling marketers can’t ever attain. Not a bad case study when you consider…

You can buy fun items with the points you earn on Empire Avenue.

They have an (almost) uncomfortably passionate user base.

People who love Empire Avenue really love Empire Avenue. I had heard the gushing from miles away before I even knew what this thing was. To be honest, I thought it was another annoying Mafia Wars–type game when I first heard of it, which is pretty interesting. When I first heard of Empire Avenue, I immediately thought it had come from the social gaming giant that’s predicted to make about $1.5BN this year.

In reality, Empire Avenue is a small team run by 5 (superhuman?) people; which should be a huge comfort to smaller brands trying to make an impact in this social world of millions.

Empire Avenue’s users range from excited to stark-raving lunatics. The game is so addicting that people literally jump on you when you first set up an account in light of your unavoidable initial jump in share price. Not just that, the social-climbing market gushes about the game so much that they form factions to band together to network and (fight crime) grow their social circles as a team, which is as close as we’re going to get to having an actual Justice League anytime soon. Impressive feat indeed.

Users can buy more points called "Eaves" on Empire Avenue.

Empire Avenue shows you the best place to connect.

Everyone knows how I feel about Klout. But one thing that I was unaware that I didn’t like was the fact that they didn’t give me a preferred platform to connect on.

Have you ever found your favorite guru/hero/celebrity online somewhere and tried to connect with his or her profile only to find out that the person only posts inspirational quotes, or the profile is a one-way stream of posts?

Empire Avenue makes it easy for you to connect with your Facebook and Twitter friends.

Well, Empire Avenue does something that I think is pure genius and makes your life easier—by a large amount of whatever “easy” is measured in these days (kilowatts?).

Empire Avenue places a score on each individual network you connect to the platform, not just a total share price. This is totally important because if I wanted to connect with the awesome Miss Destructo, all I’d have to do is look at her Empire Avenue profile and see that she had the highest score on Facebook and Twitter, and go from there. Genius.

You earn virtual currency online using these social networks.

The message that’s missed in this point is that Empire Avenue is doing something other social platforms suck at big-time. They’re allowing you to connect on whichever platform makes sense, not requiring you to stay on their platform out of ego. Kudos, guys. Love it.

Why you should pass on Empire Avenue.

Two reasons:

• Can be overwhelming
• “Game” players can be annoying

As with most things that are hyped, there are always some glaring holes that need to be addressed, and Empire Avenue is no different.

The platform can be overwhelming, especially to new users.

Remember when I said, “I didn’t know what to do when I first set up my Empire Avenue account” a while ago? Well, I had an assignment to do, so I had to figure something out. New users don’t have to do that at all.

The cool thing about Empire Avenue is that there are a million paths you can travel to have a good time. The downside is that most people, when presented with a ton of options, choose none of them and leave.

The coders are obviously talented, and the platform is beautiful, but there’s something to be said about simplicity, especially to casual users who may be trying to dip a toe into the social gaming experience, and not jump in 100% yet. However, that doesn’t annoy me nearly as much as…

The people who “just play the game” are totally annoying.

Remember way back when (read: every day) on Twitter when spambots used to @reply you with links to buy their products? Empire Avenue’s version of these users aren’t selling crappy products, they’re selling themselves.

To draw a parallel, it’s like prostitution, except every prostitute is channeling Billy Mays and has a megaphone directly connected to your profile via chat popups.

I completely understand why Dups and Empire Avenue embrace the “game only” users, but my first impression of them tells me that they need to be put in another part of Empire Avenue. Give them the same features, just keep them far away from the “networking” users. (For those scoring at home, yes, we have slavery, prostitution and segregation references in the same article. You may congratulate me on my taboo hat-trick in the comments section.)

It would be cool if…

Uncomfortable jokes aside, while reviewing Klout, and now Empire Avenue, there seems to be a missing piece of this influence puzzle that would be a virtual godsend to the company that had a chance to address it.

