Twitter Gets Political

With the election coming up in November, social media has been welling up with politics. Romney and Obama are both running Facebook ads along with traditional TV segments, and users of social media are throwing down their opinions like MMA fighters at a UFC tournament. Twitter is the latest to get in on the game, rolling out their new Twitter Political Index, a slightly less scientific Gallup poll that relies on tracking the millions of tweets of its users for candidate names. While Twitter is so far predicting an Obama win, it must also be taken into account that Twitter users tend to be younger with democratic leanings, which doesn't accurately reflect those who actually do the voting. If Twitter predicts the presidential election's outcome correctly, do you think this will change the way that social media influences polls and statistics? Do you approve of this political leap taken by Twitter, or do you think Twitter should keep its nose out of national elections?

Visit Mashable to see the fun graphs that Twitter has come out with.

Social Media for Small Businesses

Sarah Evans - the face of PR Newswire - had one of my favorite posts this weekend:









As an Internet marketer, I have to agree. Not everyone, and everything, needs a Facebook fan page, or a Twitter account, for that matter. Let's face it - it can get annoying. However, social media does have its place in the Web marketing toolbox. And especially for small businesses on a limited budget, social media can be effective - if it's used properly.

According to a recent article in eMarketer, lead generation is the biggest benefit social media brings to small businesses. Other benefits as listed in the "Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010" from Ad-ology include:


















Like any marketing or advertising campaign, social media efforts need to focused, with a clear strategy and measurable goals. Unfortunately, most small businesses face several challenges when it comes to using social media effectively, including a lack of education and/or the necessary resources to use the channel effectively.

So, before you build that Facebook page or create your Twitter account, think about what you want to accomplish... If you aren't sure what, how or where to begin, get some help from an expert. As we've seen in many instances, a misstep in the social media world can cause more harm than good. By engaging someone familiar with the channel to help you get started, you'll reduce the risk of a foux paux, as well as the learning curve, and see results faster.

Twitter Account Verification

Twitter is taking impersonation seriously and will be launching Verified Accounts. As it stands now, it violates their terms of service for someone to claim to be someone they are not and gives the company the power to revoke the account. First, Twitter will be testing public officials, agencies, athletes and well known individuals. They hope to extend this as time goes on. When an account is verified, there will be a logo that people can clearly see the person or company is who they say they are.

Top Things I Twittered from WebmaterWorld's Pubcon

I am at WebmasterWorld's Pubcon, and instead of taking notes just for me, I live Twittered everything I learned. If you don't follow me on Twitter here are the highlights, in Twitter format.

Also interesting to note, Twitter was the dominant theme of the conference from the opening keynote featuring internet entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki and the nicest guy on Twitter Chris Brogan through to my talk on 'The Intersection of Search and Social'.

Search.Twitter.com is a game changer. Faster than Google which takes 1-2 days to index @JayBerkowitz

No matter how much we say we're talking about social media at large, we're often just talking about Twitter @Chris Brogan

@DellOutlet on Twitter has done over $1,000,000 in business and over 154,000 followers in 1.5 years

Twitter growth 752% Dec. to Dec. (source Compete.com) @btabke

A number of people are using Twitter to search for product information instead of Google. They ask their followers what car to buy what movie to go to @JayBerkowitz

The ultimate form of flattery is how often people retweet your posts I check retweetthis.com all the time @guykawasaki

If you want to be retweeted keep tweets to 120 characters leave room for Rt message @ggroovin

The number one reason people stop following you is too much me me me @ggroovin

32% of the Fortune 500 use Google Analytics @btabke

Great post by @chrisbrogan - 50 ideas for using twitter for business

'Rankings are dead' (Important What this means is that due to personalized search you get different results than I do, so you can't look at rank results anymore) @btabke

Brett Tabke Main Themes: Google is winning, social media has arrived, affiliates are back for site monetization, what recession? @btabke

What's coming in Search widgets badges, apps, mobile, local and international @SEOmom

@chrisbrogan 'I cheat for blog content, I take pictures and blog about them like buy this shitty coffee the worst ad i've seen'

Top 50 Celebrities on Twitter

The latest Rolling Stone magazine had a list of some musicians on the popular micro blogging site Twitter. So it got me to thinking who else is active? Here are 50 celebrities on Twitter, I tried to sort out the real celebs from the fakes.

FYI - If you haven't checked out Twitter yet, one tip - get your name right now! Twitter is becoming increasingly popular and you only have one chance to reserve your name. Register your name for free and the name of your company to save it.
To get started with Twitter, have a look at my Twitter feed to see some of the people I'm following.

Please add any other celebs you follow to the list in the comments and we'll update it in the future!

Politics
1. Barack Obama
2. Arnold Schwarzenegger
3. Al Gore
4. Joe Biden

Miscellaneous
5. Richard Branson
6. Deepak Chopra

Pop/Hollywood
7. Brittney Spears
8. Demi Moore
9. Ashton Kutcher
10. Ryan Seacrest
11. Perez Hilton
12. George Lucas
13. John Cleese
14. Jimmy Fallon
15. Jimmy Kimmel
16. Penn Jillette
17. Mischa Barton
18. Dane Cook
19. William Shatner
20. Kevin Smith
21. Stephen Fry

Music
22. Diddy
23. John Mayer
24. Dave Matthews
25. MC Hammer
26. Timbaland
27. Chris Cornell
28. Snoop Dogg
29. Yoko Ono
30. Taylor Swift
31. Lady Gaga
32. Katy Perry
33. Lily Allen

News
34. Rick Sanchez
35. Anderson Cooper
36. Stephen Colbert

Sports
37. Shaquille O’Neal
38. Steve Nash
39. Michael Phelps
40. Shaun White
41. Eli Manning
42. Lance Armstrong
43. Andy Murray
44. Jerry Rice
45. Natalie Gulbis
46. Alexander Ovechkin
47. National Hockey League
48. Dwight Howard
49. Chris Bosh
50. Jason Richardson