According to Tech Flash, Wetpaint and Altimeter Group today unveiled a new report that attempts to measure the companies that are best using social media, tracking how 100 companies from the 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands survey utilized Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and discussion forums.

While the summary is good. The actual report is loaded with some interesting information. To download, visit here.



-posted by Justin

Tags: wetpaint, altimetergroup, facebook, twitter

A recent study finds that when it comes to embracing new technology like blogging and social networking, the country's top CEOs have significant room to improve.

According to the study from UberCEO, an online publication focused on CEOs, only 19 of Fortune 100 CEOs had a Facebook profile, 13 had a LinkedIn page, two had Twitter accounts and get this NONE HAD A BLOG. But those top-line results may not be reflective of what's really going on with UberCEO reporting that the Twitter feeds of Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and Alan Lafley, CEO of Proctor & Gamble, have not posted anything of significance since being set up.



UberCEO says CEOs being social media slackers leaves the door open them appearing disconnected, especially with a growing number of people using tools like Twitter and blogs. Writes UberCEO's Sharon Barclay:

We're not suggesting that every CEO should participate in every aspect of social media. That's a decision each CEO needs to make as part of an overall company marketing strategy. But we are recommending that every CEO examines their online image and reputation.

UberCEO goes on to speculate that the reasons CEOs aren't using social media is because of fear, lack of knowledge and time constraints.

Although a daunting task both in time and resources, utilizing these avenues to connect with current customers, potential customers, business partners and the public at large seems like a no-brainer especially for CEOs whose corporations still have a stockpile of resources to support such activities (i.e. cash and employees). Are CEOs above such forms of communication?

-posted by Andrew

Tags: facebook, twitter, linkedin

Those of you interested in increasing your networking circle on Twitter probably already have a good handle on how to do it within your industry niche. But there are distinct advantages to having a wide circle of connections within your own neighborhood, whether it's to raise your company's visibility as a corporate citizen in your region or just to get quick recommendations for restaurants in the area. There are many Twitter-related sites designed specifically for locating and connecting with locals; here are just three to get you started:






Localtweeps is still in beta, but it was created to "help localize the Twittersphere." Your listing is indexed by zip code, so at this time, you can only register once. (Note to @brevig, @colinhirdman, @joshbecerra and @zacksteven: it'd be great to be able to temporarily localize for when one is traveling to a new city.) Registration is fairly straightforward. After signing in to your Twitter account, go to the Localtweeps site and put in your zip code. It takes about five minutes for your name to appear in the database. Click on the "Search" tab to find others in your area, and you can then click and follow at will.

One nice feature about Localtweeps is that you can promote an event or special offer within this zip code.






Another site that's still in beta is StreetMavens. StreetMavens has a different function than Localtweeps in that its purpose is to capture what's happening in any given city in real time. Go to the site, click on your city and you'll see a listing of local tweeps and what they are currently saying via Twitter. From here, you can click on the individual user names and follow folks of interest. StreetMavens is a little harder to use than Localtweeps if you want to register yourself, but it's worth the effort -- particularly if you're a business, as you can register your profile to the site. If you want to see what the page looks like for the VOXUS neighborhood, go to: http://www.streetmavens.com/city/Tacoma



Chances are, you're already listed in Twellow.com, also known as The Twitter Yellow Pages. Finding your city in "the TwellowHood" is pretty simple, just click on the search tab if you don't want to navigate through the nifty maps. On the resulting list, tweeps are ranked by number of followers, so simply cruise through the list and find people of interest to you. Click on their Twitter user names to navigate back to Twitter so that you can follow them.

-posted by Rachel

Tags: twitter, localtweeps, streetmavens

Recently, a friend of mine with World Concern, a Christian relief agency, conducted an interview with the ABC affiliate in Eugene, Oregon via Twitter.... better known as a twitterview. A twitterview works pretty much like it sounds -- a back and fourth of up to 140 character tweets via Twitter, the micro-blogging social media site that has caught fire lately with everyone and every organization from Oprah to CNN. Although not an entirely new concept, the twitterview has yet to be widely adopted by the mainstream media. The first mainstream outlet that I can find that made a foray into the twitterview universe was ABC's George Stephanopoulos twitterview of Senator John McCain in March of this year.


As a former journalist myself, here's my take on twitterviews. They're a great way to give complete public access to a media interview. The fact that questions and answers have to be given in 140 characters or less also cuts out a lot of extraneous information. On the other hand, the 140 character limit can also limit more in-depth answers and leave you wanting more. In addition, the fact that twitterviews take place virtually leaves you guessing regarding any sort of emotions being expressed during the interview.  Formal articles generally give you a feel for emotions, and radio and television interviews definitely give you a first-hand hear or look at emotions expressed.

Larry Magid had a great take on the McCain twitterview in CNET. His take, the twitterview definitely was not a journalistic high point, questioning whether the 140 character format makes any sense as an interview technique, especially when dealing with life and death questions.




-posted by Andrew

Tags: twitter

Recent research out of the Harvard Business School shows that 10% of Twitter users are accounting for 90% of the tweets, breaking even the classic “80/20” business rule. Moreover, the median number of tweets per day is 0.01. Wow. And, there is some interesting data about how followers skew out... men are apparently more likely to follow men in this particular social media.

Although men and women follow a similar number of Twitter users, men have 15% more followers than women. Men also have more reciprocated relationships, in which two users follow each other....Even more interesting is who follows whom. We found that an average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman. Similarly, an average woman is 25% more likely to follow a man than a woman. Finally, an average man is 40% more likely to be followed by another man than by a woman.

This surprised the researchers, since in a typical “social” setting, either online or off, most of the activity is focused around women. It would be interesting to see more research into why this happens not to be the case on Twitter. Perhaps given the 90/10 split above, Twitter is being used less as a pickup medium and more as a professional soapbox – an endeavor often dominated by men, both on the box and in the audience.