Someone in this space needs to add a conversion statistic to their algorithm. Influence is one of those ambiguous words that should only be used when coupled with something else. Sure you have influence, but influence over what is the key.

In a marketer’s world, we don’t want influence over the clicking of a Twitter link, we really want influence over the ability to get someone to buy something that they weren’t thinking of before, or the influence to make a customer choose us as the solution to their problem over thousands of vendors.

Adding a conversion metric to these influence algorithms would go a long way to giving businesses that “one metric” that they can hand to their boss, or give job-seeking marketers a number that clearly tells a potential employer that this person gets things done and closes actual business online instead of just being popular for popularity’s sake.

How do you do something like this? How in the world would I know? I’m just a blogger…

How do I really feel about Empire Avenue?

Honestly, I hated Empire Avenue when I first logged on. It looked like a spammer’s paradise. Couple that with the “Mafia Wars” comparisons I was already making in my head, and I was ready to write a scathing (read: slightly unimpressed) review of the platform.

Then I spoke to Dups. And I got it.

Empire Avenue is a great anti-platform. It’s a social game with cool networking features, not a social platform with gaming features.

Those annoying gamers I just talked about are the home team. They own the platform side of Empire Avenue, and they should. If you’re planning to use Empire Avenue for a tool to network with the users there, get off the Empire Avenue platform completely. Find their highest-rated platform and go there, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or other venue.

Viewing Empire Avenue in this way allows me to see the platform in a new light and also to love it for what it is—an awesome, feature-packed social game that can also connect me to some of the most influential people on the web.

Not a bad accomplishment for such a small team.

What do you think? Have you ever gotten addicted to playing a social game? Ever connected with anyone you’ve gamed with? Let us know in the comments section below.

What’s New This Week?

Klout Comes to Facebook Pages: The social marketing platform Involver joins forces with the online influence measurement tool Klout to bring Klout to Facebook pages. This gives brands a new way to engage with their most influential fans, and to reward consumers based on their influence as measured by Klout.

Brands and agencies can now engage Facebook fans based on Klout scores.

Roost Introduces the Local Scorecard: This is a cool way for local businesses to focus on local market penetration in social marketing. The Local Scorecard gives businesses a sense of how their Facebook marketing is doing in their local markets.

Businesses can find out important data such as how many of their Facebook fans live in their city.

Wildfire Adds Social Marketing Suite: The popular service for Facebook promotions adds a new paid social marketing platform for “an all-in-one solution for marketers to grow, engage, and monetize customers using social media.”

Wildfire's new social marketing suite provides several dashboards for you to manage your Facebook marketing.

Foursquare Reaches 10,000,000 Members: If you’re following location-based marketing trends, check out this storyline infographic on Foursquare‘s expansion.

Click through to see the full-sized animated version of this.

LinkedIn Looks at the Gender Divide in Social Networking: This study shows men are better than women at professional social networking.  LinkedIn breaks down the results by industry in the infographic below.

Check out the gender differences in online professional networking behaviors.

Here’s a social media network worth noting:

Social Buzz Club: This new club provides Internet and social media marketing professionals with a way to share content through a highly developed network of other professionals who all use the Social Buzz Club technology.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNntFvCWy7A

And don’t miss this:

Get your FREE chapter of Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition to discover the formula Michael Stelzner used to make this blog one of the top small business blogs in the world (according to Technorati).

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

Here’s the good news: A new (and free) tool may be just the solution you’re looking for.

Looking for Something New?

Collaboration, innovation and communication—all three have become corporate buzzwords. But they are also critical components to any company’s success. These are three areas where organizations are constantly looking for new ideas and social media tools are increasingly playing a larger role in that process.

Businesses have a need to communicate. They’re always looking for new and different ways to foster collaboration among employees and ways to innovate—faster and more efficiently. “How can we come up with new ideas while using the least amount of resources?”

The list of tools that can fulfill these needs is long, but Posterous Groups, a recently launched social media tool (that’s free), should be considered as a way to meet these business needs.

