This video blog discusses the rising importance of the location-based, social media platform known as Foursquare. Foursquare was “lovingly created in NYC” and is becoming a huge hit with consumers as they check-in here and become the Mayor of that. However, business needs to step in NOW and embrace this location-based social media platform for the marketing and loyalty-program that it is in order for user population and density to grow.

In other words, business CANNOT wait until there is “critical mass”… it must start offering things on Foursquare now and the more that do, the more users will join and want to use it because they won’t have to carry around loyalty cards that make their wallet thick or that they leave home because they forget them. In short, businesses must create the critical mass that will ultimately bring them huge success!

Businesses, meet the NEW generation of consumers… we want points and we want you to participate. Have fun with us and reap the benefits!

It has been widely reported that Twitter will soon be unveiling a monetization solution.

Speculation has been rampant with several blogs making predictions on what they think the solution will consist of.

Twitter certainly has many ways to go about revenue generation. At the end of 2009 – Twitter inked deals with Google and Bing to syndicate their Tweets to those respective engines. It was reported that Twitter was paid a bounty for this data. And, more recently, Yahoo inked a deal to publish Tweets on their network of websites. While these deals can bake in a revenue stream for Twitter – it most certainly isn’t the end goal.

According to Alexa, Twitter is the 12th most visited site on the internet. This traffic comes primarily from three different functions. The first, would be users that go to Twitter to post status updates. The second, would be from users that go to Twitter to read updates from the people that they are following. The third, is people that go to Twitter to use the search engine – as a way to see what people are saying right now about a certain subject.

Twitter won’t be looking to generate revenue off of the first group, because those are people whom are trying to communicate on Twitter. The second group, could easily be monetized, as an ad unit could show up within a users friends timeline. This would be a challenging solution because it is difficult to target an ad to a user whom is simply reading updates from all of the people they are following. Plus, a continued problem on Twitter is that there is a lot of noise posted by followers, so if ads were also added into the friends timeline, less people would go there to read what their followers are saying. So, the Twitter search traffic is the most likely place Twitter will go for monetization.

The renaissance of the web happened around 2002 due to the success of search advertising. Companies such as Overture, which was later acquired by Yahoo, had proven to web advertisers that search traffic converts. This was the business model that Google would deploy to monetize their ever popular search engine. So, with distribution in place on sites such as Google and Yahoo – and advertisers moving more and more online marketing dollars into the search marketplace – a successful web business economy was produced.

I think Twitter will go down a similar path. People who perform a search at Twitter can easily be targeted, and this is traffic that advertisers will want. Plus, by displaying ads in its search results, Twitter won’t disrupt its core functionality of Tweeting and reading Tweets from followers. Getting advertisers won’t be difficult, but it could take time, so Twitter could potentially publish another search engines advertisers (such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing) at the get go as a way to start generating income from day one. Then, over time, Twitter could sign up its own advertisers directly to publish into their search results. Another option would be for Twitter to go the Facebook route and only display ads from advertisers that signed up directly on Twitter from day one. Either way, down the line, Twitter could figure out a way to distribute their advertisers into users friends timelines potentially in an adsense like unit down the side of the page. But, at the get go, Twitter has the traffic on its search engine, which they can easily target ads too, and that’s where I think the ads will show up.

For added revenue, it has also been speculated that Twitter will offer up its advertisers to applications using its API, and it would then share the revenue with the application. So, applications that interact with Twitter, such as Sency or Seesmic; would have the option to promote Twitter advertisers for a cut of the profits.

Twitter hasn’t focused on making money as of yet. They have been concerned with their platform, site traffic, and third party developers. However, when you are the 12th most visited site on the web, and when a large portion of your traffic is search traffic – you are going to easily be able to generate revenue. It is also important to note, that real time web traffic won’t be as value able to advertisers as traditional search traffic – because it is less commercial in nature. So, while revenue will easily be generated by Twitter, I don’t foresee the revenue made per visit being on par with what the traditional search engines have been able to produce.

Water coolers.  Pre-Internet, we met around our respective office water coolers for commraderie and to dish the latest office gossip.  Those water coolers were mini-communities where like-minded professionals met daily.

