In our popular Facebook for Business Superguide we included a section on Facebook Groups and Pages.

But, with Facebook’s new “like” feature and the growing popularity of Facebook Pages as a legitimate business tool, things have changed a bit.

So we’ve gathered some additional and updated resources that will help you make your organization’s Facebook page more effective — whether you’re just building one or whether you’ve already got one that you’d like to improve.  We have several sections including – Setting Up Your Page, Enhancing Your Page, Case Studies and Best Practices, Engaging and Building Your Fan Base, B2B Facebook Pages and Facebook Metrics.

Let us know if there’s anything we’ve missed.  Also please share this with your colleagues!

Setting Up Your Page

• How to Customize Your Facebook Page Using Static FBML
  From Social Media Examiner: Static FBML is a Facebook application that allows Facebook page administrators to create custom boxes and tabs on their Facebook pages. In this helpful article, Nick Shim provides a nice how-to guide on adding the application to your Facebook page and on using it most effectively.
• HOW TO: Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business
  From Mashable: Matt Silverman offers up a step by step guide to building a landing tab using the Static FBML application for your Facebook page.
• The Super Simple Guide to Setting Up Your First Company Facebook Page Without Blowing a Gasket – Part One
  From Search Engine Guide Blog: Effective Facebook pages can be challenging to set up. In the first of a three part series, Jennifer Laycock gets you started on setting up your first company Facebook page.
• The Super Simple Guide to Setting Up Your First Company Facebook Page Without Blowing a Gasket – Part Two
  From Search Engine Guide: In part 2, Jennifer provides a nice step-by-step for setting up discussions, events and links.
• The Super Simple Guide to Setting Up Your First Company Facebook Page Without Blowing a Gasket – Part Three
  Search Engine Guide: In part 3, Jennifer Laycock provides step by step instructions for using the Video and Photo applications for Facebook pages.
• Facebook | Create a Page
  Official Facebook page for creating a fan page.
• How to Create a FaceBook Landing Page for Your Blog
  From ProBlogger: Nice detail from Darren Rowse on how he used Facebook’s Static FBML application to create a Facebook Landing Page.
• Static FBML and FBML Tutorials
  From HyperArts: For anyone wanting to dive deeper in Static FBML and FBML, this blog is the place to visit – tons of great tutorials and advice on FBML issues. This is the link to their FBML tag.

Enhancing Your Facebook Page

• 9 Ways to Enhance Your Facebook Fan Page
  From Social Media Explorer: Ching Ya offers up great advice on how to make your Facebook Page more effective from “creating a welcome tab/page for new visitors” to “including business contact details” to “including a testimonial page” to “including a newsletter opt-in” and more.
• How to Build Engaging One-of-Kind Facebook Fan Pages
  From TechCrunch: Advice on making your Facebook Fan Page more compelling including planning your overall page strategy including making tabs relevant, taking full advantage of the profile picture 200X600 option to create impact, adding a facebook comments box to your landing page and more.
• 5 Essential Apps for Your Business’s Facebook Fan Page
  From Mashable: Matt Silverman reviews 5 useful applications for your Facebook Fan page including Static FBML for you Page sidebar, Promotions, Social RSS, Poll, and YouTube for Pages.
• 8 Essential Apps for Your Brand’s Facebook Page
  From Mashable: Alison Driscoll review eight essential apps for your brand’s Facebook page – from Facebook Notes to Blog RSS Feed Reader to Twitter App and more.
• How to Create a Facebook Page That Stands Out
  From John Haydon: 12 terrific tips for creating a Facebook fan page that will stand out from the crowd and John’s take on why you should care.
• 13 Facebook Page Features That Will Make Your Day
  From John Haydon: More great stuff from John. This video includes how to use specific Facebook Page features such as “how to quickly find your page,” “how to Edit Your Thumbnail,”"how to remove unused tabs” and more.

Engaging and Building Your Fan Base

• How to Increase the Quality of Your Facebook Fans
  From Social Media Examiner: Terry Lozoff provides insights on fan-getting marketing tactics to drive a more relevant consumer base and as a result increase the quality (and worth) of your fans over time.
• How Starbucks Engages Millions of Facebook Fans
  From Social Media Examiner: Great video interview w/Alex Wheeler, Director of Digital Strategy at Starbucks. Alex shares how Starbucks built a Facebook community of over 7 million fans by asking their community to help them build their official Facebook page. Also useful discussion of how Starbucks uses video marketing on different social media channels.
• 5 Easy Ways to Drive Social Media Fans to Action
  From Social Media Examiner: Good advice from Peter Wylie on ways to ensure your Facebook page and other social media vehicles lead your social media fans to take direct actions (e.g. purchase, sign up, etc.) – from “promoting offline events” to “hosting a tweetup” to “offering coupons” and more.
• How To Get Thousands Of Facebook Fans With A Single Video
  From Allfacebook.com: Nick O’Neill offers advice on how to add a call to action on Facebook videos to get people to become fans (or to “like” you in the current Facebook framework).
• Get People to “Like” Your Facebook Page
  From Social Media Examiner: Ching Ya provides 10 ideas for getting more likes on your Facebook page. Among Ching’s recommendations is ” be likeable first” by offering quality content and consistent engagement. Also good common sense: Remind your fans to like and share your posts.
• 21 Creative Ways To Increase Your Facebook Fanbase
  From Social Media Examiner: Mari Smith provides a wide range of innovative ideas for increasing the number of fans/likes for your Facebook page from “making a compelling welcome video” to “getting fans to tag photos” to “in-store displays” and more.
• To Like or Not to Like Facebook Pages: Fandom is Old News
  From AriWriter: Ari Herzog provides a nice overview of the impact of Facebook changing to a “like” button from “become a fan” button.
• 5 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page
  From Social Media Examiner: Naomi Trower provides 5 terrific ways to grow your Facebook fans from “inviting people from your facebook friend lists” to “finding people with Facebook search” and more.
• 13 Ways to Move Your Facebook Fans to Action
  From Social Media Examiner: Mari Smith offers up great ideas for increasing engagement with your Facebook fans through comments, wall posts, @tags and more.
• How to Better Engage Facebook Fan Page ‘Fans’ | Social Media Examiner
  From Social Media Examiner: How to use to get your Facebook fans more engaged by sharing enticing content (how often and when to post, what to post, etc.) and inciting comments.
• How to Create a Facebook Fan Page Editorial Guide
  From Social Media Examiner: One reason many Facebook pages don’t generate engagement is lack of purpose and poor planning. Here Amy Porterfield provides a good reference guide to creating an editorial guide that will help your define your purpose and develop an editorial process/plan.
• 4 Easy Steps To Promote Your Business On Facebook
  From Make Use Of: Basic steps in creating a facebook page and advice on how to promote the page.
• 4 Easy Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans
  From Mashable: Great advice and examples from Leyl Master Black on techniques that increase Facebook fan engagement from “asking for people’s opinions” to “testing their knowledge” to “pairing promotion with content” to “thanking your fans.”
• 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page
  From Mashable: Rundown on the 5 things that contribute to an effective Facebook Fan page from “networking with other platforms” to “creating a resources” to “creating contests that encourage participation.”
• 11 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page Outside Facebook
  From John Haydon: Great ideas for reaching beyond Facebook to promote your page – including using email, blogging about your page, tweeting about it and more.
• How To Get More Traffic From Facebook From John Haydon: Even more strategies and tactics from John that you can use to create more traffic to your blog or website from your Facebook Page
• 4 Proven Steps to Facebook Page Success
  From Social Media Examiner: Amy Porterfield provides 4 ways to take your Facebook page to the next level and ensure success: 1. Creating a Compelling vision 2. Smart branding 3. Strategic Inbound Marketing and 4. Real Time Engagement

Case Studies and Best Practices

• 5 Fantastic Facebook Fan Page Ideas to Learn From
  From American Express Open Forum: Advice and case study examples to make your Facebook pages more engaging. Examples discussed include the Baby Gap tab of the The Gap page, Home Depot’s DIY Gifts application, Dell’s Design studio. Walgreen’s landing page, and more.
• 3 Ways to Drive Corporate Facebook Success
  From Hubspot: Three case studies that illustrate that the key to successful Facebook pages lies in involving fans in creative and personable ways.
• Facebook Fan Page Best Practices
  From The Buzz Bin: Geoff Livingston outlines some best practices for Facebook pages from “not splitting the conversation stream between your organization and fans” to “commenting on fan posts” to “Paying attention to statistics” to “making your fans feel special” and more.
• The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing
  From the Altimeter Group: Summary of research with 34 vendors, agencies, and experts that yielded 8 success criteria for Facebook page marketing and then tested the maturity of 30 top brands across six industries against these criteria. Criteria included setting community expectations, providing cohesive branding, being up to date, live authenticity, participating in dialog, enabling peer-to-peer interactions, fostering advocacy, and soliciting a call to action.
• 8 Different Facebook Landing Tabs Used By Businesses On Facebook
  From Social Media Examiner: Cindy King provides eight different ways businesses are using landing tabs in Facebook successfully – from “asking visitors to like your page” to “current events’ and more.
• 5 Ways I’m Using Facebook to Drive Traffic, Build Brand and Increase Reader Engagement
  From ProBlogger: Darren Rowse details 5 ways he is using Facebook to promote his blog from “asking questions” to “promoting specific Facebook status updates via Twitter and newsletters” to “involving readers in shaping their website/blog content” to “relevant promotions” to “utilizing a ‘welcome’ landing page tab.”

B2B Facebook Pages

• A Visual Guide to B2B Facebook Pages.
  From Hubspot: Nice PDF with tips on creating B2B Facebook pages along with 15 mini-case study examples of good Facebook B2B pages.
• 4 Tips for B2B Marketing on Facebook
  From Mashable: Leyl Master Black present 4 excellent tips for B2B marketers to use their Facebook presence – from “beoming an industry resource” to ” engaging your customers and making them part of your marketing efforts” to “expanding beyond your wall by adding applications” to “lightening up.”

Facebook Metrics

• How to Add Google Analytics to Your Facebook Fan Page
  From Social Media Examiner: An important part of making your Facebook page effective is understanding how it is currently performing – from visitor stats to traffic sources to keywords searches and more. In this article Mariam John provides instructions on how to set up Google Analytics tracker on your Facebook fan page.
• 3 Ways to Use Facebook Insights to Your Advantage
  From Social Media Examiner: Post includes info on sending messages to subsets of fans, Facebook advertising and more.