For the uninitiated, Posterous Groups is one part Facebook group and one part email listserv. In essence, a Posterous Group page is really a living, breathing, collaborative document. And again, like Posterous itself, it can all be done via email.

Posterous Groups represents an easy, simple opportunity for brands to collaborate with, learn from and communicate with customers, brand ambassadors, volunteers and external partners.

The key Posterous Group benefits and features include:

• Uber-easy to set up. Simply email the name of the group and group member emails and your group is ready to go (no blog/platform account necessary).
• Privacy is assumed. Posterous Groups defaults to a private group setting, which means content shared within the group is protected from prying eyes outside the organization (if you wish).
• Post a variety of media formats. PDFs. Microsoft documents. Photos. Video. You name it and you can post it to Posterous Groups.
• View content on the go—easily. Posterous Groups is also optimized for viewing from mobile devices, including iPads. A nice inclusion as more folks are accessing online content via smartphones and tablets.
• Receive daily email summaries instead of instant notifications. For more active groups, this is a nice feature. Keeps you more connected and plugged in to what’s happening within the group.

Daily email summaries make it easy to stay current on Posterous Groups.

• Fantastic photo-sharing capabilities. Just my opinion, mind you, but Posterous recently added a new slideshow feature that makes this functionality even better within Groups.

Slideshows are a great photo-sharing feature to add to your Posterous Groups.

The biggest advantage of Groups is the ease of use and the fact that everything is wired right to your inbox. After all, who doesn’t have an email address in 2011? Even that guy in accounting who thinks blogging is “never going to catch on” can still participate using Posterous Groups.

And remember, photos, video and other files you post to the Group are hard-coded into your emails—no big attachments. And finally, while conversations occur on email, they’re forever archived on your Group site so members can go back and track discussions that occurred weeks ago in just a few seconds.

So, what does all this mean for brands? There are a number of organizations already using Posterous as a blogging platform. One of my favorite local brands, Punch Pizza, uses Posterous to share photos and coupons, which are routinely redeemed en masse at Punch restaurants.

Punch Pizza routinely offers online-only coupons through its Posterous blog.

Chevrolet is one of the few brands using Posterous Groups.

Nationally, Chevrolet has been using Posterous for more than a year now to promote talk about the Chevy Volt.

And Twitter app TweetDeck is also using Posterous as its primary blogging platform.

But, by and large, not too many brands are using Posterous Groups—at least not groups that we can see.

That doesn’t mean opportunities don’t exist, because they certainly do. Given that Posterous is an email-based platform and it’s extremely easy to use, I’ve long felt more risk-averse companies have a big opportunity with Posterous as a means to start blogging—and I think with Groups, there are a number of clear opportunities, too, both internally and externally, for organizations.

Internal Applications for Posterous Groups

#1: Company intranet

Probably more appropriate for small businesses and non-profits—organizations that can’t afford an off-the-shelf solution. But think about it. Doesn’t Groups offer much of the same functionality as an intranet? Document, photo and video sharing, all accessible via email or the Internet. And remember, it can be private.

Sure, it’s not behind a firewall on your company’s servers, but you have to weigh the advantages and benefits versus the potential risk. This certainly presents a different way to think about an intranet, but I tend to think it’s a collaborative (and very easy) way to get your internal teams involved.

#2: Special interest groups

Look inside any company and you’ll find a number of special interest groups. Some are more formal than others; running clubs and bowling teams, for example. What if you had a way to give them a private space online where they could stay connected between meetings or events? They could use this area to post photos, videos and just share information about the next event or meeting.

#3: Team communication

Just as Posterous Groups is a great tool for special interest groups within your organization, it’s also a perfect tool for business communication between teams. Think about it from a marketing/PR standpoint.

Your team could use a Posterous Group as a project-planning tool, a way to brainstorm ideas across geographically disparate offices (complete with photos and video), a vehicle to aggregate and share media coverage with the team and a tool to share organizational updates and news. Again, all in one spot—as opposed to the different areas this information probably exists now.

