How many social media sites do you update on a regular basis?

Perhaps it would be better to rephrase the question as: How many social media sites would you like to update on a regular basis?

Ping.fm is a useful aggregation service which allows you to do just that: post content simultaneously to a large group of social media sites. It covers dozens of sites and includes these better known social networks:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• WordPress
• Tumblr
• MySpace
• LinkedIn
• Delicious

With ping.fm, you can also direct an RSS blog feed to all of your social networks.

There are other services, such as the popular Twitter client Hootsuite, that allow you to post to the biggest social networks. But if your social media strategy involves reaching audiences on a diverse set of social networks, ping.fm is definitely worth a closer look.

Here is a new, must-see video for B2B marketers interested in social media. It has been prepared by our friends at Earnest Agency in the UK.

Of the stats presented, here some which are especially noteworthy:

1. CIO’s could well be the biggest blocker to social media adoption. Fifty-four percent of CIO’s prohibit use of social networking sites while at work.
2. The use of social media by B2B companies is validated by business purchasers. 93% of business buyers believe all companies should have a presence in social media.
3. If you think C-level executives aren’t active online, you’re sorely mistaken. The Internet is the C-Suites top information resource (74% of C-Level executives say it’s very valuable)
4. 89% of journalists make use of blogs while conducting their online research and 96% turn to corporate websites.

To read more on the data presented here, check out Earnest Agency’s accompanying blog post which contains further detail and sources:http://earnestagency.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/vital-statistics-for-every-b2b-marketer/.

Over the past couple of weeks, a storm of angst has been gathering over Facebook’s new Instant Personalization Program. The program has been criticized by privacy advocates as many Facebook users are unaware that it now shares your personal information with partner websites, by default.

Here’s how you can opt out of the new instant personalization program:

In the top right hand corner of your Facebook page, click on Account and then Privacy Settings.

On the privacy settings page, click on Applications and Websites.  At the bottom, you’ll see Instant Personalization Pilot Program. Click on the Edit Setting button.

Un-check the tick box beside “Allow select partners to instantly personalize their features with my public information when I first arrive on their websites.”

That should do it.

Twitter Feasibilty Study Excerpt (2006) from 747 Media on Vimeo.

When did you first hear of Twitter? Four years ago, could people have predicted the evolution of this micro-blogging site at its onset?

Apparently, yes.

The 20-somethings that were interviewed as part of a study by 747 Media were able to assess the power of Twitter quite accurately, even though they had never used it. In this video, you will see them react to the information they’re given and talk through several of the applications that have made Twitter into what it is today.

Story originally posted by Mashable.

You go through the ritual once every couple of days. Unless you have auto-follow, that is.

How do you decide whether or not to follow someone back on Twitter? I fielded the question on Twitter and here are some of the responses I got.

@CWarfield: shared interests; no spam or useless “eating a ham sando” posts

@rtstrategy: re following back: educational/entertaining content & signs they are engaging.

@alewi854: They need a good bio and tweet regularly RT @andrewspoeth: what do you look for when considering to follow someone back?

@walkerjill: but not tweet TOO MUCH! RT @alewi854 good bio & tweet regularly RT @andrewspoeth what do you look for when considering to follow ppl back?

Take a look at your newest followers in Twitter and decide who to follow back. My process involves a CTRL+click on each profile name to open up a new tab for each person. Next, I scan profile information and tweet stream. Looking at these, I consider:

1. Interests of the Twitterer

How closely do they match mine. I tend to keep open to various interests, unless it’s something like sharing wealth or getting rich quickly.

2. Follower count

I don’t look for a large number of followers. More important is a balance between Following and Followers. If the person is following way more than being followed, it’s a red flag.

3. Tweet volume

Check number of tweets against number of followers. If this person’s tweet volume far exceeds the number of people who follow them, it’s likely an indication of boring tweets.

4. Quality of content

What would be described as quality on Twitter? I personally look for tweets that are:

• thought provoking
• funny
• resourceful
• current
• generous
• engaging

A twitterer should have a healthy balance between original content, retweets, and engagement with others. It’s also encouraging to see the occasional question – an indication this twitterer is interested in listenting.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/emikeycq/ / CC by NC SA

Twitter is reaching a significant milestone. At nearly 50 million tweets per day, the average output of Twitter users has climbed dramatically over the past year.