Other Interactive Insights Group Resources You May Find Helpful

Here’s a list of our most popular posts in 2009, most of them Superlists – so in essence this is our Superlist of Superlists!

From tips on influencing bloggers….to advice on searching the social web…. to how-to use Delicious, Facebook and LinkedIn….to a guide for building your social media network…to our ultra popular Social Media Case Studies and Social Media Metrics Superlists….here they are…in one handy place….Happy New Year!

• Superlist of What NOT To Do In Social Media
  Superlist collection of articles/blog posts on what not to do with social media. Mistakes, failure, bloopers to avoid.
• Social Media Case Studies SUPERLIST- 23 Extensive Lists of Organizations Using Social Media
  Comprehensive collection of 22 lists, databases and resources of social media/web 2.0 case studies and examples.
• How-To: Influence Influencers- Bloggers, Tweeters & Others
  Collection of resources, tips and advice that can help you identify influential bloggers and other social media users and develop strategies to engage your targeted influencers in ways that will help you achieve your objectives.
• HOW-TO: Write Effectively for Twitter and the Social Web
  Collection of articles with advice on writing for Twitter and the social web. Organized into the following topics – general online writing principles, writing strong headlines, writing for Twitter, and writing for search engines.
• Facebook for Business SuperGuide
  Comprehensive collection of resources, tips and advice on how to use Facebook for business purposes including topics such as Facebook groups, pages, events, causes, Facebook for non-profits, tools, and statistics.
• Ultimate Guide to Delicious Social Bookmarking
  Comprehensive collection of tutorials, advice, resources, tips and tools to help you use Delicious to enhance your marketing, research and other business objectives. There’s a special section just for marketers.
• LinkedIn SuperGuide -Tutorials, Tips and Tools
  Comprehensive guide to a range of tutorials/how-to’s, tips, advice and tools to help you become a LinkedIn power user.
• How-To: Build & Manage Your Brand Identity with Social Media
  Comprehensive collection of tools, resources, and advice for building and managing your personal or company brand identity.
• How-To: Search the Social Web – Ultimate Toolkit
  Comprehensive guide to a wide range of resources, websites, services and advice that will help you find, filter, and monitor the information you need more effectively.
• How-To: Create a Unique Twitter Background
  Collection of how-to articles, advice, resources and tools to help you create a unique background for your Twitter Profile.
• How To Boost Your Social Media Productivity – A Guide For Busy People
  Comprehensive list of articles with great advice, tips and tools to help you be more productive and efficient when using social media. Also some posts that offer up general online productivity insights.
• Ultimate How-To: Grow Your Social Media Network
  Extensive roundup of tools, resources and great advice to help you grow your network.
• Social Media Metrics Superlist: Measurement, ROI, & Key Statistics Resources
  Collection of valuable resources, tools, & advice specifically on the topics of social media measurement, monitoring and ROI. You’ll also find a handful of key social media statistics resources to put in your toolkit.
• HOW TO Sell Social Media to Cynics, Skeptics & Luddites – Tips, Resources & Advice
  Arsenal of articles with solid advice, data, and tips to help you make the case for social media in your organization or with a client.

Facebook has certainly garnered a lot of attention these past weeks- first with it’s new vanity URL feature and then with it’s changed privacy features.

Facebook’s vanity URL feature – particularly for Facebook pages – is of particular interest to businesses.  As Facebook continues it’s explosive growth heading towards 250 million active users, more and more businesses are hoping to leverage Facebook for serious business purposes.   Facebook’s new feature allows businesses to create a custom url for their business page – something that wasn’t possible until now. (If you haven’t gotten your custom name, read Facebook expert Mari Smith’s post: How To Secure Your Facebook Username (Vanity URL).)

Want to sharpen your skills and learn how to really leverage Facebook to grow your business?

Below I’ve put together a comprehensive collection of resources, tips and advice on how to use Facebook for business purposes including:

1. General Guides, Tutorials and Help
2. Facebook Pages and Groups
3. Events and Causes
4. Tips and advice from a range of experts for making the most of Facebook
5. Advice for Non-Profits
6. Other Facebook tools, applications & features (including Facebook Connect)
7. Facebook Statistics

Let us know if there are any resources we’ve missed.

Comprehensive Guides and How-To’s

• How To Use Facebook for Business
  From Hubspot: Free downloadable 22 page E-book – very comprehensive with advice on setting up your profiles, setting up/promoting a business page, groups vs. pages, setting up a group, advertising on Facebook and measuring/analyzing.
• Facebook for Grownups
  From Butterscotch- 10 part video with step-by-step instructions for how to sign up for Facebook and how to create a Facebook profile.
• Facebook Help Center - official Facebook Help
• Facebook’s Complete Privacy Presentation
  From Mashable: Check out all the details provided by Facebook on their new privacy settings.
• Books:
  • The Facebook Marketing Bible: The Guide To Marketing Your Brand, Company, Product, Or Service Inside Facebook
    From Justin Smith: Provides an introduction to what’s possible on Facebook to the spectrum of marketers from brand advertisers to volunteer grassroots evangelists. The Facebook Marketing Bible contains three detailed sections: Tools for Guerilla Marketers, Tools for Advertisers, and Tools for Application Developers. Each part outlines the best available channels and strategies for reaching your audience inside Facebook.
  • Facebook Marketing: Leverage Social Media to Grow Your Business
    From Steven Holzner: In Facebook Marketing, best-selling author Steven Holzner reveals new social marketing techniques that do work, and shows you exactly how to make the most of them. Using true case studies, Holzner introduces powerful new techniques from today’s smartest Facebook marketers…and helps you avoid pitfalls that can cost you money and credibility.
  • I’m on Facebook–Now What???: How to Get Personal, Business, and Professional Value from Facebook
    From Jason Alba, Jesse Stay, Robert Scoble and Lee Lorenzen: This book explains the different parts of Facebook and helps you understand how you can get the most out of your Facebook account. It helps you understand what you could or should do in Facebook to further your career, business, or job.

Facebook Pages and Groups

Please see our more recent post:  Ultimate Guide to Facebook Pages – a comprehensive listing of resources to help you create a more effective Facebook Page.

• Facebook | Pages
  Official Facebook Page that walks you through the steps of preparing and setting up a Facebook Page. Also links to Facebook Ads to find new fans.
• Facebook Pages Product Guide
  Official Facebook PDF document providing an overview of how to use the new Public Profile Pages.
• 7 Tips To Getting Started On Facebook For New Businesses
  From Krishna De’s BizGrowth News: Basics for new businesses who want to get started with a Facebook Page to build their brand online.  Includes tips on registering your Facebook page, choosing keywords, creating an about page, setting a default page, designing the look of your profile, setting privacy setting and finding fans.
• Should a Facebook Page Be Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy?
  From Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog: Paul Chaney explores advantages and disadvantages of using Facebook as part of a marketing strategy. Also looks at Groups, Events and personal profiles for businesses.
• Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?
  From Mashable: Howard Greenstein clarifies the difference between Facebook’s Pages vs. Groups and reviews the factors you should consider when choosing which is right for your organization.
• Facebook Group and Brand Pages Best Practices
  From Social Media Explorer: Review of best practices for organizations who want to create group and/or brand pages on Facebook.
• Building A Facebook Fan Page
  From Janet Fouts: Easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions for building a Facebook page. Also read part 2 with additional tips on how to “dress up” your Facebook page by adding applications, content, tagging and more.
• Killer Facebook Fan Pages: 5 Inspiring Case Studies
  From Mashable: Callan Green provides five mini case studies of brands that are doing everything right when it comes to Facebook fan pages – Pringles, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Adidas, and Red Bull.
• How To Create A Powerful And Engaging Facebook Page
  From Corporate Dollar: Advice on creating a compelling facebook page for your business from branding the page with a custom image to making use of the new features available including the tabbed interface, direct feeds for fans, multi-media integration, discussion groups and more.
• How To Develop A Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans
  From AllFacebook: Suggestions for making the most of the new Facebook Pages and their updated features.
• What, Why, and How of Facebook Pages: An Expertise Roundup
  From Beth’s Blog:  Beth Kanter provides a nice roundup of expert advice from folks like from Mari Smith, Jesse Stay, Collin Douma, and others on using Facebook pages.
• 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page
  From Mashable: Rundown on the 5 things that contribute to an effective Facebook Fan page from “networking with other platforms” to “creating a resources” to “creating contests that encourage participation.”
• How to Develop a Successful Facebook Page
  From MarketingProfs: Mark Ivey provides success strategies and highlights some of the key features of Facebook Pages.
• 8 Essential Apps for Your Brand’s Facebook Page
  From Mashable: Alison Driscoll review eight essential apps for your brand’s Facebook page – from Facebook Notes to Blog RSS Feed Reader to Twitter App and more.
• Two New Ways to Update Facebook Pages without Using Facebook
  From ReadWriteWeb: Discussion of services from hellotxt and Ping.fm that let Facebook administrators update Facebook Pages.
• 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Choose Facebook Pages Over Facebook Groups
  From Inside Facebook: Advantages of Facebook Pages vs. Groups for marketing your business.
• 5 Tips to Revive a Fading Facebook Group
  From John Haydon: Advice on how to inject fresh life into a fading Facebook group – from “getting in touch” to “freshening up the page” to “throwing a party” and more.
• Facebook Tips: How to Use the New Business Page Layout
  From E-commerce Guide: In-depth look at recent changes made to Business Pages plus tips on how to use new features, such as status updates and Wall feeds to better connect with your Facebook fans.
• New Facebook Pages: A Guide for Social Media Marketers
  From Mashable: Curtis Hougland and Kristen Vang of Attention write- As more and more marketers use Facebook as a key conduit for brands online, it is important to note some of the new changes to their Business Pages. Following last fall’s overall redesign, these pages will now migrate to the same Wall and tabs design that personal profiles have used. You can explore the new format and follow Mashable on Facebook at Mashable’s Facebook page. Following is a rundown of what you need to know:
• The 30 Most Popular Pages on Facebook
  From Inside Facebook: Since Pages launched in late 2007, they have become the easiest way for brands to get started marketing on Facebook. Today, 3.5 million users become Fans of one of the several hundred thousand Pages on Facebook each day. Here’s the list of the 30 Most Popular Pages on Facebook.
• How To Develop A Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans
  From All Facebook: Review of the the primary benefits and changes for Facebook’s new and updated branded pages.
• Now, Any Business Can Tap 53 Million Facebook Users (For Free)
  From Hubspot: Stats on Facebook along with basic how-to on creating a Facebook Business Page.
• Facebook Fan Boxes: Embeddable Facebook Pages
  From Mashable: Adam Ostrow discusses Facebook feature that allows Page administrators to embed the latest activity from their Page on their own website.
• 10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Page Owner Should Know
  From Inside Facebook: Strategies for employing important SEO tactics within your Facebook Page to help your Page reach more and more Facebook fans.