Fast forward to 2010. Internet water coolers are just a mouse click away, according to a recent online New York Times article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/24/business/media/24cooler.html?hp . These “water coolers”, “birdbaths”, whatever you want to call them, come in the form of Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

In fact, the combination of Social Media usage with other media (i.e. television and the music Industry, to name two) is the latest buzz among industry leaders. As the article points out, “The Recording Academy, which presents the Grammys, mounted a digital campaign to promote the awards show this year, signing up Facebook fans and monitoring Grammy-related Twitter messages.”

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter allow people to get involved in communities that are larger than simply their local physical presence as well as communities that might not exist in a certain locale. They also allow for people to take place in real-time “conversation” and join ongoing conversation for a real group interaction. Just ask any “social media junkie”… they feel “disconnected” when they haven’t been active in their communities for whatever reason.

Another great example of this was this past Super Bowl. Millions of people met and took part in conversations that would never would have taken place had it not been for social media. People discussed the game, the commercials, the halftime show and the hoopla in general. Fans and rivals alike shared in the fun. It simply didn’t matter if that you might not be in New Orleans or New England (or Miami for that matter)… the cities became larger than themselves. This age of connectivity is amazing and invigorating to say the least!

Play like the big boys in the Recording Academy and wage your own super-effective and state-of-the-art digital campaign. Contact Chris Isaac (me) at birdbathBUZZ cisaac@birdbathBUZZ.com.

Jason OConnor compiled a useful list of Ten Ways to Use Twitter for Marketing. Among the ways is the promotion of blogging content, building an email list, and update followers on breaking news.

This is a really great article that I saw Guy Kawasaki tweet out about 10 ways that Twitter can be used for marketing. Good, real-world examples of how to use Twitter to do everything from introducing a new product to building your email list!

Holy Kaw!

What’s your Twitter ROI? How to measure social media payoff

Computerworld – Tech-savvy fans of the Georgia Aquarium got a special deal this past spring: a big discount on ticket prices. The aquarium offered 25% to 40% off admission prices from February through May to people who followed it on Twitter or signed on as Facebook or MySpace fans.

The promotion brought in $42,000 in sales… (click headline to read full story)

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6 Ways Businesses Can Use Twitter

When I was researching my new book, Twitterville, I discovered six ways companies were using Twitter. Perhaps some of them can be adapted to your company and its needs.

• An always-on newsletter. IBM is the world’s largest technology company. It is also the world’s tweetingest, with over 1,000 employees using it. The primary purpose is for IBM employees to share information with coworkers as well as the partners, customers, vendors, analysts and editors who comprise the company’s huge global ecosystem.  According to IBM’s social media manager Adam C. Christensen (@AdamClyde), IBMers are involved in thousands of tweeted conversations every day. It allows them to share information fast and out on the edge, without the tedium of filtering from corporate headquarters. “Twitter makes us a smarter company,” he said.  This seems particularly noteworthy considering that IBM owns LotusNotes, an aging internal network system designed to do exactly that as well.

• Recruit Talent. If you’ve ever savored the cuisine in hospital, military or college food services in North America, you probably have eaten food prepared by Sodexo. Even in these current tough times, Sodexo is growing like gangbusters and is finding senior talent by moving its executive recruitment efforts into social media. They tie it all together on Twitter (@SodexoCareers), using a network of recruiters. Arie Ball, VP of Talent acquisition told me that Twitter has helped them find chefs, facility engineers, and dietitians faster – and at lower cost – than other possible options.

• Launch for nearly nothing. Several companies have told stories of using Twitter to introduce new products or the companies themselves. Seesmic, founded by the French charismatic serial entrepreneur Loic LeMeur (@loic) launched his video chat service as “Twitter for video chat.” In less than 18 months, he has built a user base of over two million. His marketing hard dollar costs: nearly zero.

• Cultivate a Valuable Niche. Newell Rubbermaid (@Rubbermaid) is a 70-year-old manufacturer of bins, racks, boxes divided and the ubiquitous kitchen dish rack. Jim Deitzel, Rubbermaid’s e-marketing manager started tweeting as a new way to distribute company information. Like many company spokespeople that I interviewed, he soon discovered greater value in listening than speaking. In fact, he found an entire community of professional organizers who were passionate about Rubbermaid products. He started collaborating with them, asking them for help reorganizing his own pantry closet. He emerged as a de facto community leader, by serving as the glue that brought the company together.

