Supplement your email list with your contacts’ social network info? Find out if the username or vanity URL you want is still available across dozens of social sites? Display a feed of brand-related comments from a variety of social networks on your website? Search for a brand name or keyword across all of the most popular social networks at once? Monitor social media discussions of your company or product in real time? Promote events through social media? Cool Social Media Tools. Social and Alternative Search Engines. MORE >>

With the amount of helpful content about social media marketing growing faster than Facebook’s user base or Lindsay Lohan’s court appearances, it’s tough to keep up. Here’s a modest contribution to help with that effort; more than six dozen of the best, most bookmark-able articles and blog posts about social media tactics, tools and strategies written so far this year, by leading writers like John Jantsch , Lori Dicker , Lee Odden , Lisa Barone , Jay Baer and many more. Social Media Marketing Tips, Tactics and Guides. 5 stars. MORE >>

Can the financial return on expenditures for social media business activities– in marketing, PR, customer support, HR, product development or other areas — be accurately measured? Can social media costs be justified on the P&L, so that as belts get ever tighter in this stagnant economy, these projects and tasks can be spared the budget axe? Among social media pundits, the debate rages on. The “yes&# crowd argues that of course social media can be measured, and must be in order to demonstrate value to the business. MORE >>

Though social media marketing is now used in about 90% of companies, techniques, platforms and best practices continue to evolve.  What will likely be the hot trends in social media over the next couple of years? Marketers have questions, this post has answers: 87 vital social media and online marketing statistics covering everything from how executives and large companies are using social media for marketing, customer service and recruiting to fresh stats on the leading social media platforms to search, email, content and mobile marketing trends. MORE >>

If 2009 was the year many marketers puzzled over, poked at and pondered incorporating social media into their marketing mix, 2010 was the year of diving in. 500 companies now call social media “very&# or “somewhat&# important to their marketing or business strategy. Now that social media has advanced from the “should we do it?&# How does the traditional notion of a corporate website need to change to embrace social median norms and capabilities? How should you integrate social media with other marketing tactics like email? MORE >>