Events and Causes

• YouTube – Setting up a Facebook Cause
  From My Charity Connects: This video provides an overview of the Causes application on Facebook and provides a step-by-step guide on how to create one.
• 50,000 Members In 6 Days
  From Feverbee: Advice on using Facebook for Causes (and more).
• Wild Apricot Blog : How to promote your non-profit’s cause on Facebook in five easy steps
  Wild Apricot Blog : More advice on using Facebook’s Causes application.
• Effective Fundraising with Facebook Causes
  From The Nonprofit Technology Network: Advice on getting started using Facebook causes.
• Top Ten Tips For Creating BUZZ With Facebook Events
  From Why Facebook: Facebook guru Mari Smith explores the art of using the Facebook Events feature effectively to generate buzz for your event.
• Facebook Events and The Power Behind Them
  From SocialMediaBlogster.com: Advice on using Facebook events to power up your marketing.

Tips and Advice

• Inside Facebook Blog
  Inside Facebook is an independent blog based in Palo Alto, California, focusing on Facebook and the Facebook Platform for developers and marketers. Provides agencies and marketers with information to help them understand the opportunities and risks associated with investing in both Facebook and Facebook applications. Provides reports and insight on the campaigns marketers and brands are deploying inside Facebook.
• The Facebook Marketing Bible: 24 Ways to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook
  From Inside Facebook: Review of different Facebook opportunities for marketers, advisers and application developers.
• Facebook Marketing Solutions | Facebook
  Official page from Facebook run by Facebook employees intended to help brand marketers market their brands using Facebook. Includes case studies from a number of large brands using the tool, tips and how-tos, and discussion with marketers.
• Facebook Week: Facebook Resources, Analysis and Insights
  From Mashable: Collection of articles providing resources and analysis of Facebook. From building a better Facebook page to making a truly viral Facebook meme and more.
• 32 Ways to Use Facebook for Business
  From Web Worker Daily: Meryl Evans outlines 32 ways you can turn Facebook into a highly effective business tool.
• Facebook Tagging For Business | Social Media Explorer
  From Social Media Explorer: Jason Falls provides advice and 5 rules for using Facebook’s “@” tagging feature for business purposes.
• How to build a Facebook community (14 “levers” you need to be pulling)
  From John Haydon: Excellent article with tips for growing your fan base organically.
• The Anatomy of a Facebook Meme
  From Mashable: When compared to other social media sites, Facebook has a much larger potential reach for “memes” (ideas that people can’t help sharing with their friends) but is quite restrictive on the ways in which these memes can spread. To identify the characteristics necessary for a meme to thrive on Facebook, we must look at what the restrictions demand from them
• 20 Facebook Tips/Tricks You Might Not Know
  From HongKiat: Post covers some interesting things you can do on (or with) Facebook; inclusive of tricks that are not documented or unknown to many, as well as tips to stay connected better with your friends – includes tips such as sharing flickr photos to Facebook, scheduling Facebook messages, choosing what Friends show up in your Friends box, and more.
• HOW TO: Use Facebook for Professional Networking
  From Mashable: Boris Epstein provides advice on how to setup your Facebook for professional use, how to find others to network with, Facebook features that work for professional networking, and ways to maximize the value from those features.
• Facebook’s New Privacy Features: A Complete Guide
  From Mashable: Ben Parr offers an overview of Facebook’s new privacy features.
• Seven Steps to Graphing Your Facebook Strategy
  From Tech Crunch: Review of seven major aspects of Facebook you can use to increase the visibility of your startup, business, product or service: from Setting up your Profile to making connections to sharing your content.
• The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base
  From Inside CRM: long list of 100 tools and tips for leveraging Facebook as a business tool.
• Using Facebook for Marketing – 10 Company Examples
  From Dave Chaffey’s Right Touching Blog: Showcase of businesses from a range of sectors who are using the Facebook pages.
• HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Facebook
  From Mashable: Personal branding expert Dan Schawabel provides a guide to building your personal brand on Facebook.
• How to Build an Impressive Social Networking Presence, Beginning with Facebook
  From Social Media Power: Advice on how to build your presence on social networking sites starting with Facebook.
• What to Do if You Forgot to Register Your Facebook Trademark URL
  From Advertising Age: Steps to take if your trademark was taken by someone before you had a chance to register it.
• 5 Tips for Optimizing Your Brand’s Facebook Presence
  From Mashable: Tips to optimize your presence on Facebook, including the right way to create profile and thumbnail graphics , how to show different content to Fans and non-Fans, creating DIY vanity urls, and how managing what and when you post can lead to greater success.
• 5 Tips for Optimizing your Facebook Marketing
  From Marketing Profs Daily Fix: Paul Dunay offers up options to consider when it comes to the tactics of marketing on Facebook – from advertising to applications to content syndication and more.
• How To Use Facebook “Notes” To Get More Traffic
  From Corporate Dollar: Advice on leveraging Facebook’s Notes application to drive web traffic to your website.
• 12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally
  From Web Worker Daily: Discussion of how you can use Facebook to benefit your professional career from hooking up with old co-workers and current connections to setting up your profile and security settings to incorporating your other social sites like Twitter or even your own blog.
• Focus on Facebook: Interview with Kristin Foster, Digital Strategist
  From Ogilvy PR: Discussion of Facebook strategies for brands.
• Facebook for Business: Can Brands Ever Get It Right?
  From ClickZ: Anna Maria Virzi explores how brands can translate their Facebook initiatives into tangible results (e.g. sales) with some advice on getting it right – from deciding “if you branding is willing to make the investment” to developing “modules for core activities such as contests, coupons and videos/photos” to maintaining “content to keep engagement high” to “buying media to drive traffic.”
• FACEBOOK FAIL: How to Use Facebook Privacy Settings and Avoid Disaster
  From Mashable: How to use Facebook features that allow you to choose what you show and to what type of people. By using friend lists and playing with your privacy settings, you can create different views for each segment of your life.
• 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
  From Mashable: How to use Facebook features that allow you to choose what you show and to what type of people. By using friend lists and playing with your privacy settings, you can create different views for each segment of your life.
• Finding and Engaging Your Brand Evangels on Facebook – Left The Box
  From Left The Box: A technique for easily finding people that are already publicizing your brand to their friends on Facebook.
• HOW TO: Create Branded Promotions on Facebook [500 FREE Invites]
  From Mashable: Discussion of Wildfire’s web tool and Facebook application that can help you create branded promotions on Facebook. With a few simple steps, Wildfire will help you create a comprehensive promotional campaign for your brand on Facebook, Ning, MySpace, and your website involving sweepstakes or a user contest.
• How To Remove An Application From Your Facebook Profile
  From Make Use Of: How to get rid of a Facebook application when you find you no longer have a need for it.
• Getting the Facebook Crowd to Spread Your Widgets
  From eMarketer: Interview with Liza Hausman who heads up marketing for widget platform and ad Network Gigya about how advertisers use widgets and the future of the applications on social networks such as Facebook.
• Facebook Search Tips
  Advice from Facebook’s help pages on searching for people and their content.
• Ten Facebook Tips for Power Users
  From Macworld: Here are ten tips to tweak your profile and get more out of Facebook. These tips go beyond the typical and include ways to stay better connected to your friends and look good doing it.
• The 30 Standard Facebook Profile Photo Styles
  From All Facebook: Trying to decide what type of photo to post in your Facebook profile (or any other profile for that matter). Here Nick O’Neill offers a rundown of 30 profile photos styles that you’ll find most often when exploring your Facebook friends list. If you’re looking to portray a professional image, check out Nick’s pick for Personal Branding Master- social media nonprofit expert Beth Kanter.
• How to Grow A Useful Network with the Social Media Site Facebook
  From The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: Advice on using Facebook as a tool to grow your business network.
• To-Do List for Facebook and E-Mail Integration
  From ClickZ: Advice from Ed Henrich on how marketers can properly integrate their Facebook presence (Facebook Connect, Pages, Groups) with their email programs.
• How to Friend Mom, Dad, and the Boss on Facebook…Safely
  From Read Write Web: Oh no! Your mom just joined Facebook and what’s even worse, she wants to be your friend. More and more people are finding themselves in this situation today and unsure of what to do. Friending mom and dad, the boss, or other work colleagues opens up the details of your private life for the whole world to see – and you might not be entirely comfortable with that. What’s to be done?
• 10 Things All Businesses Should Do to Market More Effectively on Facebook
  From Inside Facebook: Here are Inside Facebook’s top 10 ways business owners can more effectively leverage Facebook to reach their target audience and drive more business.
• How to “Friend” Someone On Facebook Without Showing Your Status Updates | MakeUseOf.com
  I’m sure that this has happened to you before. Someone you have ties to, whether it’s a co-worker, your boss, or even worse, a parent, has finally discovered social networking and wants to be your newest Facebook friend. Imagine for a moment that I worked at Domino’s Pizza and that I don’t want my boss to know that I just became a fan of Papa John’s (writing this one’s gonna make me hungry). Here’s what I would do to keep that fact confined to my closer friends.
• Facebook Etiquette: Five Dos and Don’ts – PC World
  From PC World: Suggestions for managing your Facebook profile and your overall social networking persona, and warnings about places where you can get into trouble with people who matter to you personally and professionally.

Advertising on Facebook

• Facebook Ads 101 – How to Set up and Track Facebook Ads
  From Subliminal Pixel Labs: Rundown of how Facebook ads work, how to set them up and what tracking and optimization features they offer.
• How-To Guide: E-Commerce Marketing on Facebook
  From Internet.com: Leveraging Facebook business options can provide a new channel for your customers to interact, and at the same time help you acquire new customers as your Facebook fans spread the word about your business to their friends. In this Facebook how-to guide, learn how to use two of the business solutions offered by Facebook. First- the steps you need to take to create your own Facebook Business Page (also called a fan page) and then, the tasks involved in creating a Facebook Ad campaign, which can be used to send visitors to your Web site or new Facebook Business Page.

