Yammer is the first company to bring micro-blogging into the enterprise. At its launch in September 2008, Yammer won the TechCrunch50 Conference. Mark Benioff, CEO of SalesForce.com and TechCrunch50 panelist, said he would even invest in the company. In the following weeks, thousands of companies started their Yammer networks. Publications dubbed the new service “Enterprise Twitter” or “Twitter with a Business Model”. In January 2009 the New York Times named Yammer one of “Nine websites IT pros should master in 2009.”

Yammer is the answer to the question that many companies have asked “Is there something like Twitter that we could use for internal communication only?” Yammer is a “private Twitter” where only those with the same e-mail domain (ie, @yourcompany.com) can join and post updates. ( Fill the Funnel – September 28, 2009 )

Yammer is an online tool used to communicate, share, and stay in touch with others in a company or organisation through the exchange of short messages. In geek speak Yammer is an internal micro-blogging tool, or to put it another way, a business version of Twitter. Yammer gives you a private network (locked down using company organisation email address), messages are not limited to 140 characters and documents and images can be attached to messages. Plus there are features like profiles, RSS feeds, organisational charts and the recently added ‘Likes’ and threaded message view. Yammer is hosted as Software As A Service (SaaS) so can be accessed easily from both inside and outside your network. (from Intranets: Now and the Future – September 13, 2009 )

1. Google Makes Grab for Hollywood Dollars – Advertising Age – Digital http://ow.ly/nHrM ~49:10 AM Sep 2nd from HootSuite
2. Why Social Media Isn’t Living Up to the Hype (Yet) – Advertising Age – DigitalNext http://ow.ly/nHre ~48:45 AM Sep 2nd from HootSuite
3. Google’s Gmail goes down for at least half an hour; Twitter lights up | Technology | Los Angeles Times http://ow.ly/nEr9 ~23:10 PM Sep 1st from HootSuite
4. Fall shows tuned in to Twitter marketing http://ow.ly/nDXX ~22:03 PM Sep 1st from HootSuite
5. RT @nicolefincham: 3 Great Sites for Following Conversations on Twitter http://ow.ly/kbIT ~127:47 PM Aug 28th from TweetDeck
6. Foursquare – Location Based Coupons – The Next Twitter? << Brent Purves http://ow.ly/mopC ~109:46 AM Aug 28th from HootSuite
7. Twitter Effect rattles Hollywood http://ow.ly/mhk3 ~10 people will twitter during opening credits and leaving when they don’t like them.9:22 AM Aug 28th from HootSuite
8. What marketers need to know about real-time search http://ow.ly/lDfu ~109:03 AM Aug 28th from HootSuite
9. Twitter Advertising: Like It or Not, You Have to Behave on Twitter http://ow.ly/ljyp ~21:44 PM Aug 25th from HootSuite
10. Googlers More Loyal than MicroHoo Searchers http://ow.ly/ljw5 ~21:41 PM Aug 25th from HootSuite
11. Screen Casts For Twitter – Create screencasts and screen recordings the easy way http://ow.ly/kVKB10:39 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
12. TWEET IDEAS: 13 Things to Do on Twitter Besides Tweet http://ow.ly/kVKt10:37 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
13. Coke ‘Freestyle’ Taps Twitter, Facebook, RFID 08/18/2009 http://ow.ly/kUcM2:50 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
14. Twitter’s Geo-Targeted Trojan Horse http://ow.ly/kUcD2:50 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
15. Twitter to Go Commercial with Commercial Accounts http://ow.ly/kUc62:48 PM Aug 21st from HootSuite
16. Facebook Releases The Twitter Exporter Tool http://ow.ly/kSez10:32 AM Aug 21st from HootSuite
17. Canadian Forces take aim with Twitter http://ow.ly/kS0M10:07 AM Aug 21st from HootSuite
18. Vodka Social Media Marketing -Flash, Facebook & Twitter Marketing http://ow.ly/kRYG – geotargeted web imagery. 3600 fans 1200 twit follows10:03 AM Aug 21st from HootSuite
19. Twitter Grows Uncomfortable With The Use Of The Word Tweet In Applications (Updated) http://ow.ly/kNWO9:55 PM Aug 20th from HootSuite
20. Sponsored Tweets – Will writing “today’s tweets sponsored by x” be sufficient? Twit ads inevitable Twitter evolution? http://ow.ly/jXXL ~812:19 PM Aug 13th from HootSuite
21. The Best Time to Tweet for Maximum Exposure | Twitter Marketing Agency http://ow.ly/jQVR ~512:22 PM Aug 12th from HootSuite
22. What Facebook Lite Actually Is. Hint: It’s Not Twitter Or FriendFeed. http://ow.ly/jQUE ~512:20 PM Aug 12th from HootSuite
23. GM’s Lutz Plans “Whole Lot More…Social Media & Webpage Stuff… Clever YouTube stuff…good enough to get passed on” http://ow.ly/j60r ~35:07 PM Aug 4th from HootSuite
24. A Portable Version of Your Social Network: Get Glue: The Network That Sticks With You http://ow.ly/j5YD ~35:00 PM Aug 4th from HootSuite

