Are you looking for some good blogs to read? Look no further! Our third-annual social media blog contest generated nearly 600 nominations (almost twice as many as last year's contest). Our panel of social media experts carefully reviewed the nominees and finalists, analyzing the quality of their content, the frequency of posts and reader involvement (among other things).

By Neicole Crepeau, Contributing {grow} Columnist Traditionally, marketers have researched their customers' demographics to have a clear idea of their age, gender, income, location, and other traits. Marketers added psychographics to the mix, allowing them to take into account customer's interests, values, and attitudes.

This white paper offers an in-depth analysis of how social media brand impressions reach Fans and Friends throughout Facebook, as opposed to just on brand Fan pages. The study profiles three major brands – Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, and Microsoft Bing – to show the impact of these impressions on Fans and Friends and help illustrate how brands today need to be thinking about their social marketing initiatives.

The importance of social networking in today's online experience cannot be overstated. Social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide accounting for nearly 1 in every 5 minutes spent online in October 2011, and reaches 82 percent of the world's Internet population, representing 1.2 billion users around the globe.

Connected aggregates all your contacts and keeps them up to date so you don't have to. Connected provides the most comprehensive view into your contacts, giving you an at-a-glance of everything you want to know. Prepare for your day with a view into your meetings, attendees, and what you need to know to make a good impression.

With InsideView FREE, you can quickly start building your pipeline, close your deals, and grow your accounts - through your browser or inside your CRM.As your needs grow, consider our more powerful sales intelligence and social selling solutions like InsideView CRM+, InsideView PRO, and InsideView TEAM.

It's clear that Pinterest is really hot, but a new study shows just how powerful the virtual pinboard company has become. Pinterest is now driving more referral traffic on the web than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined, according to Shareaholic's January 2012 Referral Traffic Report.

Allowing social media usage in the classroom created the need for me to draft social media policies. I hadn't done this before and was uncertain where to begin. Here are the six steps I used to draft social media policies for my website and the classroom.

Posted on January 31, 2012 by @mqtodd Twitter hashtags can be intimidating for newbies but they are a vital part of the whole thing. They are especially useful for chats and competitions. Right now I am in a competition called the Shorty Awards and there are several categories one of which is #green.

The social web offers tremendous marketing and customer relations opportunities for SMBs and major corporations. Your success with the social web greatly depends on having a solid understanding of social media fundamentals. Below is an infographic cheat sheet to help your business re-establish its social media campaign.

I believe this is the best, most complete and accurate list of valuable Twitter applications available on the internet right now. To be fair, I absolutely have merged and plagiarized other older and outdated lists that I found (the larger ones are credited below).

There are a lot of things you can measure about you social media efforts. I have compiled a list of KPIs (key performance indicators) that you can consider for you specific activities. One thing to remember is to remember that you should set at least some metrics that indicate if you are turning profit.

Recently I started using LinkedIn with a lot more intention. Working through the LinkedInfluence course, I learned quite a few important LinkedIn tips. Rather than simply adding new connections and giving occassional recommendations, I decided to really use it. The most effective thing I did was start a LinkedIn group for people who wanted to boost their online visibilty.

Social Media Strategy Consultant, Speaker, Trainer

Social Media Policy Template / Eric Schwartzman

www.Tweetchat.com for Tweetchats!

Use our drag and drop platform to put a page together in minutes!

Wildfire is a powerful, easy-to-use social marketing platform to grow, engage and monetize your audience across social networks.

Social plugins let you see what your friends have liked, commented on or shared on sites across the...

Whether you're looking to make your content more sharable or simply create more engagement, here are 7 great plugins that will make your WordPress site more social.

With Apply with LinkedIn, you can start accepting job applications with a few lines of code. Customize the interface with your company logo and color and add up to three custom yes or no questions. You can also integrate with your Applicant Tracking System. Add Apply with LinkedIn to jobs on your site to attract top talent today.

Twitter Poll - Paid

Create stunning surveys, polls, and quizzes in minutes. Collect responses via your website, e-mail, iPad, Facebook, and Twitter. Generate and share easy-to-read reports.

Create and publish online surveys in minutes, and view results graphically and in real time. SurveyMonkey provides free online questionnaire and survey software.