#4: Short-term collaboration

For those who have managed a new agency relationship, consider all the information you need to share with that partner to get them up to speed. Wouldn’t it be great if you could house all those documents, images, usernames/passwords and graphics in one easy-to-find and common area? Hello, Posterous Groups.

External Uses of Posterous Groups

#5: Promotional/corporate event pages

Think about the promotional and community events your company participates in regularly. Wouldn’t it be great to have one spot where you could house RSVPs, key event information, promotional coupons, offers, photos, videos and interviews with customers and participants after the event? How are you doing that now? Would Posterous Groups present an interesting alternative?

#6: Private brand ambassador groups

What about creating a private group for your most cherished brand ambassadors? A space where you could share special offers, rewards programs and sneak peeks at upcoming marketing campaigns? You could also use the Group as a means to communicate with these ambassadors. Even use Groups as a way to run new product designs by them and get initial input and ideas. A plethora of options here.

#7: Volunteer groups

For non-profit organizations, Posterous Groups would be a great way to keep in regular contact with one of their most important audiences: volunteers. Many non-profits say one of their biggest challenges is not having enough touchpoints with volunteers. Groups would provide an easy solution. After all, who doesn’t have access to email? (Even that 77-year-old woman who volunteers on Wednesday evenings has access to email.) And the best part? The volunteers themselves could contribute meaningful content to the Group.

You could ask volunteers to post photos from events that they capture—photos that you could use in newsletters and brochures down the road. You could also share news about upcoming events, organizational priorities and more detailed instructional information that would only be relevant to volunteers. This is a great, low-cost, easy way to keep in touch with your volunteer force.

#8: Customer forums

Your customers have questions. Why not address them all at once using Groups? You could even provide video responses to more complex customer issues/questions (I’m thinking about tech products here). Sure, there are definitely other ways to organize customer forums online—but Posterous Groups is free, easy and would tend to stay in front of customers because Groups would alert these folks via email each time a new post is made.

Those are my ideas about how brands could use Posterous Groups. What do you think? Any creative ideas on how your organization might take advantage of this new tool? Leave your comments in the box below.

What’s New This Week?

SlideShare Announces Zipcast for Live Web Meetings: This new tool allows you to run live video meetings alongside your SlideShare presentations. The video quality is basic but it’s easy to use. Zipcast is integrated with social media buttons, offers a live-stream chat feature and allows up to 5000 participants. Zipcast’s basic public meetings are free and there’s a paid ad-free version which allows password-protected meetings. This could be an interesting way for some businesses to start web broadcasting. How will you take advantage of this new platform?

Call a live virtual meeting to review your SlideShare presentation by video and use the chat feature to communicate with the attendees.

Gist Acquired by Research in Motion (Blackberry): Blackberry users can look forward to more social navigation on their phones. How important is your phone becoming for your social networking?

Gist provides a web-based experience and enables users to build stronger professional relationships.

Twitter Announces Translation Center: Twitter is already available in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish. This new feature allows Twitter to crowdsource translation to be able to roll out other languages faster.

Passionate Twitter users can now help Twitter launch additional languages.

Digg Stops Accepting RSS Submissions: Digg has retracted the automatic submissions of posts via RSS, a new feature it announced less than a year ago. Will this impact your social bookmarking?

The rules for social bookmarking with Digg have changed.

TED Launches TED Conversations: “This is the first time online conversations have an expiration date, which is designed to keep conversations, Q&As and debates on-topic, relevant and accessible for time-strapped visitors.” Will you be joining in discussions here?

Join "conversations with notable TEDsters like Seth Godin, game designer Jane McGonigal, Tim O’Reilly, economist Dan Ariely and other speakers, TED conference attendees, and TED community members."

Here’s another new social media tool worth a look:

Bump: Create a profile on Bump to connect the license plate of your car with an email address so others can communicate with you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csq37RB1CFk

What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

The Pros of Creating Your Own Community

So with all of the existing communities out there, what’s the benefit of creating your own?

Driving Traffic to Your Site – Let’s say that you start a forum on your own domain. If you’re successful in creating a popular community, you’ll be driving a lot of traffic to your website. The traffic, in turn, will lead to the next benefit.

