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What do you think? Share your thoughts.

Rumors about a facebook smartphone have been circling the air for a long time now but recently HTC’s name has been popping up into the conversation. And yet again the phone was certainly denied from coming to the light of stores. Or was it?

Today at the Mobile World Congress, HTC unveiled two new smartphones that will feature dedicated Facebook buttons to easily access the popular social-networking site. The HTC ChaCha and the HTC Salsa (yes, those names are a bit ridiculous) each have a Facebook button on the bottom,when pressed will let you update your status, upload photos, check into places, share news articles, and more.

Also the phone is aware of certain moments that might want to be shard on the big time social network. For example, when you take a photo. For example if you take a picture the light on the Facebook button will glow and if you would like to upload them to your wall, share with friends or an album etc. This feature isn’t only limited to photos but also you can let your online community know what music you’re listening to. While playing music on the ChaCha or the Salsa the button will again light up and ask if you would like to share that information with friends.

I do believe this phone is personally made for those who are highly addicted to facebook but I’m not so huge on this feature. What would happen if I were to get a call? Would the facebook button light up or automatically share who I’m having a conversation with? I would hope not because that in my opinion would be a little much. Plus with all other smartphones with apps for the social media mogul, I once again find little spotlight of interest for this phone since those features excluding the share what you’re listening to are already there within the apps.

All around the phone idea does sound great but also a bit late on its timing, considering the multiple apps out there. I’m guessing its made for those who just share too much information on their page. But with that said please be sure to shed some of your thoughts on this product and what future lies ahead for it.

Facebook has plans to launch a third-party commenting system in a matter of weeks, according to a couple sources familiar with the new product. This new technology could see Facebook as the engine behind the comments system on many high-profile blogs and other digital publications very soon.

The company at the moment is in seek of major media companies and blogs to partner with for its launch, part of a bigger media industry move.

Facebook, of course, is already present in blog comments. Currently, a digital publishing outlet–say, a blog or a newspaper’s web site–can integrate Facebook’s API and allow users to connect to their Facebook accounts. Often, users can post notifications on their Facebook walls announcing that they’ve commented, or can have a social comment turned into a status message. The new product is a significantly deeper expansion of this, according to sources. Facebook will be able to power the entire commenting system, handling the log-in and publishing, cross-promoting comments on individuals’ walls, and possibly even promoting them as well on media outlets’ own fan pages. Undoubtedly, the like button will be deeply integrated as well.

Your profile, Timeline–is now a never-expiring feed of all your activity in chronological order, going back to the very first day you joined Facebook. And all your friends can view it.

Facebook is redesigning profile pages of its 500 million-plus users to make them more a reflection of their real lives and to highlight one of the site’s most popular features: photos.

Facebook said in a blog post Sunday the changes are meant to make it easier for users to tell their story — who they are, where they work, their life philosophy and the most important people in their lives. The changes place a bigger emphasis on visuals, from photos to images of users’ interests.

Click here to get started http://www.facebook.com/about/profile

http://www.cnet.com/profile/sharonvak/

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“Only” 320,000 new U.S. users joined Facebook last month, according to the site’s own data. The network actually lost active users in the coveted 18-25, 26-34 and 35-44 demographics while the gains came from younger and older age groups.

So, has the much-discussed Facebook or Social Media Fatigue finally arrived? Or did the privacy debacle in May fuel a large-scale user outrage that wasn’t apparent until June’s numbers came in? Or was it simply a slow month, or perhaps even a reporting glitch?

Regardless of the answer, the one thing we know for sure is that Facebook hasn’t lost its importance to the digital business landscape, and it isn’t about to anytime soon.

Only Google — which is rumored to be starting a Facebook-like social network of its own, by the way — gets more traffic, and Facebook is currently valued at about $15 billion. Annual revenues are estimated to be close to $1 billion, and, most importantly for marketers and advertisers, there are nearly half a billion active users. And that number continues to grow, if not by exorbitant figures last month.

But we will be watching, and we’ll let you know if and when Facebook Fatigue is a real concern for marketers.