(via Kevin Drum)

-posted by Paul

Tags: twitter

Guess what was released today at The Twitter Conference in Mountain View? Eight new Twitter applications. They include:

TWILK

Twilk.com is a Twitter background generator, creating backgrounds "auto-magically" from the collective pictures of the people you follow.

FLAGGPOLE

Flaggpole is a place-based social network that connects people through places that are important to them. These places could be a zip code, a neighborhood, a park, church, a school, a club or a business. After identifying a place, users can form virtual communities related to that place's function and use both micro-messaging and Twitter integration to organize meaningful interactions. Flaggpole can be used worldwide, though it is currently only available in English.

PUBLICITWEET

Publicitweet is a social media marketing application aimed at providing in-depth analytics for Twitter campaigns. The analytics go beyond the number of clicks and provide detailed information on which users had the most referrals and the overall reach.

JOBABA

Jobaba is a social marketplace for local services integrated with Twitter. When users need help getting something done, they can simply follow @Jobaba on Twitter and tweet the request with the keyword #ineed, and Jobaba will broadcast it to its network of service providers serving the user's local area. If the service providers have the proper skills to perform the job, they can use Jobaba to engage the person in need, place a bid, or set up meetings. Anyone with skills and a desire to provide services can create a profile on Jobaba, start networking with potential customers, and bid on job requests through Twitter.

CHATTERBOX

ChatterBox is a collaboration platform used to track, categorize and respond to Twitter conversations. An intelligent, single point of access, this web-based interface pulls in conversations and creates a collaborative workspace that provides topical views of information - along with tools such as personalized views, assignment, categorization, prioritization, notifications and tagging - creating a more streamlined process to listen, organize and respond to conversations. As a result, social media power users and corporate teams can become far more effective in participating in relevant conversations, providing customer service, and generating stronger business leads.

TWEETFUNNEL

TweetFunnel provides editorial control for organizations of all types and sizes. It allows multiple contributors within a company to submit tweets for editorial review and approval before they are added to the company's time line. TweetFunnel also allows editors to assign mentions and DMs back to appropriate contributors for their replies. There is in turn, an editorial review layer for these replies.

TWITTYLINKS

TwittyLinks lets you quickly tweet about any web page, without leaving the page. Each tweet builds your brand awareness, with a link to your own site. The more you tweet about interesting web pages, the more traffic you drive to your site.

TWITTFILTER

Twittfilter is a filtering application that scores your friends and followers using a variety of scoring techniques including update rate, friend/follower ratio, keywords, and more. Twittfilter has 3 main features: 1) Your new followers are automatically ranked and only those that score above a preset level are emailed to you. 2) Messages are not viewed by time, but by user/score and only the first 3 are shown, in case someone tweets too much. 3) Twittfilter is also a searchable address book organized by how you communicate. There are many other features, check it out for yourself.

Tags: twitter

No, not the country, the man!

According to S.I., the NBA slapped Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with a $25,000 fine Sunday for publicly criticizing the officials after Denver's 103-101 win over Dallas. Cuban used Twitter to complain after Friday's game that Denver's J.R. Smith was not called for coming off the bench to taunt Antoine Wright after he missed a shot near the Nuggets bench.

Cuban said in another posting Sunday that he "can't say no one makes money from twitter now. the nba does."

-posted by Justin

Tags: twitter, markcuban

It’s no secret that we run Macs around here, and one of the popular (and controversial) retail programs is something called MacHeist – basically a collection of multiple software titles sold for one rock bottom price. I’ve avoided participating in this (as a customer) in past years due in no small part to that controversy, which circled around the question of whether the group that puts on MacHeist screws the participating vendors.

I’m an ardent proponent of independent software vendors, and I like to support the creation of good software, which I define as both useful and elegant. As such, I thought it best to steer clear of MacHeist on general principles.

On the other hand, it’s unarguably one hell of a deal. And with this latest go-round, it appears that they’ve largely addressed the equitability in regard to the participating vendors, at least according to a number of those vendors themselves. Moreover, MacHeist donates a percentage of proceeds to charity, which is of course a plus.

So, I jumped in with both feet. Now the interesting thing about how MacHeist works is that there is an initial group of applications, and if they sell enough bundles, then additional apps are “unlocked” for everyone that has purchased. Which obviously generates not only the mob mentality that fuels any auction, but also adds to the word-of-mouth marketing of the whole bundle.

And here’s where things get interesting, and either brilliant or diabolical, depending on your point of view. After making the initial purchase, I receive periodic status updates on how they are progressing toward unlocking additional applications. Then I receive a “special Twitter offer” for two bonus applications that have been thrown into the mix, “all you have to do is click this link.” Said link takes you to a MacHeist page where you have to verify that you have a Twitter account (so now they have my user name and account) and then takes you to MacHeist’s Twitter page, where you must follow them. Of course you can always un-follow at a later date, but my guess is that many customers won’t do that.

Thus far, MacHeist has gathered additional customer data for later marketing purposes, and gotten customers to follow the Twitter version of the company’s promotional newsletter. Not bad. But it gets better (or worse).

After you follow MacHeist on Twitter, but before you receive the additional software, you have to post a promotional tweet to your account:

I bought the @MacHeist 3 Bundle. 12 Top Mac apps worth $900+ for just $39 AND I just got Delicious Library 2 FREE!

Once you’ve gone this far in the process, it’s extremely likely that you’ll follow through regardless of whether you find this distasteful or not. I did. And I have to admit to being torn: is this a brilliant social marketing program, or an abuse of social media?

-posted by Paul

Tags: twitter, macheist