• Roll your own marketplace. CrowdSPRING (@crowdSPRING) is a Chicago-based startup but it exists globally through Twitter more than in any physical location.  Their website and Twitter serve as a virtual marketplace for designers and potential new customers in a most disruptive way. A company goes to the website and describes what logo or graphic elements they are looking for and declares a maximum price. Then a global network of more than 12,000 freelancers and small agencies bid on the work by showing graphic ideas. New buyers and sellers are mostly found through Twitter.

• Cross the Chasm Pitney Bowes Is a 100-year-old company with a very stodgy image. They continue to be known as the “postage meter company” despite a 15-year migration into software and services. Aneta Hall (@Anetah) is the self-proclaimed company change agent, using Twitter and other social media tools, partly to show that the company is at least slightly cooler and hipper that the image implies. Hall is also a self-proclaimed change agent, using Twitter to persuade entrenched corporate power that there are more efficient ways than traditional marketing to get closer with customers and prospects.

I could write a book about the different ways businesses are using Twitter. In fact, I did. It’s pretty much like the Blind Men and the Elephant. Every business thinker that touches Twitter seems to find a different perception of value.

Shel Israel is a social media story teller. A frequent speaker, he is the author of Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods (Portfolio, Sept 2009) and is the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers (Wiley, Jan 2006) and The Conversational Corporation, a Dow Jones e-book (2009).

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FoxyTunes Update: Share What You’re Listening to on Twitter, Facebook, Last.fm

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While we all sit back and wait for iTunes 9 and the rumored support of Twitter (), Facebook (), and Last.fm, Yahoo decided to beat Apple to the punch with a major FoxyTunes update.

FoxyTunes () is the browser add-on that gives you the ability to control any media player — iTunes, Last.fm, Pandora (), Windows Media Player — while browsing the web. Now the nifty plugin has added its side project, TwittyTunes, as a defaut feature. With the new FoxyTunes you can manually or automatically share the music you’re listening to with the social web.

The FoxyTunes team has built in the ability to share your music with Twitter, Facebook, Skype (), Yahoo Messenger, Last.fm, and Yahoo Status. You can manually share with each service by clicking on the share button (the double arrow button) as you listen, adding and customizing text to include, selecting your service(s), and hitting send.

Your status updates will then include a link to the FoxyTunes music page (like this one) for the shared song. You can turn auto-udpates on for Last.fm scrobbling, as well as automatically update your Skype and Yahoo Messenger status with each new song.

While FoxyTunes was already an incredibly useful browser add-on, it’s now a social music service giving us one-click sharing options to our favorite social sites. It’s the features we’ve always wanted from iTunes, but on a much broader scale because it works for any of our favorite media players.

Twitter Better: 20 Ways to Filter Your Tweets

For a complete collection of Twitter resources, check out The Twitter Guide Book, Mashable’s hub for all things Twitter.

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Most Twitter users probably follow under a thousand other people, but that’s enough to make it hard to keep track of the real-time stream. I actually started having trouble keeping up when I hit about 50 follows — and depending on how prolific the people you’re following are, you could be dealing with a hard-to-parse Twitter () stream even following just a handful of people. But while people like social media fanatic Robert Scoble, who follows over 100,000 people, appear to have the superhuman ability to stay on top of things, the rest of us need help filtering the Twitter stream.

Fortunately, there are a good number of methods and applications we can put to work to filter tweets from the people we’re following. Which work best for you? Let us know in the comments.

(Please note that a few of the apps in this post actually do multiple types of filtering, and so could have theoretically been added to more than one category.)

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By Keyword

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One way to filter Twitter is by keyword. Filttr is a full-featured, web-based Twitter app that includes keyword-based filtering. You can both blacklist and whitelist key phrases and Filtter will block or allow those tweets. Flittr, though, has a pretty steep learning curve, and before I even added any keywords it started filtering tweets — and took a particular dislike to a few of my Twitter friends. I’m not sure what criteria it was using for those initial filters.