GroupTweet | Group Twitter Accounts Made Easy

Outlook Connector, share with LinkedIn

Creating a Wikipedia account

Recommend and find great people to work with and hire using your contacts on Facebook and Twitter.

Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services.

SWIX social media optimization provides social media agencies with sophisticated social media monitoring and social network marketing ROI in one dashboard.

Sprout Social is a social media management tool created to help businesses find new customers & grow their social media presence. Try it for free.

Folowen helps you find social profiles of people and organizations across social networks.

Your Blogging Home

foursquare - for geo-location marketing.

Social Media Examiner helps businesses master social media marketing with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn to find leads, increase sales and improve branding.

HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter & the Social Web

Feed blog posts into Facebook and Twitter

Enhance your social media management with HootSuite, the leading social media dashboard. Manage multiple networks and profiles and measure your campaign results.

Use tweet deck to schedule and update many social media platforms at once

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your queries.

Search blog posts

Discussion search

Keotag - tag search multiple engines, tag generator and social bookmark links generator. Buzz Monitoring.

Check out this free privacy monitoring tool that continuously searches the web for your private data and alerts you when it finds anything new about you.

Google reputation management

Offers white-labeled social media monitoring tools. Get your free monitoring account today!

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, post links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

What metrics to measure on LinkedIn

Klout is the Standard for Influence. Join Klout to discover your influence and compare with others you may know.

Ego tracking and Social Media Monitoring for twitter, facebook, YouTube, MySpace, bit.ly and Google Analytics. Free for individuals.

Receive all your Facebook & Twitter updates through a single email for free. Our updates also support Twitter Search, LinkedIn, and Email Forwarding.

A directory of over 120 contact forms to reach Facebook about issues, bugs, changes, hacked account, copyright infringement, ad credits and more.

Expand your customer base by selling parts and accessories on Facebook. Learn how by reading this post.

Crowdbooster measures and optimizes your social media marketing by providing powerful, easy-to-use analytics and recommendations on Twitter and Facebook.

Is your brand making the most out of Pinterest? Here are useful tips for online retailers and content marketers.

National Bestselling Author Bob Burg Will Help You and Your Team Cultivate a Network of Endless Referrals.

Stories that are just your type!

Visit Lou Bortone.com for small business marketing solutions and help for marketing with online video.

There are a lot of people newly entering the fray to sell advertising space on Facebook and as social media specialists assisting many South African and global companies to enter the social media space, we'd like to tell you what works best in this space.

White paper on how marketers are using social media..

The relationship between social media and ROI is not a direct one. Because of this, social media has come under a lot of criticism for not contributing to ROI in any real way. Still, there is no denying that social networks can drive traffic back to your brand website, and in any kind of terms increased website traffic affects the bottom line.

Download HubSpot's free ebook, "How to Use Pinterest for Business" and start marketing your business using this new social network.

Search Twitter users by keywords in their Bio and Location fields. Locate Twitter users that live in your city and create Twitter Lists.

Also a pinterest video

Very inspiring week meeting up with Malcolm Gladwell, Ed Bagley Jr., Alan Mulally and Scott Monty in Detroit. Many asked for the longer version of the new Social Media Revolution video. Please find it below - enjoy!

GFYD Member provides expert help with WordPress training and step-by-step training video tutorials that teach you how to create a website, a WordPress Blog Like the PROS!

Pinterest is a hot social network and this post shows how it can create concrete business benefits.

For facebook the new timeline is all about sharing your story and Facebook recognizes for many of us those stories include engaging with other social networks like Pinterest and Twitter.

BRANDfog recently released their 2011 Social Media and Leadership Report, which asked the question "Do you believe that CEOs who engage on social media ...

Are you wondering how your peers are using social media?Wondering if you should focus on Google+ or Pinterest?In our fourth annual s

If you want a few tips on how to best create a great chat on Twitter, here are 15 hashtags that fit the bill.

Listly List -
All About Twitter Chat Sessions -
HashTracking.com
15 Essential Twitter Chats for Social Media Marketers, Tweet Chats 101: 41 Success Tips for Moderators, Participants & Guests!
Google Docs Listing Of Twitter Chat Schedule,
Social Media Explorer,
List of Tweetchats - A PR Social Media Resource, #LinkedInChat,
You're Doing Twitter Chats #Wrong When...
Teasing out the Potential of Twitter Chats (Part I)
Teasing out the Potential of Twitter Chats (Part II) - 7 Tips for Better Twitter Chats

This is a great free social media metrics tracking tool!