Facebook has changed the way people interact and made our lives transparent.  The movie “Social Network”  depicts the story of Facebook and how it grew from 1 member to 500 million in just a few years. It also sheds light on the struggles of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, his college friends, his enemies and the future of the company.

Check out the trailer and let me know what you think.

I always see ads on Craigslist from small business owners looking for Social Media Interns to run Facebook & Twitter campaigns. I understand the logic. Some of the biggest users of Social Media Websites are college students, so they are familiar with how they work. However, talking on Facebook about a party is different than building a brand and reaching potential customers.

For example, most college students have a driver licenses, but that doesn’t mean they can drive a bus. It’s easy to use Facebook and anybody can post a picture or share a YouTube video, but is takes a professional online marketer to promote a business effectively.

Online Marketing is about more than just a Facebook page its includes your Website, Search Engine Optimization, Video Marketing, Email Marketing & other business objectives.

Without goals and objectives a page on Twitter means nothing, it’s just a page with random quotes and unrelated stories.

So to answer my question, No anybody can’t use Social Media to promote a business. It takes planning, dedication and patience to see results from a Social Media campaign.

Click here: for Four Ways Social Networking Can Build Business

Social Media Marketing from McKinley Media Group on Vimeo.

Twitter is a great way to  market your business online and build interest about your product or service. Many business owners understand the need to be online, but few know how to use it to market their business.

The unique and sometimes frustrating thing about Twitter is that you are limited to using only 140 characters to explain your message.

Twitter forces  you to be creative and concise which can be tough when explaining a topic or sharing a story. To save space try adding a link to your post to further explain your topic; link to your website or a interesting blog.

Here are some more tips:

1. Be more interested in helping than making money

Try to become a expert in your field, give advice and tips

2. Create relationships first

Twitter is a interacting with people, so before you start sell start by getting to know them

3. Introduce your company at the right time and place

Timing is everything be 75% tips & advice and 25% sales.

4. Don’t repeat the same message

One of the most popular problems of Twitter users today is spam. Be original and only post content once.

5. Reach out a helping hand

Help other people in your niche. Give advice, answer and ask questions.

Twitter is sometimes called to as Twitter Marketing, Social Media & Micro blogging

Social Media is changing the way people communicate and making the world smaller. Some people think that Social Media is a bad thing but like many things it’s what you make it. I think that everything online is just mimicking real life situations and that is why Facebook and Twitter are so popular.

Social Media is just that “social” it brings people together and enhances relationships. You can reconnect with past friends on Facebook with a few clicks and share your thoughts on Twitter with the world.

Social Media is here to stay and these number are proof.

• Facebook claims that 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would mean at least 175m users every 24 hours… A considerable increase from the previous 120m.

• Twitter now has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis. It’s still a fair increase from the estimated 6-10m global users from a few months ago.

• LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide. This means an increase of around 1m members month-on-month since July/August last year.

• Facebook currently has in excess of 350 million active users on global basis.Six months ago, this was 250m… meaning around a 40% increase of users in less than half a year.
• Flickr now hosts more than 4bn images. A massive jump from the previous 3.6bn I wrote about.
• More than 35m Facebook users update their status each day. This is 5m more than towards the end of July, 2009.
• Wikipedia currently has in excess of 14m articles, meaning that it’s 85,000 contributors have written nearly a million new posts in six months.
• Photo uploads to Facebook have increased by more than 100%. Currently, there are around 2.5bn uploads to the site each month – this was around a billion last time I covered this.
• There are more than 70 translations available on Facebook. Last time around, this was only 50.
• Back in 2009, the average user had 120 friends within Facebook. This is now around 130.

Twitter applications can be called by different names. They are sometimes called as “twitter tools”, “twitter add-ons” and the likes. But whatever the name they are called, they are simply websites which have built-in scripts that complement Twitter.

Here is a simple collection of all the Twitter applications I have encountered on the internet. Contribute more applications to keep the list growing.

Visit us on Twitter.