Advice for Non-Profits on Facebook

• Non-Profits on Facebook
  Facebook’s official page with advice for non-profits on using Facebook.
• Using Facebook for Your Non-Profit
  From Techsoup:  Helpful range of resources for non-profits who want to use Facebook to connect with their supporters including a beginners guide to Facebook, promoting your cause on Facebook, and more.  Also includes links to outside resources.
• Facebook’s New Public Profile Pages: Good News for Non-profits
  From Wild Apricot Blog : Facebook just got a lot more friendly for non-profits with the announcement of Public Profile Pages. This means non-profits now be able to “share all types of content with an unlimited number of users” and Facebook users will be able to comment on the posted content, just as they would on the personal profile page of any Facebook friend.
• Video Tutorial: How To Embed A Social Or Fundraising Widget Into Your Facebook Page
  From CorporateDollar.org: One of the most effective social media tools available to small non-profits are embeddable widgets. Youtube videos, fundraising widgets and social networking widgets can empower your fans to take action for your non-profit. Video tutorial on how to do this on Facebook.
• So you want a Facebook Fan Page for Your Nonprofit? Here’s the Scoop!
  From Beth Kanter: Recap of NTEN Webinar featuring Randi Zuckerberg, Director of Marketing at Facebook and Adam Conner from the DC Office on the emerging best practices for nonprofits who want to set up Facebook Fan Pages. Includes list of best practices and links to a good collection of solid how-to articles on Facebook pages.
• 4 Facebook Tips for Nonprofit Success – See What Others are Doing
  From Beth’s Blog: Guest poster Frank Barry offers up four tips to help non-profits make better use of Facebook and some great case studies

Other Facebook Tools, Applications and Features

• 30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook
  From Mashable: Here are over 30 Facebook applications to help promote, network, communicate, collaborate and accomplish more with your business.
• Facebook Powertools: 150+ Apps, Scripts and Add-ons for Facebook
  From Mashable: Rundown of the the leading browser extensions, desktop applications, Greasemonkey scripts and applications for Facebook – more than 150 in all.
• 20+ Great Greasemonkey Scripts for Improving Your Facebook Experience
• Facebook Connect:
  • Facebook Connect
    From Facebook Developers: Explanation of Facebook Connect which enables integration of Facebook Platform into websites. Allows website users to: Seamlessly “connect” their Facebook account and information with your website, connect and find their friends who also use your site, and share information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook.
  • 10 Great Implementations of Facebook Connect
    From Mashable: Ben Parr reviews some implementations of Facebook Connect that stand out against the rest. Some are on this list because of the seamlessness of their integration, while others for their usefulness.  And here are even 10 more.
  • HOW TO: Add Facebook Connect to Your Blog in 8 Minutes
    From Mashable: Video tutorial for adding Facebook Connect to A Blog.
  • Six Months In: 10 of the Most Interesting Cases of Facebook Connect in Action
    From Inside Facebook: Review of 10 interesting Facebook Connect uses including CNN, Bravo.com’s Real Housewives of NYC and more.
  • Facebook and The Washington Post: More Than Meets the Eye
    From Mashable: Adam Ostrow explores the Washington Post’s implementation of Facebook Connect into it’s website including future opportunities this integration might offer.
  • Facebook Connect Comes to Digg
    Once Facebook Connect has been activated, you’re able to publish your Diggs, comments, and submissions back to your Facebook News Feed. You can also quickly invite your Facebook friends to Digg.
• Facebook Application on Delicious
  Add the Delicious application to your Facebook account and publish information about your bookmarks to your Facebook profile.
• Selective Twitter Status on Facebook
  Selective Twitter Status lets you update your Facebook status from Twitter – BUT you can choose which tweets you want – just end a tweet with #fb when you want to post it as your Facebook status – simple! * Avoid confusing your Facebook friends * Don’t swamp your profile with too many updates * Leave certain updates on Facebook for longer.
• Five Things You Can Do With This New Facebook RSS App
  From ReadWriteWeb; Review of Chia’s Facebook application that allows users to grant permission to pull theor Facebook newsfeed out of the site and publish as an RSS feed.
• Facebook Video 2.1.1
  The popular Greasemonkey Facebook video script is now a full-fledged Firefox addon that lets users download or convert Facebook videos, and embed videos outside of Facebook.
• SocialToo Vanity URLs for Facebook: Better Than the Real Thing?From Mashable: For organizations who have fewer than 1000 fans and can’t get official vanity URLs, SocialToo is offering vanity URLs that redirect to your Facebook profile (with support for pages coming soon). A bonus too: analytics are offered.

Statistics About Facebook

• Statistics
  Official statistics from Facebook
• Facebook Pages Statistics
  Statistics on Facebook Pages
• Facebook Marketing Statistics, Demographics, Reports, and News – CheckFacebook
  CheckFacebook.com is not affiliated with Facebook. Each day, CheckFacebook.com tracks data reported from Facebook’s advertising tool to help marketers and researchers understand how Facebook is spreading across the globe.
• Why Facebook is growing wrinkles
  From Telegraph: Older users are jumping on the social networking bandwagon as if their lives depended on it – and in some cases, they do.
• Women Over Age 55 Fastest-Growing Group On Facebook
  From MediaPost: Results from survey showing that women age 55 and over are the fastest-growing U.S. demographic group on Facebook. The number of women on Facebook is growing faster than men in almost every age group, and women now make up 56.2% of users (as of 2/09).
• Facebook Users Are Getting Older. Much Older.
  From Mashsable: Analytics company iStrategyLabs has examined the demographics stats from Facebook’s Social Ads platform, and they’ve reached some very interesting conclusions. Facebook usersbase, as a whole, is getting much older very fast.

Pharma Marketing and Social Media consultant Steve Woodruff has put together an excellent streamlined guide for people just getting started in social networking.  It’s an easy-to-read and very accessible e-booklet – especially for people who don’t feel like they’re natural social networkers – and it’s free.

Steve’s e-booklet is a perfect document to share with colleagues who are just getting started and need to understand what LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking services are all about.

Steve’s been a great promoter of my blog posts on his own blog and I’m happy to have an opportunity to return the favor.  Here’s the link:  Build Your Own Opportunity Network: Getting Started in Social Media.

Recommended Reading This Week

Here are our top picks for what’s buzzing on the web this week….

• 10 Ways To Measure Social Media Success
  From Econsultancy: There’s so much talk about social media that it is easy for people to become cynical, perhaps losing track of the fact that it can have a positive impact on your business. So how can you determine whether a social media strategy is proving beneficial to your business?…For more on measuring Social Media Success see our Superlist of Social Media Metrics.
• Digg Toolbox: 50 New Tools and Resources
  From Mashable: 50 tools and resources to enhance your Digg experience.
• Basics – The Quest for the Nearly Empty In-Box
  From NY Times: What is it about e-mail that consumes us — that invades every corner of our personal space, demands ever more sophisticated methods of organization, and makes us wish for extra hours in the day to deal with the deluge? More important, how can we overcome it?  We have more ideas for How To Boost Your Social Media Productivity.
• The 30 Standard Facebook Profile Photo Styles
  From All Facebook: Trying to decide what type of photo to post in your Facebook profile (or any other profile for that matter). Here Nick O’Neill offers a rundown of 30 profile photos styles that you’ll find most often when exploring your Facebook friends list. If you’re looking to portray…
• New Facebook Pages: A Guide for Social Media Marketers
  From Mashable: Curtis Hougland and Kristen Vang of Attention write- As more and more marketers use Facebook as a key conduit for brands online, it is important to note some of the new changes to their Business Pages. Following last fall’s overall redesign, these pages will now migrate to the…
• How To Use Icons To Support Content In Web Design
  From Smashing Magazine: Why use icons? Design is all about communication: it doesn’t matter how important or exciting the information that you’re sharing is if you fail to hook your visitors. When initially viewing a website, most users will first scan the page for visually interesting content, and only after…
• How To Use Guest Posting To Double Your Your Blog Traffic and Subscribers
  From Corporate Dollar: In addition to increasing traffic, subscribers and followers, guest posting is also a sure-fire way to influence your blog’s SEO.
• Simplicity As A Strategy
  From The Future Buzz: A really excellent article from Adam Singer on simplifying your blog, PR campaigns, marketing promotions, website and more.
• Community Engagement
  From The Buzz Bin: How does one engage people is a very common question, and there are general principles that apply across all social communities major or not. Here are some best practices for encouraging engagement.
• HOW TO: Measure Online Influence
  From Mashable: Post takes a look at how someone becomes influential and what are the metrics for measuring their influence.
• Give Each Blog Post a Pretty Face With Flickr
  From Chris Brogan: I was asked by a friend on Twitter where I got all the pictures that I use for my blog posts (like the one you see in the top left of this post). The answer is that I get them off Flickr. But there’s more to it…

Recommended Reading This Week

Here are our top picks for what’s buzzing on the web this week….

• Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing
  From Mashable: It doesn’t matter if you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr; your online personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you and your business. So, who is the face or voice of your brand and what do they share? It’s a…
• Print You Favorite Wikis As Books, Courtesy Of Wikipedia (And PediaPress)
  From Tech Crunch: Did you know that you can assemble your own wiki pages from Wikipedia and print them out in book form? You can, for a while now, thanks to a partnership between Wikimedia Foundation and a German startup called PediaPress
• Slideshare Presentation: How A Blog Can Grow Your Business
  From Chris Garrett: Business Blogging is fast becoming a vital part of any online strategy. The old days of “blogging puritanism” where bloggers were not supposed to make money have given way to individuals, companies and non-profits all hoping to use blogs and social media to grow and engage their…
• How To Use Facebook “Notes” To Get More Traffic
  From Corporate Dollar: Advice on leveraging Facebook’s Notes application to drive web traffic to your website.
• More Efficient RSS Reading
  From Web Worker Daily: The harsh reality is that there are only so many hours in the day one can spend reading and learning. Here are some tips for using your RSS reader more productively.
• 10 Tips For Benefiting From Unexpected Traffic
  From The Blog Herald: Sometimes we will write something and it will unexpectedly deliver you lots of traffic without you needing to do anything.This happens surprisingly often after your blog gets established with readers and search engines. While this is nice in itself, many people just bask in the reflected…
• The Secret of Monetizing With Ads Without Sacrificing Design
  From Sitepoint: Figuring out a way to monetize a website with ads that doesn’t diminish the design or overall message is a major challenge faced by many designers. Here are some principles to guide such efforts.
• How to Present While People are Twittering
  From Pistachio: The next time you make a presentation, instead of being confronted by a sea of faces looking at you, you may be phased by a sea of heads looking down at their laptops. The challenge is how to adapt to presenting with the back-channel.
• 25 Innovative Ways Companies are Using Twitter (That You May NOT Have Heard of Yet)
  From Buzz Marketing Daily: Here are 25 companies that are using Twitter in innovative, different, and fun ways.
• The Powerful Potential of Permission-Based E-Mail
  From eMarketer: According to “Beyond the Click: The Indirect Value of Email,” from Epsilon and ROI Research, 57% of consumers had a more positive impression of companies they had purchased from when they received e-mail from them—and 40% said such e-mail made a future purchase from the company more likely.
• Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate About Packaging
  From NY Times: Might Twitter be a better tool for getting customer feedback than focus groups?

