Twitter

The engagement and activation of your community can assist with virtually every stage of product development including idea generation, concept screening, concept development, commercial viability analysis, beta testing, and commercialization and launch.[read more]

Richard Margetic, Dell's social media lead

Social Media Today had a chance to sit down with Richard Margetic, Dell's Social Media lead, to discuss some of the topics that will be covered at the Social Shake-Up Conference in September, where Richard will be speaking. Here is a transcript of that conversation.[read more]

A Twitter chat is a way for people on Twitter to discuss a topic at a set time and day and to keep track of everyone’s comments and responses by using a hashtag. The great appeal for many is that each comment must be 140 characters or less.[read more]

Here are 5 of my favourite social media campaigns from 2012. All 5 are well known brands. This doesn’t mean that small businesses aren’t running great social media campaigns, it just means that they aren’t getting the same exposure. Remember, the likes of Nike, Heinz and Cadbury all started off as a small business.[read more]

You would think their blog would have been built on the popular WordPress platform, as it is used by millions of others and is extremely search engine friendly. They didn’t. They also didn’t go the Google Blogger Platform route like they had previously. The refreshed Twitter Blog was built in Drupal.[read more]

If though you are using it for business purposes, your goals need to revolve around sharing and engagement, not just your follower number. In the Twitter world that means getting mentions and retweets. This will expand your exposure and make you more known and relevant in the Twitter universe.[read more]

Social media marketing can take a good chunk of time (and money) out of your week. Between creating content, publishing, and disseminating it, you might feel like you don’t have any time or energy left to engage. However, brands that actively engage their fans through dialogue are the ones that really see a social media marketing payout.[read more]

twitter birds/shutterstock

In case you haven't noticed, favouriting tweets is now becoming a thing on Twitter. But what relevance does it have? And should you be clicking the star on tweets? The simple answer is yes.[read more]

There are many different social networks out there, and if you're like me, you have accounts on a lot of them. Maybe you created a profile on Facebook to connect with friends and family, or maybe you got on Twitter because you were told it would be good for your business. Either way, statistically the average American has six different social media accounts, and that number is on the rise.[read more]

Blade Runner/Warner Bros

Guy explained that his community-building philosophy balked at Facebook’s EdgeRank when it began downgrading certain posts and prevented people from seeing the content they volunteered to see, so he turned to Google Plus instead.[read more]

Five years ago, Dell had little presence on social media. That changed when the computer company realized 4,000 conversations about the brand were happening online every single day and the company was not present. Since then, Dell has invested millions of dollars’ worth of time and resources to join those conversations.[read more]

JCPenney/Wikimedia Commons

JCPenney recently made a huge public apology. The response was large and immediate. The brand's Twitter feed was flooded with responses and the hashtag #jcpListens floated to the top of Twitter's trending list.[read more]

I've loved Star Trek since the first time Captain James T Kirk sucked in his gut when he jumped into the transponder.  This ad from Motorola for Droids is the best one I've seen so far....[read more]

Large organisations' social media crises have become a daily part of the news. Whether it is an employee going rogue or a hacker taking over a corporate account, a lot of these social media crises can be avoided. Not by extensive (and expensive) security programs or banning the use of social media at work, but just by common sense. Here is a look at two specific social media crises which involved Burger King and HMV.[read more]

twitter/shutterstock

It is important that a business both develops and maintains a consistent image on Twitter. Implementing these changes will ensure that your Twitter account is squeaky clean because you never know what social media actions may and could be used against you.[read more]

Lady Gaga is an ideal role model for anyone who wants to focus on community building and customer loyalty. In her new book, Monster Loyalty: How Lady Gaga Turns Followers Into Fanatics, author Jackie Huba discusses just how she built her legions of intensely loyal fans and how businesses can learn from her.[read more]

It’s one thing to have the largest social network in the world, but for it to have 30% more active participation than its competitors is awfully impressive. This is the social network that may or may not be losing millions of customers each month, so it will be interesting to see what Facebook self-reports to the SEC and what other third-party apps report.[read more]

This infographic shows where things stand now in brilliant, compelling fashion. From the numbers to specific case studies, it shows social media at its best and worst in times of crisis. See how many people can potentially be reached almost instantly (it's in the billions) and what ways governments locally and federally are utilizing this ever-growing set of tools to handle emergencies.[read more]

Twitter has released an update for their mobile app today that lets users "see what's happening near you or around the world." The update introduces a location aspect to Trends that can localize tweets and and give users a way to find tweets and tweeters near them.[read more]

Twitter chats are becoming incredibly popular. They are a unique platform that allows you to come together with other users to discuss topics, held together by a hashtag. It is all public, and since the live update algorithm works with that chat posts, it is also a way to get noticed by discussion that hashtag. There are obviously many benefits to taking part or hosting one yourself.[read more]