Posted by: Carlee Vellinga

Valerie Jennings offered tips in a podcast that was picked up by MSNBC.com. She provided advice for business owners and marketers on attracting visitors to their websites, building brand awareness, and protecting their brand online.

Jennings said that one method for driving website traffic to a page “is by using social media press releases that are highly search engine optimized.” She goes on to suggest the use of Marketwire and WordPress to increase search engine optimization.

Jennings promotes the use of sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These social media sites build brand awareness. However, she advises managers to utilize them carefully. “If these sites are set up properly and managed well, it will prevent competitors from trying to hijack your company’s brand,” said Jennings.

Posted by: Carlee Vellinga

Young Internet users may believe that their parents do not have a place on Facebook or Twitter, but studies show that older adults have a different view. A new article shows that the number of social media users over the age of 55 has increased rapidly in the past year. Read this article by Samuel Axon at mashable.com to see the statistics.

Older Adults Nearly Double Social Media Presence

A new study from Pew Internet found that between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking site usage grew 88% among Internet users aged 55-64, and the 65 and older group’s social networking presence grew 100% in the same time frame.

Young people still dominate social networks like Facebook, but their usage only grew 13% during the year covered by Pew’s report. Older adults are catching up at an incredibly quick pace, though it remains to be seen whether they will pass the youth or hit a ceiling at or below the usage levels reported by young adults and teens.

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Posted by: Carlee Vellinga

As culture changes, the English language evolves as well. A list of words that will be added to the Oxford Dictionary of English was recently released. One of these words is social media. The recognition of social media as an official word shows the influence that social media has. Read this article from buzz.yahoo.com about the new additions to the dictionary.

New Words for the Dictionary

by Mike Krumboltz
Aug 20, 2010

The English language is always evolving. There was a time when words like email, x-ray, and d’oh were nowhere to be found in the dictionary. Today, we add a few more new words to the tome.

The bookworms behind the Oxford Dictionary of English recently released a list of 2,000 or so new words that will be added to their next edition. Some of the new words include staycation, social media, and the groan-inducing chillax.

Perhaps the most high-profile word to be added to the dictionary this year is vuvuzela. For those who slept through the World Cup, a vuvuzela is the one-note plastic horn that creates a horrendously annoying sound. That’s our definition. The official one, via the Oxford Dictionary of English, is a bit more balanced: “A long plastic instrument, in the shape of a trumpet, which makes a very loud noise when you blow it and is popular with football fans in South Africa.”

Some other popular additions include frenemy (“a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry”), cheeseball (“lacking taste, style or originality”), and wardrobe malfunction (“an instance of a person accidentally exposing an intimate part of their body as result of an article of clothing slipping out of position.”)

Frankly, we’re amazed it took so long for that last term to make it into the dictionary. Thanks to Janet Jackson, Paris Hilton, and other Hollywood stars, it’s been part of the public discourse for years.

Posted by: Carlee Vellinga

Social media marketers are continually improving the systems they use to monitor searches online. While these tools are becoming more complex and intelligent, they still need further development. This article by Jim Tobin at mashable.com shows why analytics are the key to improving these tools.

Why Social Media Monitoring Tools Are About to Get Smarter

Jim Tobin is president of Ignite Social Media, where he works work with clients including Microsoft, Intel, Nature Made, The Body Shop, Disney and more implementing social media marketing strategies. He is also author of the book Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why You Already Know the Rules of Social Media Marketing.

Over the last three years, social media marketers have gotten a lot more sophisticated about the programs they deploy and how they’re measured. Platforms like Sysomos and Radian6 have become vital tools in understanding not only the social universe in which you operate, but how that universe responds to your brand.

But for all of our success, we’re still largely entering strings of Boolean variables into a tool and waiting for matching results to roll in. Most tools have added sentiment processing, but that clearly has a long way to go. Beyond sentiment, however, how are these tools going to evolve to provide more insights? The answer is with math.

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