Increasing Your Income – There are several ways to monetize a community. The direct approach is to actually charge your community membership fees for entry into the community or advanced privileges, such as the ability to promote themselves more within the community and premium content.

If your community is tied into a business, having the additional traffic to your site is bound to lead to converting community members to clients, or getting clients to join the community so you can later upsell them with additional products or services.

Then, of course, there are the indirect forms of monetization, such as capitalizing on the additional traffic to your website and offering advertisers banner space.

Becoming an Authority – If you become a successful community leader, you could become an authority in your industry as the administrator of a thriving community.

The Cons of Creating Your Own Community

As with just about anything, there are usually cons (or as I like to call them, considerations) that need to be thought through before jumping into starting up your own community. Here are some of the big ones.

Startup Costs – Generally, to maintain a community on your own site, you’ll have to invest in the development or customization of community software, such as a forum program or social networking plugin.

Administration Time – The next major factor in maintaining your own community is administration.  This involves everything from managing the software platform to moderating the activity among members to be sure that there isn’t any abuse of community rules or harassment of other community members. Without this kind of administration, the community will quickly fall.

Sticky Members – It’s not just about getting people to sign up, but getting them to keep coming back to your community and participate as much as possible. Unfortunately, what some people forget is that there are sometimes too many communities out there, and not enough time to devote to all of them. So if your community is not at the top of its game and requires too much involvement, members might start dropping off in activity.

What You Must Do to Have a Successful Community

So what does it take to create a successful, thriving community to which members are happy to come back regularly?

Start With Research – Before you jump into creating your own community, start by seeing what’s out there in a related niche, join those communities, and then observe the activity. Note what you like and dislike about the way the community operates, from the platform to the members and the leaders. Note which communities keep you coming back for more and how they do it.

Provide Unique Value – Notice I didn’t just say value, but unique value. Think about the communities you researched, and then try to figure out that one thing that no one else is offering that you can. One example would be creating a community that’s more specifically focused by doing a little brainstorming.

Instead of just blogging, narrow down to business blogging, then narrow down again to B2B business blogging, and then further down to B2B business blogging in the service industry. While it’s super-specific and might not allow for a huge following, it IS something unique which will intrigue your members.

Address Your Members’ Concerns – This one may get tough, depending on how many members you have in your community, but it’s always important to acknowledge any concerns that your members have in terms of site functionality, rules or other members. This lets them know that there’s someone actively in charge and always willing to cater to the members’ needs when possible.

Platforms for Your On-site Community

If you’ve weighed the pros and cons of creating your own community on your website and have decided to go for it, here are some platforms to get you started in creating your community.

Forums – If you’ve chosen to create a forum, the most popular platform is vBulletin, which starts at $195 per site/forum. While it’s pricey, it has the most robust set of features and is most widely used. Google vbulletin and your keyword to see what other communities are using this platform in your niche – you’re bound to find them.

Webdeveloper.com is an example of a forum built on the vBulletin platform.

Not ready to invest in forum software? A popular open-source alternative to vBulletin is phpBB. It has less functionality comparatively, but still provides the basic forum functions and needs.

Social Networks – Want to go beyond a forum? Two popular platforms for building your own social network are Ning and BuddyPress.

Ning, once a free service, now has plans at $2.95, $19.95 and $49.95 per month, depending on the number of members you want and space you’ll need.

Tennisopolis is an example of a social network built on the Ning platform.

A great example of a community built on their platform is Tennisopolis, a personal favorite of mine as I am an avid tennis fan and player. Members can connect with each other, participate in forums, create blogs, private message, share photos and video, join groups and much more.

An alternative is the free BuddyPress. The solution is meant to be integrated on top the WordPress platform. So if you’re already familiar with WordPress as a blog or content management system, you should be able to learn the ins and outs of BuddyPress as well.

Hello Eco Living is an example of a social network built on the BuddyPress platform.