Another full web-based client that includes keyword filtering is Mixero (), which is in private beta.

Philtro, which is also in private beta, learns what types of tweets you like based on your ratings. Give thumbs up and thumbs down ratings to tweets, and Philtro slowly figures out what you like and attempts only to bother you with tweets you’d be likely to want to read.

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By Links

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About 19% of all tweets contain links, but if your Twitter stream moves quickly, you may miss many of the best unless you use a filter. MicroPlaza organizes the links tweeted by out by your followers by recency or popularity. MicroPlaza personalizes the concept employed sites like Tweetmeme (), Twitt(url)y, and dailyRT, which assume that the more a link is tweeted, the more worthwhile it is of your attention.

MicroPlaza not only looks at which links are being tweeted and retweeted the most, but also which are being tweeted specifically by the people you’re following. The idea is that you’re most interested in things your followers are saying (otherwise, you wouldn’t be following them), so if they tweet about popular links, they’re more likely to be of interest to you.

One of the coolest features of MicroPlaza, though, is that you can assume the identity of any other Twitter user — so if you follow someone very connected to a specific industry, you can see the links that their friends are sharing.

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By Grouping

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Another way to filter Twitter, is by organizing your friends into groups. By putting the people you’re following into groups, you can break up and effectively slow down your Twitter stream, making it easier to follow tweets from your friends, colleagues, and family members.

There are a ton of different ways to organize you friends into groups, but one of the easiest is to use a Twitter client that supports grouping, such as desktop heavyweights Seesmic Desktop (), Destroy Twitter, and TweetDeck () (which has a complimentary iPhone app that also supports groups), or a web-based app like PeopleBrowsr.

Another option is to use a service that helps you create channels or groups of Twitter users and monitor their tweets. Floxee is one of the most full-featured such sites. It not only lets users monitor the tweetstream of a predefined group, but also displays stats about the activity of that group (or “flock”). Other sites you could use include TwitHive, Tweetizen (), Twhanel, Crowdstatus, TwittGroups.com, and TweetChannel.

Disclosure: TweetDeck partnered with Mashable () to create MashDeck, a branded version of the software.

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By Favorites

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Favorites () aren’t the best way to filter tweets, because the reasons you favorite tweets might not be the same as other people. However, by the same token, tweets that have been favorited by multiple users are generally worth reading for some reason: they’re interesting, funny, clever, extraordinary, etc.

Favrd keeps track of the most favorited tweets, but is limited to those users who have signed up with the service to have their favorites watched. (Careful: Favrd is often NSFW.) Favotter is another favorite tracking site, but again, watches a limited number of users (due to API limitations, according to the site’s about page).

BONUS: TwitterForBusyPeople doesn’t really filter Twitter, but it does organize your recently active follows in a way that you can get an “at a glance” view of the activity of people you’re following. Once you get used to it, it is potentially a good way to make your Twitter stream more manageable.

BONUS 2: Twalala does keyword filtering, but where it really shines is the ability to mute certain users to remove their tweets from your twitter stream temporarily.

Bird illustration via Flickr () user matthamm.

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Twitter is the beginning of new Web era – Related Stories – Shop.org SmartBrief

Shop.org SmartBrief | 08/07/2009

Twitter is ushering in the era of the real-time Web, which some investors are betting will be the Internet’s “next big thing,” on par with the magnitude of Google, this article says. With faster Internet connections and mobile technology, real-time interactions are changing the face of the Internet — and how marketers make money on it. BusinessWeek (08/06)

Chinese shoppers have major presence on the Internet

Friday, July 18, 2008

Survey: More than two-thirds of African-Americans are online

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Dating sites see revenue growth

Friday, January 23, 2009

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7 ways to tweet about your company – Related Stories – Shop.org SmartBrief

The companies that tweet best are those that relay their corporate culture, Sharlyn Lauby writes. She suggests using social media to share a company’s history, vision and mission — as well as being responsive and asking questions about the future. Mashable (07/27)

Social media is key to enhancing your brand’s online identity

Monday, June 15, 2009

The basics of social-media monitoring

Monday, February 23, 2009

Twitter launches two ad products from outside developers

Monday, July 13, 2009

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