Google Wave Marketing? Wait a Minute, What is Google Wave?

Coming late 2009, Google Wave is a mashup of communications tools provided by Google to make it easier for people to work and communicate online. (Read more about Google Wave)

What Could Google Wave Change for Internet Marketing and Social Media Marketers? 

• Google Wave could further fragment online audiences and limit the number and growth of today’s large social networks.
• Dave Coursey of PC World says “Google Wave as a mash-up of chat, e-mail, and document sharing, it’s really something else: Google Wave could be the Twitter that everyone really wants. Maybe it’s the Facebook, too.”
• Brands and social media marketers will need to dive deeper into authentic conversations in niches, to invite customers into personal and sometimes real-time conversations, collaborations, product testing & development.
• Along with Google Profiles, Google Search and Gmail, Google Wave will provide Google an even deeper look into our digital lives. Privacy advocates may not like it but marketers will love the ability to run very tightly focused Adwords campaigns in Wave.
• iPhone, Blackberry and Android mobile phone app developers and mobile marketers will likely concoct and use collaborative Wave-technology-based, multi-editor, real-time events in rich media and interactive apps as means to build customer loyalty and brand exposure, to get instant product testing feedback, to enable live user participation in webisodes and online reality, augmented reality events and products.

What do you think?

Twitter Marketing 101: Ten Ways to use Twitter for Marketing & PR for your Company or Personal Brand