An example of a network built on their platform is the Hello Eco Living Network. Similar to Ning networks, members can make friends, write blog posts, participate in forums, privately message each other, join groups and more.

Great Alternatives to Creating Your Own Community

So what are some good alternatives to creating a community on your own website? Try some of the following options on other networks.

Facebook Groups – Facebook is the top social network, so creating groups within their platform is a great way to go in terms of getting people together on a platform that they’re already involved in. You can add members to your group automatically, although I suggest you do this only after asking them if they would be interested, as it can be really annoying to be added to a group by someone you don’t know.

What are the perks of having a Facebook group? Groups can be public or private (invite only). Members can be notified each time there’s activity in the group, or change their notifications to be received only on threads that they’re actively participating in (such as ones they start or comment on).

Tell members how to customize their group settings for the best experience.

You can also encourage members to check the settings so that your group shows in their home navigation.

Members won't forget about your group if they put it in their home navigation.

This way, members will always be reminded about your group anytime they’re logged into their Facebook homepage.

LinkedIn Groups – LinkedIn, the top professional network, is also a great place to start your own community through LinkedIn Groups.

These can be especially powerful for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that you can email your group once a week. It’s almost like building a mailing list through their service (although you shouldn’t overpromote yourself on things that you’re selling through it).

Social Media Examiner uses a private LinkedIn group for Blogging Success Summit attendees.

Your Thoughts on Building Online Communities

Have you ever created, moderated or even simply joined an online community, forum or focused social network? What were the perks as well as the downsides on ones built on specific domains vs. ones built within popular social networks? Please share your thoughts in the comments box below.

Understanding the concept of social graphs will not only enhance your proficiency with social media marketing today, it will also help you foresee emerging trends. This will significantly help you be fully prepared when new web technologies are launched.

The term social graph was first used a few years ago by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, specifically in reference to the Facebook platform. Your social graph is a digital map of your personal identity, your primary Facebook friends and everything you share with them.

That definition has since been expanded to include other platforms, such as Twitter, Flickr and even Google. So, to be clear, you have many overlapping social graphs. This social data is of great interest to businesses that are trying to connect with you, and should be of equal interest to you for reaching your future customers.

The social graph is a contextual matrix of relationships.

Facebook and the Open Graph

When Facebook launched sweeping changes to their platform on April 21, 2010, social graphs were suddenly thrust into the spotlight. That’s when Mark Zuckerberg coined a new term—Open Graph.

The objective of Facebook Open Graph is to integrate all of your social graphs—on Facebook, of course. This is accomplished through the Facebook API, which is a digital handshake that connects your Facebook identity, connections and content with Facebook pages and outside websites and blogs. You probably know it best in its most popular form as the Facebook Like button.

Facebook Like creates communities of like-minded people.

When you Like a Facebook page or site that has embedded the Facebook Like feature, you’re instantly connected with everyone else who has Liked that site. You have effectively joined a new community, and now you have the benefit of many new associations.

Unfortunately, the positive side of connecting businesses with consumers in this way was overshadowed by the privacy uproar associated with Open Graph. That has since been remedied by allowing you to control what you share, if anything, with your new community.

If you can integrate millions of social graphs that are rich with personal data, you have a Frankenstein’s monster of a database that is infused with social context, and therefore, human-like qualities.

Similar to Frankenstein, the Open Graph is not really human, but it has the possibility to come awfully close as more social data is stitched together. The power of a database that truly emulates human behavior is undeniable. Whatever happens in the future, one thing we’re sure of is that day in April was a game-changer for social marketers.

How Social Graphs Tell a Story

Searchable content has always been the foundation of the Internet. Bill Gates is credited with stating that “content is king”—and at the time he said that (he wrote it first), he was right. However, that was before social networking changed the game of search to what it is today; one where context is king.

As your messaging or content on the social web is shared, it gathers context and builds nodal relationships that tell a story. By understanding this, you can more effectively enhance your social graph by creating useful content that favorably represents who you are and what you do best with your expertise.

