People who want to use social media to advance their professional reputation, attract business or build a brand often struggle with deciding where the line is between personal conversations and professional ones. If you’re using social media for your business, know this. People are more likely to do business with a friend than they are somebody they don’t know. So you’ve got to make friends to influence people. The advice to follow the 80/20 (talk 80% to support others and 20% self promotional) rule is great and all, but what does that other 80% consist of? butterfly!!!&#. MORE >>

I had a very interesting conversation with a Facebook application developer today. He’s a very smart guy and we agreed and disagreed on quite a lot of things. Here’s the crux of the discussion from my point of view. If it’s not yours, or if it is, please– for the love of community –pitch in and SAY something! We were talking about how to build community on a Facebook page and whether or not that’s really even possible. Look at any big brand Facebook page. Do you see really engaged conversations or simply reactions to a post from the brand or other members? Twitter. MORE >>

If you’re a social media geek you already know about Facebook’s live session today to introduce their new messaging system. If you’d like to see the re-caps go here. There had been a lot of buzz about Facebook rolling out a new email client, whether it was going to be a Gmail killer and a whole bunch of other speculation, but in the long run it’s really an extension of their existing messaging system, not email. Facebook’s Zuckerberg says This is NOT email, “Email’s too formal&#. Here are the basic features. What’s different than email? MORE >>

It’s no secret that I think Wordpress is the best blogging platform, and I recommend it for Websites too. Wordpress can enable you to create an online presence for a fraction of what a traditional web site costs and have an easy to use content management system (CMS) to boot. Installing, configuring and training on Wordpress is a big part of our business at Tatu Digital. Over the years we’ve gotten so used to using it that it’s pretty much second nature for us, but that’s not so for everyone. to how to install themes, using the editor, what plugins to use, etc., MORE >>

Photo by C. Todd Lopez. We tend to think of social media as either a network of friends and family or a marketing channel–with a few variations in between. Few of us choose to think about the other uses for “social listening&# , or the military uses for social data. Of course government agencies have been evaluating interpersonal networks for ages and online media is a primary channel of intelligence gathering. heard this show on NPR the other morning that really illustrates this. “When the U.S. There’s a test case on the page as well, see if you can identify the target. MORE >>