1. Get a Twitter Account. If you don’t have one already, visit Twitter.com and sign up for a free account. Think carefully about what your twitter account will be called as you can’t change it later and it should clearly represent your company or brand. 
2. Create a Twitter Marketing Strategy.  While most people just start randomly posting whatever comes to mind, you’ll be much more successful if you first sit down and write out your Twitter marketing plan including what types of things you’ll try to post about, how often you’ll post, how many followers you’ll try to reach, how your twittering will help you achieve your marketing goals, how your twittering fits into and compliments your overall offline and online marketing strategy, who you can get to help write/submit posts, etc.  Once you’ve got your Twitter marketing strategy nailed down then start posting to your twitter account. If you’re not sure where to start then consider hiring a Twitter Marketing Agency to help you create and /or implement your Twitter strategy.
3. Automate Blog Posting to Twitter. There are many great apps out there that enable you to automatically post your blog posts to your twitter account – so if you’re a blogger, consider feeding your Twitter account directly from your blog so you can hit two birds with one stone every time you create a new blog post. Your Twitter posts in this instance would then just link back to your full blog post, driving your followers into your blog, which is a good thing.  If you don’t have a blog, get one. If you don’t know where to start, consider creating your blog with  WordPress, as there are many great free Twitter WordPress plugins.
4. Make & Follow Twitter Friends . Don’t  only broadcast about yourself or your company, but take the social aspect of social media to heart and engage with others.  In your travels on the web you’ll find interesting websites that have links to personal or company twitter accounts. If you like what you see, follow them on twitter. To do this, visit a Twitter profile page then click the “follow” button.  Follow  influential bloggers and media and other noteworthy individuals in your industry. Often they’ll follow you back and you’ll have more success communicating with them via twitter than phone or email. 
5. Get your CEO Twittering.  Twitter offers CEO’s a great way to manage connections, share industry insights and network. Since Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters even busy CEOs can find time to post to their Twitter account from their iPhone or Blackberry while waiting at the airport. 
6. Offer Twitter Discounts. Consider broadcasting specials on your products or services to your Twitter followers. Take advantage of the viral nature of Twitter where valuable posts often become retweeted many times by many different users. Consider using a Twitter coupon service.
7. Provide Live Event Updates. If you’re holding a conference or seminar or any kind of event, Twitter live about it to generate interest, to post any last minute updates, etc. 
8. Get Involved and be a Contributor. Retweet  (repost) relevant posts made by those you’re following. Post links to great articles you or others have written.  Sometimes people will  follow you in return. To get started you can follow us on Twitter. 
9. Use URL shorteners. Twitter limits posts to 140 characters, so using a url shortener like bit.ly or tinyurl.com or others will enable you to write more in each post and have fewer characters used up by any URLs you link to in your post. Consider using a short URL service such as bit.ly that includes statistics tracking if you’re interested in seeing how many people click on the links you post.  Also consider using Hootsuite, an online Twitter Marketing software that enables you to post to multiple twitter accounts at once while also tracking your stats using their in-house short url ow.ly.
10. Pay Attention. Don’t just click the “follow” button on hundreds of other Twitter accounts, but actually read what others are saying. Do searches using Twitter Search for your own brand or product name to see what others are saying about you or your products or services and  interact when appropriate.

 Get your own custom twitter coffee cup at twitter mosaic by sxoop

 photo: abooth202

TwtQpon lets you create coupons for promoting your products or services and then post them in your Twitter feed as part of your. If you have products or services you want to promote to your Twitter followers, consider offering a small discount or incentive in the form of a coupon and take advantage of the viral / retweeting features of Twitter.  TwtQpon says: ” Enhance your social media marketing by offering discounted coupons to the Twitter-sphere!”

See a sample Twitter coupon here: http://twtqpon.com/cbm8zk

WordTwit is a WordPress plugin that utilizes the Twitter API to automatically push a published post to your Twitter account as a tweet. It allows all your Twitter contacts to keep up to date with your blog postings. One cool feature of WordTwit is that you can assign your own shortened url instead of using tinyurl.com or bit.ly or others. This way you get to build your own brand instead of someone else’s. In our case TwitterMarketingAgency.com is way too long of a domain to use, so instead we use http://www.stirbuzz.com. It’s not the shortest domain around, but it serves our needs of building our parent company’s “stir” brand. We are just kicking the tires on this baby, so will let you know how it goes.

bit.ly allows users to shorten, share, and track links (URLs). Reducing the URL length makes sharing easier. bit.ly can be accessed through our website, bookmarklets and a robust and open API. bit.ly is also integrated into several popular third-party tools such as Tweetdeck. A more full list of third party tools can be found on the bit.ly blog. Unique user-level and aggregate links are created, allowing users to view complete, real-time traffic and referrer data, as well as location and metadata. Tracking stats are available after users shorten their long links with bit.ly by clicking on the “Info+” link on bit.ly, or just adding a “+” sign to the end of any bit.ly link (for example, http://bit.ly/n0og+).
Read full bit.ly article on NYTimes

It has all of the features you’d come to expect from a Twitter client. Most importantly it allows you to manage and post to multiple Twitter accounts.
After you log in you’ll find four main buttons: Tweets, Replies, Messages, and Favorites.