Context—Social networks are all about context. Whom you associate with tells a great deal about you. Context not only tells us who you are, but by associations and comparisons, who you are not. You may be very similar to colleagues you associate with, but there is enough data to discern a difference. That association may be what helps you to be discovered, but it is the distinction that will get you hired.

Nodes—When you map out your social connections, you’re essentially connecting the dots. Think of these dots as nodes on a complex matrix. The more nodes there are on your social graph, the more readily you can be defined, and therefore located. Nodes are landmarks or junction points on a map that helps users navigate the unknown and find exactly what they need or want, which ideally is your business.

Sharing—Sharing on the social web is what creates nodes. If you share content that someone finds useful, they’re likely to share it with their community, thereby connecting you with their friends—which creates even more nodes.

Why Social Search Is a Game-Changer

When Facebook introduced its Open Graph, Mark Zuckerberg made the statement that if we can take the social graphs of a multitude of social networking or sharing sites, we could “create a web that’s smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware.”

A semantically aware web takes advantage of relationships and associations. You’ve already experienced how social semantic search works if you’ve made multiple purchases on Amazon. They understand your preferences and they cross-link them with the preferences of people whose social graphs are similar to yours.

As new technologies are integrated with this growing body of social data, you can expect search capabilities to rise to breathtaking levels, giving more accurate, more personal and timelier search results.

Here are some steps you can take to create a representative social graph:

Create Social Objects—In addition to relationships with people, you also have relationships with objects that further define your social graph. Social objects are anything that is searchable on the web. This obviously includes people, but also images, videos and music clips. All of these objects interact to tell a story.

Fill in the Gaps—As social graphs are merged, they become mutually more descriptive and complete. Yet for most of us, our social graphs are largely empty space. This is why it’s important to be actively engaged and share on the social networks, both on a personal and professional level. When you do this, you’re managing your destiny by building your social graph, which is always best accomplished with your direct involvement.

Consider Location and Time—Social graphs are digital maps that lead us to places. As social graphing is accomplished more frequently in real time and location, better decisions become possible. While there may a number of businesses like yours that are suited to someone doing a search, the person is more likely to choose you if you’ve recently engaged in conversations that keep your social graph fresh and relevant.

What This Means for Business

At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, Mark Zuckerberg said, “Over the next five years every industry will have to redesign itself around social.” This is a statement that I believe holds a great deal of merit. Businesses need to realize that social is not just changing how you should market, but even how you’ll be doing business in the future if you expect to prosper.

It remains to be seen whether Open Graph will become a reality. While the technology is available, there are political and economic boundaries that prevent it from readily happening. Nevertheless, what’s trending is typically going to happen at some point in the future.

Here are some likely possibilities:

The Future Web Is More Personal

Let’s face it, people are interested in people. Human interactions of all kinds add context that illuminates, clarifies and cuts through the clutter. There is no question that semantic search will transform our roles as both consumers and business professionals.

The Future Web Is More Intelligent

Every piece of data that gets added to every social graph makes the entire system more intelligent. The more the system knows, the more discerning it will be. It becomes a better decision-maker. What is Microsoft’s Bing, which also happens to power Facebook search? A decision engine.

The Future Web Is More Open

Social graphs overlap and extend across the globe.

Imagine a web that has perfect access to information—a social web that is a digital copy of our physical world.

While this may sound like science fiction to some, could you have imagined 10 years ago that you would someday be carrying a handheld device that would help you find a business, navigate your travel there in real time, let you know which of your friends has recently visited and what recommendations they left for you?

What do you think? Is science fiction now becoming science? What challenges and possibilities do you see? Let us know your comments in the box below.

All images from Shutterstock

LinkedIn Groups offers one of the best ways to make the most of your social media engagement time, but you must adopt the right strategy to be successful. This article will show you how.

LinkedIn allows you to join up to 50 groups, but you can’t possibly be effective and spend enough time to make a difference in 50 groups.

What works best is to focus your time and effort on a deep and narrow approach in order to build influence within LinkedIn Groups, enhance your credibility and generate new connections.

