Guy Kawasaki, co-creator of aggregator juggernaut Alltop.com, has created an incredibly informative post on how to leverage twitter as a marketing tool. He goes in depth with specific tricks to maximizing “tweet” visibility, and discusses his successes using twitter for alltop, as well as highlighting the ways companies like Amazon and Wholefoods utilize twitter to maximize customer interaction.

For small businesses trying to reach consumers, Twitter, if used correctly, is undoubtedly one of the best tools available, and it’s free. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, it is essentially a mini-blogging tool, that allows users to create posts up to 140 characters in length. As a user one can post “tweets” as well as follow the posts of others in the twitter community. The value of this relational tool for marketing is really quite extraordinary, due to the exponential connectivity of Twitter followers.  Here is the most poignant example of Guy’s usage in numbers:

177 people agreed to repost all Alltop news as their own tweets. This took automated tweeting to a historical new high—or low depending on who you asked.

Then my new book, Reality Check , came out, and I made an offer of a free copy of it to anyone who signed up for the Alltop Twitterfeed. Another 280 people signed up—bringing the total to approximately 450 people.

We counted, and these 450 people had a total of 140,000 followers. This meant that whenever we announced a new topic, the 140,000 followers of 450 people received notification. These 450 people had followers in common, so their tweets didn’t reach 140,000 different people (see next section), but this was the Mother of Retweeting.

The post explains how to find followers, how to build a profile, everything you need to know about getting started with Twitter.

Social Networking, Web 2.0 Social Networking, Web 2.0

The Social Bookmarking phenomenon is one that has its marketing advantages. If you don’t already use social bookmarking, you are certainly aware of their presence if you’ve viewed the ubiquitous array of little icon “badges” that appears at the bottom of so many blog posts, or on the side column of this page displayed as the “add this” button. But what exactly are their advantages in terms of Marketing? Bill McIntosh, explores social bookmarks’ value for rapidly gaining the attention of search engines in his project to set up a ranked and search engine indexed website within a week. He proves his point that the trackbacks and pings that are achieved through social bookmarks give relevance to your site that could take months to otherwise achieve. While his efforts are impressive, they offer a somewhat hollow analysis as he uses them for a flash the pan effect, without exploring social bookmarking’s value, if any, for establishing repeat visitors. More to come on the long term value of social bookmarking.

Social Networking social bookmarking

These days there are a number ways that people can interact via the internet. From groups specifically designed to connect with “friends,” to media and file sharing sites, to corporate networking sites, there are a lot of different ways to connect. But what is the most effective way for businesses to take advantage of these digital relationships?

Michael Jones of Userplane describes the benefit of social networks like Linkedin for making “blind” connections with potential business associates, much in the same way that individuals might meet for blind dates.

Stepping into the conference room, I realize that I’m headed into an appointment with very little information on what’s about to happen or with whom I’ll be meeting. I know the names of the participants, but would not recognize them if I passed them on the street. Nonetheless, I’m pleased with the opportunity and eager about what may materialize from this gathering.

Now here’s the punchline: this entire in-person meeting was arranged online with the assistance of “web introductions,” through the business networking service Linkedin.

He goes on to speculate that these types of business meetings will become more common place, and that eventually, through the integration of technology like tele-conferencing, the necessity to meet in person may be eliminated altogether.

In this B to B model of social networking, the advantages are fairly straightforward. You set up a profile describing yourself and what you do and would like to do, and then go about making connections with the people whose profiles in some way present a common interest or benefit. But what about B to C social networking?

This Tech Crunch article explores some of the best “create your own social network” type of sites. The idea of how to create a successful platform with your business at the center upon which your consumers can interact is the 64 thousand dollar question for these types of networks. I don’t personally have the answer, but at least there are folks out there trying to figure out the best ways to facilitate it.

Social Networking Social Networking