This is an updated version of an earlier post.

We’ve all heard the expression “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”

In social media, who you know — or who knows you — can certainly make all the difference. That’s why figuring out who to connect with and taking the time to build relationships with these people is key to leveraging the power of social media.

I recently witnessed first-hand the impact of having influential people promote my blog content. Social media guru Chris Brogan very generously tweeted my recent post Social Media Metrics Superlist and within hours my traffic had spiked.  Another time, I noticed a spike in traffic to my Social Media Case Studies Superlist and soon discovered that two other digital media influentials-  Steve Rubel and Joseph Jaffe – had promoted this post to their readers, accounting for much of it’s rising popularity.  Justin Kownacki of Cafe Witness had a similar experience and dubbed this The Brogan Effect.

Want to build your own social media network more effectively?

We’ve put together a roundup of tools, resources and great advice to help you grow your network – in two groupings. The first group of links contain tools and advice on finding the people you want to connect with – colleagues and also those people who are the influentials in your areas. The second group serves up expert resources and advice to help you connect, build and nourish your network once you identify the right people.

Finding People

• Find People – How to Find People Online Quickly and Easily
  From About.com: Comprehensive guide to range of ways to find people online from social networks, to social bookmarking, to search engines.
• 15 Websites to Trace People Online
  From MakeUseOf.com: Review and links to 15 free resources to trace people online.
• 6 Services that Help You Find, Follow Friends on Twitter
  From CNET: A list and discussion of online tools that can you find friends more efficiently than asking for their usernames.
• Use Online Tools To Find Influencers
  From Paul Gillin Communications: Tactics you can use to identify social media influencers.
• How-To: Identifying Influencers, Neutralizing Detractors
  From MarketingVOX: The attention of influencers is coveted because of their mythological ability to drive others to a given brand, whether by force of personality or strong subject knowledge. But “influencers” are not a single silver-bullet demographic. Depending on the product or service a company hopes to sell, the appropriate circle of influencers can vary. Here are some tips on locating your Influencers.
• Cool ‘Identity Search’ Tools for Social Web
  From MakeUseOf.com: Rundown on 3 tools that let you search for people across a range of social websites.
• Twitter Friend Recommendations | Who Should i Follow?
  A tool that lets you enter your Twitter username and get suggestions on interesting people to follow.
• So How Do You Find People on Twitter? -
  From Search Engine Guide Blog: If you are new to Twitter, it can seem difficult to find people that are in your industry or that share your interests. Here’s some tips to help get you started meeting new friends on Twitter!
• 3 Ways To Find People With Social Search Engines
  From MakeUseOf.com: Reviews three social search engines that you may find helpful in expanding your network or friend circle – Whoisi http://whoisi.com/, YoName http://www.yoname.com/, and Ex.plode.us http://ex.plode.us/
• Five Tools to Find People on Twitter to Follow
  From Twitterati: Rundown on tools that can make the process of findings people on Twitter a little easier.
• 5 Tips on Finding Interesting People to Follow on Twitter
  From The Crafted Webmaster: Some useful tips on how to find interesting people on Twitter.
• 5 Ways to Find More Friends on Twitter
  From ReadWriteWeb: Five web apps that can help you locate some of the best people for you to follow on Twitter.
• Want more Followers? Twitter Directories and Groups
  From Twitter Chat: Good rundown and advice on using Twitter Directories and Groups to find more followers.
• PeekYou- Free People Search
  PeekYou is a people search service. You can search and find other people, find their websites, social-networking profiles, photos, or anything else about them online. You can also create your own profile on PeekYou.
• TweepSearch
  This service aims to allow you to search for specific people you want to find amongst the people you follow. You enter a username to search that person’s followers or just a keyword to search all bios currently indexed.
• Just Tweet It
  Just Tweet It was created to make it easier for people using the popular micro-blogging service Twitter to find other “Tweeters” with similar interests.
• Snitch.name :: The Social White Pages
  Instead of you having to go and search for someone separately on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or MySpace, Snitch.Name presents you the search results from all those sites on one page
• Find a Person & Email Search
  Comprehensive Search Tool that includes traditional online people search tools like AnyWho White pages but also social networks like Linked In, Face Book, Yelp, Plaxo, & Ning.
• Feature: How to Track Down Anyone Online
  From Lifehacker: A couple of power people search tools to help you track down anyone online.
• Who Is This Person?
  A Firefox Add-on that lets you highlight any name on a web page and see matching information from Wink, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Facebook, Google News, Technorati, Yahoo Person Search, Spock, WikiYou, ZoomInfo, IMDB, MySpace and more.
• Who Is That New Follower? Ask Socialwhois
  From Mashable: While the names of some new followers you get n Twitter or Friendfeed immediately ring a bell, with others, you might have no idea who the person might be. To help you find out more about who these people are, Socialwhois is a new service you might find somewhat useful. Mashsable reviews it here.
• Twitter Launches Suggestions Tool
  From Mashable: Discussion of new Twitter feature that helps you find people to follow: suggestions. This new page under the “Find People” section suggests Twitter users you may want to follow, based on an as-yet-undisclosed algorithm.
• Twitterel.com: Find People with Similar Interests on Twitter
  From Makeuseof.com: Twitter is an astonishing networking phenomenon with millions of users generating a lot of ideas and content. It can be overwhelming at first sight to use such a network to find like-minded people and build your community. This is where Twitterel comes in handy. Twitterel allows you to define certain keywords and then find people with similar interests on Twitter.
• Twellow :: Twitter Search Directory, Twitter Search Engine
  A twitter phone directory that sorts people by industry. This can be a great way to find people in your industry.
• TwellowHood – Find Local Twitter Users
  Have you ever wondered who is using Twitter that is close by? Looking to connect to people in your city? TwellowHood is a service which allows Twitter users to do just that. Think of it as a way to find your neighbor on Twitter.
• The Daily Follow
  Sign up for The Daily Follow. It’s an email alert offering up generous helpings of new people to follow or connect with by category. One email message, once per day, in digest format. It’s that simple.
• Twubble
  Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow. Click the button below to get started.
• Twitter Groups
  Service that allows you to create a new group or join an existing group. Follow people with the same interests as you. Find new people to follow. Let people follow you. Share your favorite website links.
• How to Use the New FriendFeed Search for Social Media Intelligence
  From ReadWriteWeb: Review the new Friendfeed tool and provides examples of how the tool can be used to discover people, conversations, trends and more across the social web.
• TwitterFriends Improves the IQ of Twitter
  From bub.blicio.us: Review of TwitterFriends an analytical tool for identifying relevant conversationalists, revealing conversation patterns, and visualizing material conversation networks, by Twitter ID. The services aims to map the “relevant net” for any given user, which is incredibly valuable to identifying influential voices.
• 10 ways to find people on Twitter
  Nice slide show from Paul Bradshaw of the Online Journalism Blog. Outlines 10 ways to find people on Twitter.
• Top 237 Twitter Users Who Will Follow You Back
  From Social News Watch: Just getting started with Twitter and want to get some followers quickly. Here are 237 accounts will most likely follow you back, even if you’re a Twitter newbie.
• Local Tweets: 9 Ways to Find Twitter Users in Your Town
  From Mashable: Josh Catone runs down nine ways to locate Twitter users in your town to help you get the most out of Twitter.