Here’s how:

#1: Identify the Best Group Opportunities

Evaluate the groups you’ve joined or intend to join and focus on the top 3 to 5 groups that most accurately represent your target demographic. Also, you’ll want to choose groups that don’t have a huge membership.

I recommend that you choose groups that have at least a few hundred members, but no more than a few thousand if you really want to maximize your visibility.

Plan to proactively visit each of your top groups 2-3 times a week. Don’t wait for the daily or weekly updates that come to your email inbox. Identify your best opportunities and plan to make frequent and consistent appearances!

Find groups that represent your target demographic.

#2: Target the Most Popular Discussions in Each Group

The most “popular” discussions within a group generally get the most visibility. These are the topics where members are most actively engaged and they feature discussions that you will want to weigh in on. The most popular discussions are at the top of the group discussion page, and typically there will be quite a few comments associated with them for you to review and learn from.

Participate in popular discussions.

As you weigh in on popular discussions, respond to existing comments, provide an insight or opinion or even ask a thought-provoking question to generate additional comments. You can also “Like” and “Share” these discussions with your connections.

If your comments add value to the popular discussions, members will begin to recognize you as a thought leader within the group.

#3: Start Your Own Discussion

Starting your own discussion thread is also a powerful tool within a group, but you must be strategic with this. I recommend that you wait to start your own discussion until after you’ve spent some time participating in the top discussions first (#2).

In addition, observe the contributions of the most active group members in order to understand their concerns, goals and objectives. What seems to be important to them?

Also study prior popular discussions. What topics have resonated with members? In starting your own discussion, pose a question, ask for help or advice or post a relevant and interesting article or resource for the group’s benefit. Your goal with starting your own discussion is to encourage as much engagement as possible!

Start a discussion by asking a compelling question.

Start a discussion by providing a helpful tutorial for the group members.

If you’re truly engaging members of the group with the discussions you initiate, you’ll have the opportunity to be recognized as a “Top Influencer” in the group page sidebar, which can help you build visibility and authority within the group.

Focus on becoming a "top influencer" for greater visibility in LinkedIn Groups.

Note: It’s extremely important to add value when starting discussions and avoid promoting your own products, services or content. After you’ve earned some credibility within your top groups, it’s acceptable to post one of your own articles from time to time. Just make sure that what you post to the group answers a question or solves a problem with members, and don’t ever post sales-related material.

#4: Follow Up and Follow Through

One of the disadvantages of LinkedIn Groups is that it’s difficult to keep up with updates unless you proactively visit your top groups as recommended. Make sure to keep up with the conversations you’re participating in.

Don’t let too much time lapse and don’t leave a conversation open. Keep your comments fresh and interesting to demonstrate your commitment to your groups.

Also consider handing out “Likes” for interesting posts by group members and share valuable posts as LinkedIn status updates. When you share a group discussion post as a status update, you’re exposing it to all of your connections and giving the post greater visibility within LinkedIn. Promoting and connecting others on LinkedIn can build social influence.

#5: Start Your Own Group

If you’re willing to make the commitment, another option is to start your own LinkedIn Group. If you manage your own group, you have control over many aspects of your group. To an extent, you can control which discussions get more visibility through the “Manager’s Choice” feature.

As a group owner, you will have control over the "Manager's Choice" discussions.

As the founder of the group, it’s actually your job to lead discussions with the group! Ultimately it will be the members who push the most interesting discussions to the top. When you start your own group, make sure that you have a well-defined niche or theme. Otherwise you may not get much traction. Focus on bringing people together who can benefit from sharing mutual experiences and insights.

Using this approach for your LinkedIn Group participation strategy can help you maximize your time and energy on the network. Making a commitment to adding value to a small number of targeted groups on a consistent basis will help you build influence and new connections. In addition, you’ll find that there’s little competition in this strategy!

What strategies are you currently using within LinkedIn Groups? Are you finding relevant groups for your industry where you can truly add value? I would love to hear about your experiences. Leave your comments in the box below.