More on how to use Pinterest - focused on the beginner.

This is a list of the top 100 recommended leadership experts to follow on Twitter for April 2012.

Are you looking for the hottest new social media tools and services? We asked our team of Social Media Examiner writers to share their best

What social media sites are popular with the Fortune 500 companies? Here's a nice infographic from Go-Gulf.com that shows some key social media statistics for the big corporate players.  A few key points:Only 23% have a corporate blog
58% have an active corporate Facebook account

Only about 17% of your Fans see your Facebook Page posts... That angers me a little. I can't help it.  The fact that I can post to my Facebook page and have that message show up in only 17% of my Fans

UPDATE on Thursday, February 10, 2011: We are rolling out the new Photo Viewer to everyone over the course of the next few weeks. Now, you can browse more photos faster without having to lose your place in Facebook. Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the Photo Viewer...

Listly List - Favorite Social Media Tools - Everything starts and ends with Wordpress, HootSuite - Social Media Dashboard for Teams using, Zamzar - Free online file conversion, Tweetdeck, Free Skype calls and cheap calls to phones, bitly | Basic | a simple URL shortener, Dropbox, Ninja Link Shortening Tool, Google URL shortener and QR Code Generator, dlvr.it, Twazzup: Realtime News, MetroTwit - the Windows Twitter client you'll love to use, Blekko, Update all of your social networks at once, and SocialToo - Your Companion to the Social Web!

The new Facebook Timeline cover photo size is 850x315 (850px wide and 315px height) and this new Facebook Cover image dimension size has initiated a new craze

Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox. We combine what you know, what your organization knows, and what the web knows.

"If you were a booger, I'd pick you first." We've all struck out with a cheesy pick up line. Breaking the ice can be tough. Learn how to master it and tur

Read whitepapers about security and compliance for the new internet. Whitepapers that talk about the value of security, management and compliance solutions in protecting social businesses.

Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox. We combine what you know, what your organization knows, and what the web knows.

LouTube videos are brief, quirky vids that combine a lesson with a laugh. Please join me as I share raves, rants and resources on everything from Twitter tips to branding advice. Learn more at http://www.OnlineVideoBranding.com

Get royalty-free images, photos, vectors, illustrations and videos from the best microstock - Depositphotos.

“Carr persuasively — and with great subtlety and beauty — makes the case that it is not only the content of our thoughts that are radically altered by phones and computers, but the structure of our brains — our ability to have certain kinds of thoughts and experiences. And the kinds of thoughts and experiences at stake are those that have defined our humanity. [Carr] is a profoundly sharp thinker and writer — equal parts journalist, psychologist, popular science writer, and philosopher. I have not only given this book to numerous friends, I actually changed my life in response to it.” –Jonathan Safran Foer

Free high quality video chat and video conferencing from ooVoo. Talk live face-to-face with up to 6 people at once.

Last week I wrote a post on the value of a LinkedIn share. The tracking i completed through Visibli led me to rank the value of a share in the channel as 6 x the value of comparative channels. This...

Twitter Apps for your web browser to manage, monitor and update your Twitter accounts

Listly List - Tools for Pinterest Pros - Pin A Quote, Pinterest Image Expander, and Pinterest Pro

ShortStack is a great way to get your business on Facebook. ShortStack allows you to create custom Facebook Pages, tabs, Facebook apps and Facebook Contests

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, post links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

Pixability makes online video marketing super easy. We provide video editing services, video marketing software, YouTube marketing support,
and analytics.

In my experience, there are 8 primary types of people you encounter on social networking sites and other social media platforms. Here they are: can you find yourself in here?

Join the newest social media marketing community - Social Buzz Club. Our new social marketing tool encourages collaborative marketing & social sharing.

Video Marketing Advantage is the PowerPoint (handout) version of my VMA Webinar. (The webinar has audio, but you can still get a lot of good video tips and too

The shocking truth about Twitter Chats. Tips, tricks and time-savers

When looking at social media strategies, you might want to ask: "What is your business trying to achieve?"

By Jon Gatrell

Engaging and understanding the market is a critical set of activities that many marketers are presenting the results of their 2011 efforts to their management