http://sidit.org

I'm a huge fan of infographics of any kind. Whether they tell a story or convey information, it doesn't matter. While I can't create my own, I've compiled a list of awesome, interesting and fun infographics related to social media. With 2 billion people searches in 2010, Linked In is arguably one of the most used professional networking sites available.

Social TV is an interesting term that refers to platforms that allow users to engage with each other around what they're watching on TV or in theaters. This hits home for me because I worked on a platform called ScreenTribe for six months in 2010, and I continue to support it today. The term seems to be taking on a new meaning as advertisers, marketers and developers realize there's a market that hasn't yet been capitalized on. When we began work in May/June of 2010, the space was sparse. There weren't many competitors, and the competitors that existed were far more inferior to our platform. We offered new ways to do things and different ways to experience existing functionality. Still, the term social TV applied to what we were doing. That is, engaging television and movie watchers with exclusive content and allowing them to interact with people that were watching the same things.

In my last post, I talked about monitoring the message. I wanted to expand on that and show the world how I monitor our brands at Napkin Studio, at least on Twitter. Monitorred brands at NapkinStudio The process really isn't all that complicated, but it does take time. When you do it right, you can catch problems before they happen and engage with your user base to make them more active. People tend to really appreciate a response when they aren't expecting one. When they get a response to their claim or complaint, they're more apt to respond positively. I use it as a tool to get people to tell us about bugs, and figure out what they do and don't like. I compile the users experiences collected on Twitter (and other sources of course) and figure out the best way to make things work and what the most pressing bugs and issues are.

Public Relations is all about two way communication. It's about getting personal and crafting messages that are well received by certain segments of you target population. The addition of social media to PR makes it easier for practitioners to communicate with people that are talking about the brands, products or services that are being monitored. Social media is both a blessing and a burden for PR. On one hand, social communicators can broadcast their messages to people who want to hear them, and they can interact and engage with potential customers. On the other hand, social media allows anyone who may not agree with a message to voice their opinions. It's a way for the complainers in the world to make a PR professionals work for their money. Managing these messages can be a pain, but it's something that must be done. If it's done right, negative messages can turn positive, and positive messages can be spread with credibility.

Over the past year, i've watched numerous check-in services come about. Some of them are quite ridiculous, and I can't see myself or anyone else using all of them. Are these services a trend, or will they stick around? How can all of the check-in in data be used, and how is it being used?