Find Tweeters Like You:

Directories and User Search Tools

• Just Tweet It: A twitter directory sorted by interest
• Twubble: This tool will automatically find people who are compatible with your interests.
• Twittie Me: Search for similar users and advertise your twitter page.
• Twitdir: Search for words in user names, locations or descriptions
• We Follow: Follow people through popular tags
• Twellow: Find people by area of expertise

Find out what is the latest trends on Twitter

Sites that tell the latest stories and trends on Twitter

• Twitscoop: A search tool that tracks trends as well as certain events.
• Trendistic (previously Flaptor Search): A search tool that can be installed on your browser.
• Tweet Scan: Search keywords on Twitter
• Twitterment: Search Twitter users and topics
• Tweetmeme: Find out the latest Stories on Twitter
• Twistori: Find out what twitter loves, hates, believes, etc.
• Twitturly: Find out the most talked about stories on Twitter
• GoodBadMe: Keep track of the good and bad on the twitterverse
• Favotter: Find out the most favored (saved to favorites) tweets

Track Twitter Users

Find out who the top Twitter users are

Track certain keywords on Twitter

See keyword behavior on Twitter with these sites

• Tweet Beep: Find out who is talking about you or your website through certain keywords
• Site volume: Enter five keywords and see their activity on Twitter
• Tweet Volume: A more personalize version of Site Volume
• Monitter: Monitor Twitter conversations on three keywords. Good for catching the latest news
• Hashtags: Track a certain keyword on Twitter
• Twemes: See twitter memes or tags for Twitter
• Tweetchannel: Find out what people are talking about through certain keywords called channels.
• Twitter Meter: Find the trends of certain keywords
• Flaptor Trends: Compare the trends of three keywords on Twitter
• Twitter Spectrum: Find out the dominant keywords via a tagcloud generated.
• Serendipitwiterrous: Search for tweets of a certain person using certain keywords
• Twittertroll: real-time Twitter search engine

Schedule your Tweets

Auto-tools to schedule tweets. Use wisely. Do not use for spam

• Tweet Later: Schedule tweets, auto-follow and auto-welcome people
• Twittertise: Schedule your tweets. Very useful when you are advertising.
• Tweet Ahead: Schedule your tweets on Mac
• Twit Response: Imagine Twitter + Autoresponder. Send tweets automatically.

Track Yourself Through Twitter Statistics

Check out your status on Twitter

• Tweet Burner: Track the links that you post on Twitter
• Twitter Grader: Find out your twitter grade. Computed based on how complete your profile is as well as the number and influence of your followers.
• Tweet Stats: Graph your tweet activity
• Twinfluence: Measure your Twitter influence through tweets, reach of followers as well as second-order followers
• Tweeple Twak: Track your friend gains and declines
• Twit Graph: Graph your tweeting activity
• Tweet 140: Track your direct message and tweet frequency
• Twitter Ratio: Find out your friend to follower ratio.

Make Money with Twitter

Ways you can use your twitter account to earn money

• Twittad: Place advertisements on your profile
• Magpie: Advertise with 5 tweets and get paid

Twitter and Email

Receive and send tweets via email

• Twittermail: Update twitter via email
• Twitter Reply: Receive your replies on your email
• OuTwit: Update Twitter with your Microsoft Outlook
• mail2twitter: A free service that allows you to post tweets through e-mail

Twitter Downtime Saviors

Tools that will save you when Twitter has its downtimes

• Twit a Bit: The place to be when Twitter is down. Anyone can continue tweeting in this site.
• Tweetake: Backup your twitter account
• Twitter Safe: Another place where you can backup your account.
• Hahlo: Another website where you can tweet

Twitter Messenger Applications

Integrate Twitter with your Messenger

• TwitterIM: Integrate twitter with your MSN or ICQ Messenger
• Yahoo Messenger Twitter Sync Plugin: Integrate twitter with your Yahoo Messenger
• TwitterYM: Update your Twitter on Yahoo Messenger
• Twessenger: Twitter tool for Windows Live Messenger
• Twit4live: Update twitter via messenger as well as advertise the tweets of your friends.
• TikiTwit: Integrate Twitter with iChat