Growing, Managing & Nurturing Your Network of Friends, Followers & Influentials

• Eight Secrets of Effective Online Networking
  From Tech Soup: Suggestions for effectively managing your profiles and contacts on social networking sites, finding people with relevant interests, and more.
• How To Use Del.icio.us To Take Over the World
  From Social Computing Magazine: Good article on how to use the people or networking component of Delicious to get the most out of the service.
• How to Grow A Useful Network with the Social Media Site Facebook
  From The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: Advice on using Facebook as a tool to grow your business network.
• HOW TO: Connect With the FriendFeed Community
  From Mashable: A step-by-step guide to connect, network, and make friends on FriendFeed.
• How to Improve Your Twinfluence and Twitter Grade
  From Mashable: Advice on what actions affect your influence scores on Twitter ranking tools (those like Twitter.grader.com and Twinfluence.com) as well as a review of what actions don’t affect your scores.
• Twitter Influence Calculator: Tracking Influence in Twitter
  From Web Analytics Demystified: The Twitter Influence Calculator is an experiment in social media measurement being run by Web Analytics Demystified. Built on the Twitter APIs, the influence calculator lets Twitter users determine their personal influence, discover the most influential users in Twitter and compare themselves to others. Calculate your Influence in Twitter today!
• How You Might View Bloggers
  From Chris Brogan: Advice on how to conduct a blogger outreach campaign directed at key influencers.
• How to Get More Followers on Twitter
  From Twitips: Nice compilation of links to posts Twitips has published that touch on the topic of getting followers.
• How to Friend Mom, Dad, and the Boss on Facebook…Safely
  From Read Write Web: Oh no! Your mom just joined Facebook and what’s even worse, she wants to be your friend. More and more people are finding themselves in this situation today and unsure of what to do. Friending mom and dad, the boss, or other work colleagues opens up the details of your private life for the whole world to see – and you might not be entirely comfortable with that. What’s to be done?
• TwitterButtons: Generate Follow Me Button for Twitter
  Simple online tool for Twitter fans. The site lets you enter your Twitter ID and quickly generate nice embeddable follow me buttons that is linked to your Twitter account. You can easily embed them on any other webpage, be it your personal blog or social networking profile page.
• Twitter Followers: Quantity or Quality?
  From Twitips: Advice from JR Griggs on the difference between quantify and quality when it comes to gaining Twitter followers and who needs which and why.
• How To Manage Your Twitter Relationships Better with TweetDeck
  From CorporateDollar.org: For those using Tweetdeck, here are three ways to better manage your relationships.
• HOW TO: Create Groups for Twitter
  From Mashable: There are many different ways Twitter members can create virtual groups. Here is a roundup of some of the most popular methods employed today.
• How I Follow People on Twitter
  From Findable Blogs: Article on tools and techniques for managing the process of determining who to follow back on Twitter.
• 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers
  From Kevin Rose on TechCrunch: Advice on boosting your followers on Twitter.
• How to Find Influencers on Photo and Video Sites
  From Paul Gillin Communications: How to find the people who are influential for your business on photo and video sites that you might normally consider for this purpose.
• Networking with Del.icio.us
  Nice screencast from educator Liz Davis that demonstrates the power of connecting with other people through the Delicious networking function. Useful even for even non-educators.
• Courting Online Influencers
  From Paul Gillin Communications: After you’ve identified people to engage with, you need to craft an approach and an incentive that’s right for them. Here Paul offers some suggestions.
• The Value of Influencers: Why They Are Still Relevant for Marketing Campaigns
  From Dosh Dosh: Discussion of how influencers are still critical to your marketing campaigns in helping to develop trust and visibility for brands.
• Making Word of Mouth Marketing Work: Finding the Influencers
  From MyCustomer.com: Insights on figuring out where can you find the small group of influential customers that will facilitate word of mouth campaigns – and how you can get them to shout about your business.
• 5 Steps to Twitter Success
  From SEOptimise: Advice on Getting Followers, Keeping Followers, Getting People to React, Using the Right Tools, and Earning Money
• Getting People to Talk Behind Your Back
  From chrisbrogan.com: Guest post by Josh Peter on how to get the influencers in your relevant community to spread the message about your business.
• Helping others leads to Twitter Success
  From Twitips: Advice from Darren Rowse on how he uses 2 Twitter tools -Tweetlater and Tweetdeck – to identify and learn about individuals having trouble with topics relevant to Darren’s business that he can provide help on.
• The Quest for 5000 – How many Followers are Enough?
  From Twitip: Mark Hayward thinks through the question of how many followers are enough on Twitter and talks about why he’s aiming for 5000 of them and why this is important for you to consider.
• Twittersheep: Tells You More About Your Twitter Followers
  From Makeuseof.com: Discussion of TwitterSheep, twitter tool that can give you an insight about your twitter followers. Once you enter your name and password, TwitterSheep profiles your followers based on ‘tags’ and generates colorful tag cloud that gives a quick overview of your followers interests.
• What Makes a Great Evangelist
  From SmartBlog: Advice from Andy Sernovitz on what to look for when identifying people who can be an evangelist for your message.
• To Follow or Not to Follow; that is the Question
  From Twitip: Guest post by Neal Wiser provides advice and perspective on making decisions about whether or not to follow people on Twitter.
• Five Ways to Grow Your StumbleUpon Network: An Ode to Altruistic Stumbling
  From Dosh Dosh: Five main ways you can use to expand your StumbleUpon network of friends.
• Understanding the Value of ‘Friends’ in Social Media Websites
  From DoshDosh: Discussion of the benefits of having friends/followers on social media sites.
• 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
  From Linked Intelligence: Braoad collection of advice on using Linkedin as a business tool.
• 7 Ways to Be Worth Following on Twitter
  From Twitips: List based on the characteristics of the people the author (Jo-Lynne) most enjoys following on Twitter – be interesting, be informative, be interactive, be promotional, be personal, be considerate and find a balance.
• Twitter Power 150
  From A Source of Inspiration: If you want examples of influential people on Twitter, you can find a list of Top 150 Twitter users ranked by their Twitterank score here (as of January 16, 2009).
• Follow-Back Fail
  From Dave Fleet: Five suggestions on how to go about getting people to follow you back on Twitter.
• MyCleenr: Clean Up Your Twitter Friends List
  From MakeUseOf.com: MyCleenr is a site for cleaning up your Twitter account. It provides you with an interface that makes it easy to get rid of all inactive and useless accounts that you might be following. The process is straightforward, simply sign in using your Twitter credentials and MyCleenr will then list all accounts that you’re following along with their activity stats.
• So many people, So little time
  From T N T — The Network Thinker: Advice on how to streamline your Twitter following strategy.
• How to Build Credibility on the Web
  From Stepcase Lifehack: How do you get people’s attention long enough to prove that you are what you claim to be? Here are a few ideas.
• Twollow – Auto Follow On Twitter
  If you want to use your Twitter account as a way to track all of the people talking about a certain thing, Twollow is the app for you. You can set Twollow to look for any keyword and then automatically follow people that tweet that word. This is great if you want to track mentions of your name, website, product, or (if you’re daring) favorite topic. Just take care you don’t become a spammer.
• HOW TO: Win Friends and Twinfluence People
  From Mashable: 10 tips on winning friends and twinfluencing people using for those still somewhat new to the service.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers: Part 1
  From Social Media Buzz: First in multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers: Part 2
  From Social Media Buzz: Second in multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers – Part 3
  From Social Media Buzz: Third in multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers: Part 4
  From Social Media Buzz: Fourth in a multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• My Tweeple
  My Tweeple is a Twitter follower/following manager that provides a one-stop dashboard for who you’re following and who, in turn, is following you. The service allows you, with a single click, to follow, unfollow, or blog people (or tweeple).
• TwitterSnooze!
  TwitterSnooze provides the ability to “snooze” certain friends for a pre-determined period of time. If you’re daring, you can also publicly tweet that you’re snoozing someone.
• Twitter Twerp Scan
  Twerp Scan checks the number of followers of everyone on your contact list, the number of people they are following, and the ratio between those. If the person is following more than (n) people (can be customized), and has a Following-to-Followers ratio higher than 1:(m) (can be customized), you’ll be notified by a link. Even if you have no use for that, you might find Twerp Scan a helpfultool for keeping an eye on your growing list of friends and followers
• Twitter Follower-Friend Ratio
  Your Twitter Ratio is the ratio of your followers to friends (or people who you follow). It is measured with the TFF Ratio (Twitter Follower-Friend Ratio). The higher the ratio, the more Twitter heat you pack.
• How to Get More Twitter Followers: Some Methods That Work
  From Dosh Dosh: Advice on not only getting people to follow you but how to get them actually read your updates.
• 8 Tools to Track Your Footprints on the Web
  From ReadWriteWeb: Last week we looked at how easy it is to leave footprints on the Web; today we’ll show you how easy it is to track them. Although search engines provide a great starting point when you’re searching for someone online, with all of the new social sites that have popped up over the past few years, they’re often just not enough. In our recent State of Blog Search 2009 post we discussed the various reasons you may choose to use any or all of the following blog search tools: Technorati, Google Blog Search, Ice Rocket, Ask.com Blogsearch, and FriendFeed. While these blog search engines are great to fill specific needs, they’re also another great place to look for your footprints on the Web.
• How to Target and Attract High Quality Twitter Followers from Your Blogging Niche
  From Twitips: Blogger Mark MacDonald provides tips on attracting high quality followers in your relevant niche.
• Finding the Tweet Spot – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
  From PR 2.0: Giving back to the Twitter community is an investment in building more mutually beneficial relationships. This articles offers tips to pay back and pay it forward on Twitter.
• Twitter Spring Clean Up
  From Social Media Vision: Advice on cleaning up your Twitter account- eliminating from the people you follow- people who don’t follow you back, spammers and the unengaged. Then there’s room to move forward with new friends and followers.
• 30+ More Ways to Create Twitter Groups
  From Mashable: Jennifer Grove provides a rundown of ways communicate with a distinct set of users on Twitter, or to follow a group of tweets based on Twitterer, topic, or hashtag. She identifies and separates out the web, desktop, and mobile apps that help you satisfy the group function of your choosing.

Recommended Reading This Week

Here are our top picks for what’s buzzing on the web this week….

• How The National Wildlife Federation Uses Social Media
  From Corporate Dollar: Great case study interview with my colleague Danielle Brigida of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) discussing her success in spearheading NWF’s terrific social media program.
• 82 Million User-Generated Content Creators and Counting
  From Mashable: More than 82 million people in the US created content online during 2008, a number expected to grow to nearly 115 million by 2013 according to numbers released by eMarketer. Looking inside of those numbers, it’s not surprising that the bulk of content creators are simply social networking…
• Twitter Finally Integrates Its Real-Time Search Engine
  From ReadWriteWeb: Twitter just announced that it is slowly releasing a new interface to a subset of its users that will put Twitter Search and Trends right on users’ profiles. Until now, Twitter’s real-time search function, which was acquired from Summize last year, lived on a separate subdomain and was…
• Debunking Six Social Media Myths
  From Business Week: Using social media to market your business is a good idea. Just don’t plan on getting your whiz-kid nephew to do it for free.
• How to Use RSS and Social Networks to Find Ideas, Leads and Contacts
  From Paul Bradshaw: Slideshare presentation on using rss and other social networks for newsgathering and other journalistic purposes.
• HOW TO: Take Control of Your Google Search Results
  From Mashable: Personal branding expert Dan Schawbel provides terrific strategies for controlling your personal Google search results.
• 15 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started My First Blog
  From Quick Sprout: From Neil Patel who created 2 blogs, (Pronet Advertising) on marketing and QuickSprout on business. Although both of his blogs do well, Neil admits he made his share of mistakes along the way. Here’s what he’d do differently if he started all over again today.
• Build Blog Posts Like Building Blocks
  From Chris Brogan: Blogging doesn’t have to be a “what do I want to write today?” exercise. It can be as formal or as informal as you’d like it to be, but should you have specific goals for how blogging influences the rest of your business communications and online relationship…
• A Quick ‘n Dirty Guide to Setting up Social Media Monitoring
  From Social Media Explorer: A quick and dirty guide to setting up basic social media monitoring, using free tools and only a half hour or less per day.
• Why Facebook is growing wrinkles
  From Telegraph: Older users are jumping on the social networking bandwagon as if their lives depended on it – and in some cases, they do.
• Are You Throwing Away Readers by Posting at the Wrong Time?
  From Daily Blog Tips: You have lovingly crafted a blog post, containing pearls of wisdom which you are sure will enthral, entertain and enlighten the world. You have taken on board advice from experts on how to craft a good headline, you’ve found a great graphic to illustrate it, you’ve…
• Improve Your Twitter Efficiency
  From Web Worker Daily: How to make your use of Twitter more efficient: spend less time using it, while still getting the information you need.
• Facebook Reverts to Previous Terms of Service
  From Mashable: The Saga continues…that was quick. A day after trying to defend changes to its Terms of Use, Facebook has pulled a 180 and decided to revert to its previous terms
• 31 Power Tools For Twitter Lovers To Make Lives Easier
  From Smashing Apps: Rundown on tools for Twitter that are that are free and absolutely useful.
• Ultimate How-To: Social Media Buttons, Tools and Badges Resource
  From 10e20 Blog: A one stop shop for all your social media site buttons and badge needs.
• How to get ReTweeted – The Formula
  From Twitips: In this post Louise Doherty (@louisedoherty) shares a formula to help you increase the chances of being ReTweeted.