Each tab shows you 20 results at a time, but you can see more with a single click.
You can do a lot with this Twitter app including viewing reply chains, see links directly in the browser, retweet messages, turn links in the browser into short URLS and more. The only thing that this app doesn’t do is let you browse the web and shorten a URL.

This is our favourite Twitter client for iphone. Try it today. Here’s a summary of features and recent updates in the latest version:
*  Handle multiple twitter accounts.
* Browse your friends &  followers.
* Post new tweets, retweet.
* Reply directly to tweets &  send direct messages.
* Follow and unfollow people.
* View your timeline, replies, direct messages &  favorites.
* Mark tweets as favorites.
* Navigate reply chains.
* Post links with automatic link shrinking via bit.ly.
* Upload pictures to twitpic.com.
* Save your favorite searches.
* Inline web browser.
* Update your twitter location.
* View twitter trends and perform custom searches.
* Implements the full twitter API.
* Uses secure connection (https).
* Go to User shortcut
* Nearby search
* Themes and adjustable font size
* Bookmarklet support

New in Version 1.2

* Instapaper integration
* Optional landscape keyboard
* Image compression control (for uploads)
* Nearby radius control
* Cached avatars
* Drafts persist across relaunches
* Resend tweet on network error
* Refined UI and reply-chain navigation
* Swipe shortcuts
* Disable “Accounts” back button
* Public timeline
* Block / Unblock users
* Control # tweets loaded on launch
* Remember scroll position on launch and reload
* Improved “load newer”
* Link to TwitPic.com in inline picture viewer
* Faster favoriting
* Handle $AAPL style stock links (to stocktwits.com)
* Send DM text to email
* Japanese localization

HootSuite lets you manage your entire Twitter & social media experience from one easy-to-use interface.

Creating an account is easy. Enter your Twitter username and password, and add a profile for each Twitter account you wish to manage. Got more than one tweeter per profile? Add multiple editors.

Then get going! Post live or pre-schedule tweets. Check stats and analytics right from the dashboard. Search Twitter for keyword information. Reply @ and Direct Message the folks in your conversation. Do all this and more from one fantastic interface.

Need help setting up Hootsuite for your business, organization or personal Twitter or social media accounts?Interested in outsourcing some or all of your business or organization’s Twitter posting using Hootsuite?

The Hootsuite experts here at Twitter Marketing agency are here and available to help. We provide in-person, phone, skype and video Hootsuite, Twitter & social media marketing training and conferencing. We’ve worked a wide variety of businesses ranging from with small businesses setting up their social media accounts and providing Hootsuite training to providing Hootsuite-based social media strategy, implementation, posting, engagement and Twitter / Facebook contests for large international businesses.

Click here to contact us today for a free Hootsuite and/or social media consultation. Feel free to ask us whatever is on your mind and we’ll be happy to help however we can.

We offer a free 30 minute social media consultation with one of our social media marketing experts so contact us today to schedule a phone or skype (or in person in Vancouver BC Canada) appointment today. Our Hootsuite and social media consultation services are start at only $150 after your initial consultation call.

Making an update on Ping.fm pushes the update to a number of different social websites at once. This allows individuals using multiple social networks to update their status only once, without having to update it in all their social mediums individually. Ping.fm groups services into three categories – status updates, blogs, and micro-blogs – and updates can be sent to each group separately.

Ping.fm was created with the intent of making it as easy as possible to post updates to multiple social networking sites simultaneously. The idea came about when creators were updating status messages with micro-blogging sites Twitter and Tumblr. The idea of posting the exact same information in two places seemed a bit tedious, so Ping.fm was born.

(from wikipedia.org)

PingFM says this about their services:

We post your messages wherever you want!
That’s right, we support over 40 social networking sites and we’re adding more all the time.
Between our straight forward posting methods and advanced custom triggers, we make it easy for you to post your messages exactly where you want them to go.