Looking for the hottest new tools to keep up with your social media?  Looking to not spend an arm and a leg?  Here are five new free social media tools released so far this year. Need to manage your Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and other social media sites in one convenient dashboard?  Look no further than Hootsuite.  Hootsuite is a social media portal application that allows you to lurk, contribute and measure all your social media outlets from one easy to use interface.  With Hootsuite you can manage up to five social profiles, get automatic updates from your blog, track your ... Read More »

The global digital research company, comScore, reports that 98% of the online audience in the U.S. are members of social media platforms. Unsurprisingly, Facebook dominates the statistics; with a user base that is hurtling toward one billion users, the platform accounts for around one in every six minutes spent online. The phenomenal growth and rapidly increasing popularity of the many social networking platforms has changed the nature of the relationship between business and consumers. The new ‘social customers’ anticipate direct interaction with the brands they favor; an expectation that has shifted the focus of traditional customer relationship management to favor ... Read More »

If you have played online games based on avatars, you know that the life of the avatar you create is within the context of your game and doesn’t have a role outside the game. But how would it be to have an avatar that is tagged along wherever you go on the internet. An avatar is not tied to any particular site but to your identity like your email address, this is what Gravatar does. Even though Gravatar was introduced few years back, it hasn’t gained much popularity as some people think it could affect their social media marketing as ... Read More »

Social networking sites are a ubiquitous feature in millions of people’s daily lives, helping them manage both business and personal relationships, but not without drawbacks. With a few clicks, an individual can potentially ruin another’s career, job prospects, educational opportunities and reputation by broadcasting unflattering posts, comments and tags to millions of Internet users, including friends, family and business associates. To try and manage your online reputation in real time is not only a challenge – but virtually impossible – until now, with the launch of NetworkClean Beta, which provides a free tool for Facebook users to safeguard their online ... Read More »

The days of tweeting on autopilot are coming to screeching halt. Twitter filed suit this past Thursday against five of the most aggressive tweet automation programs in an attempt to rinse itself of the platform-clogging spam the software routinely creates. The site’s operators are fed up with marketers and webmasters abusing the medium in the name of self-promotion, and the suit appears to mark the beginning of a new era for social media marketing. Battling Spam: Nothing New for Twitter Back in 2010, Twitter proclaimed on its blog that the in-house Trust and Safety team was making some serious strides ... Read More »