Using Social Media effectively depends on finding and connecting with the right people and — once connected  -making sure you do the right things to build and nourish online relationships to achieve your goals.

Here’s our Superlist roundup of tools, resources and great advice to help you do each of these things more effectively – in two sections.   Section 1 contains tools and advice on finding the people you want to connect with – colleagues and also those people who are the influentials in your areas.  Section 2 serves up resources and advice to help you connect, build and nourish your network once you identify the right people.

If You Read This, Please Tweet This To Your Followers (just copy and paste the following into your Twitter bar): Ultimate How-To: Find, Network With & Influence People via Social Media http://tinyurl.com/cpvr85

Finding People

• Find People – How to Find People Online Quickly and Easily
  From About.com: Comprehensive guide to range of ways to find people online from social networks, to social bookmarking, to search engines.
• 15 Websites to Trace People Online
  From MakeUseOf.com: Review and links to 15 free resources to trace people online.
• 6 Services that Help You Find, Follow Friends on Twitter
  From CNET: A list and discussion of online tools that can you find friends more efficiently than asking for their usernames.
• Cool ‘Identity Search’ Tools for Social Web
  From MakeUseOf.com: Rundown on 3 tools that let you search for people across a range of social websites.
• Twitter Friend Recommendations | Who Should i Follow?
  A tool that lets you enter your Twitter username and get suggestions on interesting people to follow.
• PeekYou- Free People Search
  PeekYou is a people search service. You can search and find other people, find their websites, social-networking profiles, photos, or anything else about them online. You can also create your own profile on PeekYou.
• Use Online Tools To Find Influencers
  From Paul Gillin Communications: Tactics you can use to identify social media influencers.
• How-To: Identifying Influencers, Neutralizing Detractors
  From MarketingVOX: The attention of influencers is coveted because of their mythological ability to drive others to a given brand, whether by force of personality or strong subject knowledge. But “influencers” are not a single silver-bullet demographic. Depending on the product or service a company hopes to sell, the appropriate circle of influencers can vary. Here are some tips on locating your Influencers.
• TweepSearch
  This service aims to allow you to search for specific people you want to find amongst the people you follow. You enter a username to search that person’s followers or just a keyword to search all bios currently indexed.
• Just Tweet It
  Just Tweet It was created to make it easier for people using the popular micro-blogging service Twitter to find other “Tweeters” with similar interests.
• Snitch.name :: The Social White Pages
  Instead of you having to go and search for someone separately on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or MySpace, Snitch.Name presents you the search results from all those sites on one page
• Find a Person & Email Search
  Comprehensive Search Tool that includes traditional online people search tools like AnyWho White pages but also social networks like Linked In, Face Book, Yelp, Plaxo, & Ning.
• Feature: How to Track Down Anyone Online
  From Lifehacker: A couple of power people search tools to help you track down anyone online.
• 3 Ways To Find People With Social Search Engines
  From MakeUseOf.com: Reviews three social search engines that you may find helpful in expanding your network or friend circle – Whoisi http://whoisi.com/, YoName http://www.yoname.com/, and Ex.plode.us http://ex.plode.us/
• Want more Followers? Twitter Directories and Groups
  From Twitter Chat: Good rundown and advice on using Twitter Directories and Groups to find more followers.
• Who Is This Person?
  A Firefox Add-on that lets you highlight any name on a web page and see matching information from Wink, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Facebook, Google News, Technorati, Yahoo Person Search, Spock, WikiYou, ZoomInfo, IMDB, MySpace and more.
• Twitter Launches Suggestions Tool
  From Mashable: Discussion of new Twitter feature that helps you find people to follow: suggestions. This new page under the “Find People” section suggests Twitter users you may want to follow, based on an as-yet-undisclosed algorithm.
• Twitterel.com: Find People with Similar Interests on Twitter
  From Makeuseof.com: Twitter is an astonishing networking phenomenon with millions of users generating a lot of ideas and content. It can be overwhelming at first sight to use such a network to find like-minded people and build your community. This is where Twitterel comes in handy. Twitterel allows you to define certain keywords and then find people with similar interests on Twitter.
• Twellow :: Twitter Search Directory, Twitter Search Engine
  A twitter phone directory that sorts people by industry. This can be a great way to find people in your industry.
• TwellowHood – Find Local Twitter Users
  Have you ever wondered who is using Twitter that is close by? Looking to connect to people in your city? TwellowHood is a service which allows Twitter users to do just that. Think of it as a way to find your neighbor on Twitter.
• The Daily Follow
  Sign up for The Daily Follow. It’s an email alert offering up generous helpings of new people to follow or connect with by category. One email message, once per day, in digest format. It’s that simple.
• Five Tools to Find People on Twitter to Follow
  From Twitterati: Rundown on tools that can make the process of findings people on Twitter a little easier.
• 5 Tips on Finding Interesting People to Follow on Twitter
  From The Crafted Webmaster: Some useful tips on how to find interesting people on Twitter.
• So How Do You Find People on Twitter? -
  From Search Engine Guide Blog: If you are new to Twitter, it can seem difficult to find people that are in your industry or that share your interests. Here’s some tips to help get you started meeting new friends on Twitter!
• 5 Ways to Find More Friends on Twitter
  From ReadWriteWeb: Five web apps that can help you locate some of the best people for you to follow on Twitter.
• Twubble
  Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow. Click the button below to get started.
• 10 Interesting People You Should Have In Your Delicious Network
  From MMMeega: As it states, a list of interesting people to add to your Delicious network.
• Twitter Groups
  Service that allows you to create a new group or join an existing group. Follow people with the same interests as you. Find new people to follow. Let people follow you. Share your favorite website links.
• How to Use the New FriendFeed Search for Social Media Intelligence
  From ReadWriteWeb: Review the new Friendfeed tool and provides examples of how the tool can be used to discover people, conversations, trends and more across the social web.
• TwitterFriends Improves the IQ of Twitter
  From bub.blicio.us: Review of TwitterFriends an analytical tool for identifying relevant conversationalists, revealing conversation patterns, and visualizing material conversation networks, by Twitter ID. The services aims to map the “relevant net” for any given user, which is incredibly valuable to identifying influential voices.
• 10 ways to find people on Twitter
  Nice slide show from Paul Bradshaw of the Online Journalism Blog. Outlines 10 ways to find people on Twitter