@kevinweil in his post on Twitter’s blog puts this in perspective. 50 million tweets per day equals roughly 600 new tweets every second. A year ago, average output was 30 per second. Looking back further, we get closer to Twitter’s very beginnings.

2010 – 600/s
2009 – 30/s
2008 – 3.6/s
2007 – 3.5/min.

It wasn’t long ago that Twitter allowed you to see a feed of all tweets on your Twitter home page. Anyone remember those days?

Looking at the graph above, one wonders what happened at the inflection point around April 2009. Was it the Ashton Kutsher/CNN race to 1,000,000 followers? Was it Oprah signing up for Twitter? Or was it a combination of elements creating the perfect storm?

Enough said

I love bit.ly. As many of you, I use it to shorten URL’s in Twitter and measure the relative success of specific links that I put out there.

Here are my 5 top bit.ly links of the past week, based on click through performance.

Twitter’s New Headquarters As Shown Off By Employees (Pictures)
Twitter moved into a new, much larger office this week. Several Twitter employees went around snapping pictures for the rest of us to see. Some of my Twitter followers noted that it looks pretty empty and dark, dark perhaps because they are conserving electricity that is being used up through the new retweet function that they’re rolling this week.

100 Ways To Measure Social Media
A David Berkowitz article from the MediaPost Social Media Insider Column. With a title like that, how can you not look? Some of the points in David’s list are repetitive, but this compilation is nevertheless worth reading as it covers a lot of ground.

Google Chrome OS: 5 Ways It’s Completely Different
From Mashable, reporting live at the Google Chrome OS press conference last Thursday. Although this won’t change our lives immediately, the release of Chrome OS next year will have an impact, and is likely creating serious headaches for Microsoft.

Logo Evolution
I pulled this out when talking about rebranding with my Internet Marketing students. For more, check out this great collection of logo changes.

The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing
As a B2B marketer, I’m always looking for ways to better drive the revenue funnel. This white paper from Marketo brings together best practices in email marketing, lead scoring and lead nurturing.

During the course of a week, I’ll scan hundreds of tweets, receive dozens of newsletters and flip through numerous blog posts. Here are a few which I think you’ll enjoy.

1. What if Google had to design their user interface for Google?

Not brand new, but nevertheless a good laugh and SEO 101 lesson for any search marketer! How would you apply SEO best practices to the Google home page? Here the author demonstrates cross linking, fresh content, social bookmarking, reinforcing with keyword content, and a keyword-rich URL for Google’s search page.

2. Omniture’s Pick the Winner

Brilliantly designed for their target market, Omniture scores big with this new ‘Pick the Winner’ campaign. Step up to the vintage arcade machine and try your hand at guessing the correct results to A/B tests. How high did you score?

3. The Impact of Google’s Social Search

Jeremiah Owyang weighs in on how Google’s Social Search will change web strategy.

4. The Complete Guide to Google Wave

A little over a month after Google Wave was released in limited numbers to the public, the first Google Wave guide book has come out. It’s long, detailed and thorough. And the online version is completely free.

5. The 10 Best Leadership Books of All Time

A Washington Post article that presents a list of top leadership books, according to Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten.

With Twitter Lists being rolled out to a greater  portion of users earlier today, there is a lot of buzz being created around the new feature.  In a nod to my friend Manoj at Web Analytics World, who just posted a set of web analytics Twitter lists, here are a some marketing lists to follow on Twitter. This top 10 list is based on the number of followers each list has at the time of this posting.

Top 10 Marketing Lists on Twitter

1. @Scobleizer/tech-pundits
2. @dannysullivan/searchmarketing
3. @dannysullivan/marketing
4. @seanpower/analytics-and-measurement
5. @teresaberry/seattle-nw-faves
6. @SEOdojo/members
7. @adland/adagencies
8. @stevewoods/b2bmarketers
9. @AdvertisingLaw/marketing
10. @susanbeebe/social-media-smarties

For the complete list, visit the Listorious page: http://listorious.com/tags/marketing.