Growing, Managing & Nurturing Your Network of Friends, Followers & Influentials

• Eight Secrets of Effective Online Networking
  From Tech Soup: Suggestions for effectively managing your profiles and contacts on social networking sites, finding people with relevant interests, and more.
• How To Use Del.icio.us To Take Over the World
  From Social Computing Magazine: Good article on how to use the people or networking component of Delicious to get the most out of the service.
• Who Is That New Follower? Ask Socialwhois
  From Mashable: While the names of some new followers you get n Twitter or Friendfeed immediately ring a bell, with others, you might have no idea who the person might be. To help you find out more about who these people are, Socialwhois is a new service you might find somewhat useful. Mashsable reviews it here.
• How to Grow A Useful Network with the Social Media Site Facebook
  From The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur: Advice on using Facebook as a tool to grow your business network.
• How to Improve Your Twinfluence and Twitter Grade
  From Mashable: Advice on what actions affect your influence scores on Twitter ranking tools (those like Twitter.grader.com and Twinfluence.com) as well as a review of what actions don’t affect your scores.
• Twitter Influence Calculator: Tracking Influence in Twitter
  From Web Analytics Demystified: The Twitter Influence Calculator is an experiment in social media measurement being run by Web Analytics Demystified. Built on the Twitter APIs, the influence calculator lets Twitter users determine their personal influence, discover the most influential users in Twitter and compare themselves to others. Calculate your Influence in Twitter today!
• How You Might View Bloggers
  From Chris Brogan: Advice on how to conduct a blogger outreach campaign directed at key influencers.
• How to Get More Followers on Twitter
  From Twitips: Nice compilation of links to posts Twitips has published that touch on the topic of getting followers.
• How to Friend Mom, Dad, and the Boss on Facebook…Safely
  From Read Write Web: Oh no! Your mom just joined Facebook and what’s even worse, she wants to be your friend. More and more people are finding themselves in this situation today and unsure of what to do. Friending mom and dad, the boss, or other work colleagues opens up the details of your private life for the whole world to see – and you might not be entirely comfortable with that. What’s to be done?
• TwitterButtons: Generate Follow Me Button for Twitter
  Simple online tool for Twitter fans. The site lets you enter your Twitter ID and quickly generate nice embeddable follow me buttons that is linked to your Twitter account. You can easily embed them on any other webpage, be it your personal blog or social networking profile page.
• Twitter Followers: Quantity or Quality?
  From Twitips: Advice from JR Griggs on the difference between quantify and quality when it comes to gaining Twitter followers and who needs which and why.
• How To Manage Your Twitter Relationships Better with TweetDeck
  From CorporateDollar.org: For those using Tweetdeck, here are three ways to better manage your relationships.
• HOW TO: Create Groups for Twitter
  From Mashable: There are many different ways Twitter members can create virtual groups. Here is a roundup of some of the most popular methods employed today.
• How I Follow People on Twitter
  From Findable Blogs: Article on tools and techniques for managing the process of determining who to follow back on Twitter.
• 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers
  From Kevin Rose on TechCrunch: Advice on boosting your followers on Twitter.
• How to Find Influencers on Photo and Video Sites
  From Paul Gillin Communications: How to find the people who are influential for your business on photo and video sites that you might normally consider for this purpose.
• Networking with Del.icio.us
  Nice screencast from educator Liz Davis that demonstrates the power of connecting with other people through the Delicious networking function. Useful even for even non-educators.
• Courting Online Influencers
  From Paul Gillin Communications: After you’ve identified people to engage with, you need to craft an approach and an incentive that’s right for them. Here Paul offers some suggestions.
• The Value of Influencers: Why They Are Still Relevant for Marketing Campaigns
  From Dosh Dosh: Discussion of how influencers are still critical to your marketing campaigns in helping to develop trust and visibility for brands.
• Making Word of Mouth Marketing Work: Finding the Influencers
  From MyCustomer.com: Insights on figuring out where can you find the small group of influential customers that will facilitate word of mouth campaigns – and how you can get them to shout about your business.
• 5 Steps to Twitter Success
  From SEOptimise: Advice on Getting Followers, Keeping Followers, Getting People to React, Using the Right Tools, and Earning Money
• Getting People to Talk Behind Your Back
  From chrisbrogan.com: Guest post by Josh Peter on how to get the influencers in your relevant community to spread the message about your business.
• Helping others leads to Twitter Success
  From Twitips: Advice from Darren Rowse on how he uses 2 Twitter tools -Tweetlater and Tweetdeck – to identify and learn about individuals having trouble with topics relevant to Darren’s business that he can provide help on.
• The Quest for 5000 – How many Followers are Enough?
  From Twitip: Mark Hayward thinks through the question of how many followers are enough on Twitter and talks about why he’s aiming for 5000 of them and why this is important for you to consider.
• Twittersheep: Tells You More About Your Twitter Followers
  From Makeuseof.com: Discussion of TwitterSheep, twitter tool that can give you an insight about your twitter followers. Once you enter your name and password, TwitterSheep profiles your followers based on ‘tags’ and generates colorful tag cloud that gives a quick overview of your followers interests.
• What Makes a Great Evangelist
  From SmartBlog: Advice from Andy Sernovitz on what to look for when identifying people who can be an evangelist for your message.
• To Follow or Not to Follow; that is the Question
  From Twitip: Guest post by Neal Wiser provides advice and perspective on making decisions about whether or not to follow people on Twitter.
• Five Ways to Grow Your StumbleUpon Network: An Ode to Altruistic Stumbling
  From Dosh Dosh: Five main ways you can use to expand your StumbleUpon network of friends.
• Understanding the Value of ‘Friends’ in Social Media Websites
  From DoshDosh: Discussion of the benefits of having friends/followers on social media sites.
• 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
  From Linked Intelligence: Braoad collection of advice on using Linkedin as a business tool.
• 7 Ways to Be Worth Following on Twitter
  From Twitips: List based on the characteristics of the people the author (Jo-Lynne) most enjoys following on Twitter – be interesting, be informative, be interactive, be promotional, be personal, be considerate and find a balance.
• Twitter Power 150
  From A Source of Inspiration: If you want examples of influential people on Twitter, you can find a list of Top 150 Twitter users ranked by their Twitterank score here (as of January 16, 2009).
• Follow-Back Fail
  From Dave Fleet: Five suggestions on how to go about getting people to follow you back on Twitter.
• MyCleenr: Clean Up Your Twitter Friends List
  From MakeUseOf.com: MyCleenr is a site for cleaning up your Twitter account. It provides you with an interface that makes it easy to get rid of all inactive and useless accounts that you might be following. The process is straightforward, simply sign in using your Twitter credentials and MyCleenr will then list all accounts that you’re following along with their activity stats.
• So many people, So little time
  From T N T — The Network Thinker: Advice on how to streamline your Twitter following strategy.
• How to Build Credibility on the Web
  From Stepcase Lifehack: How do you get people’s attention long enough to prove that you are what you claim to be? Here are a few ideas.
• Twollow – Auto Follow On Twitter
  If you want to use your Twitter account as a way to track all of the people talking about a certain thing, Twollow is the app for you. You can set Twollow to look for any keyword and then automatically follow people that tweet that word. This is great if you want to track mentions of your name, website, product, or (if you’re daring) favorite topic. Just take care you don’t become a spammer.
• HOW TO: Win Friends and Twinfluence People
  From Mashable: 10 tips on winning friends and twinfluencing people using for those still somewhat new to the service.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers: Part 1
  From Social Media Buzz: First in multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers: Part 2
  From Social Media Buzz: Second in  multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers – Part 3
  From Social Media Buzz: Third in multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• Social Media Power Users And Influencers: Part 4
  From Social Media Buzz: Fourth in a multi-part series on the key influencers in social media on the web along with their Blog info, Twitter info, brief bios and what makes them influencers.
• My Tweeple
  My Tweeple is a Twitter follower/following manager that provides a one-stop dashboard for who you’re following and who, in turn, is following you. The service allows you, with a single click, to follow, unfollow, or blog people (or tweeple).
• TwitterSnooze!
  TwitterSnooze provides the ability to “snooze” certain friends for a pre-determined period of time. If you’re daring, you can also publicly tweet that you’re snoozing someone.
• Twitter Twerp Scan
  Twerp Scan checks the number of followers of everyone on your contact list, the number of people they are following, and the ratio between those. If the person is following more than (n) people (can be customized), and has a Following-to-Followers ratio higher than 1:(m) (can be customized), you’ll be notified by a link. Even if you have no use for that, you might find Twerp Scan a helpfultool for keeping an eye on your growing list of friends and followers
• Twitter Follower-Friend Ratio
  Your Twitter Ratio is the ratio of your followers to friends (or people who you follow). It is measured with the TFF Ratio (Twitter Follower-Friend Ratio). The higher the ratio, the more Twitter heat you pack.
• How to Get More Twitter Followers: Some Methods That Work
  From Dosh Dosh: Advice on not only getting people to follow you but how to get them actually read your updates.
• 8 Tools to Track Your Footprints on the Web
  From ReadWriteWeb: Last week we looked at how easy it is to leave footprints on the Web; today we’ll show you how easy it is to track them. Although search engines provide a great starting point when you’re searching for someone online, with all of the new social sites that have popped up over the past few years, they’re often just not enough. In our recent State of Blog Search 2009 post we discussed the various reasons you may choose to use any or all of the following blog search tools: Technorati, Google Blog Search, Ice Rocket, Ask.com Blogsearch, and FriendFeed. While these blog search engines are great to fill specific needs, they’re also another great place to look for your footprints on the Web.
• How to Target and Attract High Quality Twitter Followers from Your Blogging Niche
  From Twitips: Blogger Mark MacDonald provides tips on attracting high quality followers in your relevant niche.
• Finding the Tweet Spot – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
  From PR 2.0: Giving back to the Twitter community is an investment in building more mutually beneficial relationships. This articles offers tips to pay back and pay it forward on Twitter.

Recommended Reading This Week

Here are our top picks for what’s buzzing on the web this week….

• YouTube Toolbox: 100+ Tools and Resources to Enhance Your Video Experience
  From Mashable: From Adobe AIR applications that let you download videos to Firefox extensions that protect you from RickRolls, and much more, here are over 100 tools and resources to help you enhance your video experience.
• How to Be a Good Dog on Twitter in 8 Easy Steps
  From Twitips: Entertaining post from Krista Travers from the perspective of her dog Ribsy on how to be a good user of Twitter. Be open to other species is the first piece of advice…read on…
• Getting Social Media Approved By Your Boss
  From The Buzz Bin: More on How to Sell Social Media. Here Geoff Livingston offers up his consulting company’s own experiences working with client organizations to get social media approved. Definitely read it!
• 11 Percent of Adults Now Use Status Updates
  From Mashable: We know that Twitter is growing like crazy, and Facebook is continuing to do more with its Status Update feature. But just how many people are broadcasting what they’re doing on the Web? According to a new study from Pew, the number is up to 11 percent of…
• ‘25 Things’ Drives Spike in Facebook Traffic, Signups
  From Marketing Pilgrim: Facebook’s popular “25 Things About Me” meme has gone viral and has even hit mainstream media (it’s in Time Magazine!). And since you have to have a Facebook account to participate, this simple request has driven a lot of new signups and traffic to the site. Here’s…
• Make Your Site More Social With Google Friend Connect’s Social Bar
  From Mashable: Review of Google’s Social Bar, a new gadget that “concentrates many of the basic social functions into a small strip at the top or bottom of your webpage.”
• HOW TO: Monetize Your Site With Video
  From Mashable: For both startups and Fortune 100 companies, getting on board with online and mobile video is increasingly key to attracting and engaging a fickle audience. The next generation of big-time consumers (those under 18) are already more likely to be watching video on a computer or mobile phone…
• Best Practices for Branded Twitter Accounts
  From Ignite Social Media: A look at information compiled from some top Twitter accounts that can teach a lot about how to manage an account successfully.
• The Power of a Comment
  From Problogger: In this post Lisa Newton from Travelin’ Local shares the story of how leaving a comment on a blog increased traffic back to her blog 975% in a day.
• 10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Websites
  From Smashing Magazine: We all make mistakes running our websites. However, the nature of those mistakes varies depending on the size of your company. As your organization grows, the mistakes change. This post addresses common mistakes among large organizations.
• Why Every Company is a Media Company
  From Mashable: Great article about how even non-media companies are creating content related to their customers interests – Whole Foods is an example.
• Helping others leads to Twitter Success
  From Twitips: Advice from Darren Rowse on how he uses 2 Twitter tools -Tweetlater and Tweetdeck – to identify and learn about individuals having trouble with topics relevant to Darren’s business that he can provide help on.
• Blog Users Don’t Read, They Scan… Write Accordingly
  From Social Media Today: Post by Michael Gass with useful advice on writing for your blog.
• How to Be a LinkedIn Superstar
  From iMediaConnection.com: tips on how to best utilize LinkedIn for you and your business.
• How-To Guide: E-Commerce Marketing on Facebook
  From Internet.com: Leveraging Facebook business options can provide a new channel for your customers to interact, and at the same time help you acquire new customers as your Facebook fans spread the word about your business to their friends. In this Facebook how-to guide, learn how to use two of…
• The Quest for 5000 – How many Followers are Enough?
  From Twitip: Mark Hayward thinks through the question of how many followers are enough on Twitter and talks about why he’s aiming for 5000 of them and why this is important for you to consider.
• StumbleUpon Hits 7 Million Users, Quietly 50% Bigger Than Twitter
  From ReadWriteWeb: What’s got a button to push, knows how to make money while changing the world and is read all over? StumbleUpon! The social discovery network, like Pandora for webpages and videos, just passed 7 million users according to the site. That’s about 50% bigger than Twitter, though Stumble…
• The Rush to Social Networks
  From eMarketer: The social networking audience is growing rapidly. eMarketer estimates that in 2008 nearly 80 million people, 41% of the US Internet user population, visited social network sites at least once a month, an 11% increase from 2007….