Years ago online activity was static and simple. People visited websites and then emailed the address at the bottom of the page for further interaction.
How we use the internet now is very different and dynamic, with online interaction increasingly transferring to social network sites.

In the era of social media businesses are constantly advised on how best to establish a presence on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and other networks. Experts insist that in this day and age no business can afford to neglect their social media strategy because of the nearly limitless possibilities for reaching consumers and liaising with other businesses.

Of course this is correct. But be wary of losing yourself in a frenzy of company blogging and company twitter feed updating at the expense of maintaining what is still the most stable and important part of your business’s web presence – your own website. Vibrantly engaging with consumers, participating in online conversations, and convincing people to click on your links are worthless pursuits if there’s nothing exciting waiting at your website.

Today I read this post about Access Agency, a cool company with cool ideas; and this post which is an analysis of a recent Twitter campaign by upmarket South African retailer Woolworths.

I’m sorry if I am so two thousand and late right now but I have finally started to understand social media! I had an epiphany, the penny dropped, the switch went on. And I didn’t even know it was off in the first place! So while I am well aware that this is probably old news, I’m writing this post for anyone else who may still be in the dark.

Of course I started using MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others as soon as they became popular. And of course I told anyone I knew who owned a business or managed a project that they needed to get involved and use the channels to promote their brand.

With 400 million users worldwide, Facebook are clearly the leaders of social networking amongst the online community. Twitter are in a not-so-close second place with a comparatively small “following” (pun intended) of 18 million users. With this many people subscribing to online social networking, it was only a matter of time before online giant, Google, came to the party in anticipation of getting a nice fat slice of the social networking cake. The secret weapon that they’ve been teasing us about for the last couple of months was revealed yesterday and goes by the name of Google Buzz. The question that everyone is asking after day one is: “Will it stay? Or will it go?” I played around with Google buzz yesterday, chatted to friends (online of course) and did a little bit of research into the general online public’s reaction to Google Buzz. This is what I found:

Reasons it should stay:

With the recent advances in real time search brands now need to monitor their online reputation more closely than ever before. Coming from a past where the corporate website was the sole online showcase for a brand, 2009 showed us that the search engines have a definite interest in MyFaceFlicSpinTwit, with public views now appearing in the index in real time. This presents a dramatically altered landscape for brand managers and PR agencies in the way that they manage their online presence.

2009 saw a mad dash for the social media real estate and even then uptake was tentative and haphazard, with many companies taking a stand just for the sake of it, simply because of all the buzz around social media, but without actually knowing why they needed it or what the return on the time invested was going to be.

Some rumours have it that the recession is nearing an end, other rumours say that the end is not yet in sight, but no matter which rumours you believe, finding a job is still damn difficult. Jobs are still being cut at an alarming rate and any vacancies that arise are snapped up more quickly than you can say “curriculum vitae”. But we’re living in a world dominated by social media and that, experts say, is where the battles for employment are now being fought.

Newspaper classifieds are going the way of the dodo, recruitment agencies and even online jobs boards have seen the light and are doing a lot of their investigating through social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and yes, Twitter. And if you, as a job hopeful, aren’t active on these sites, you can bet your briefcase that you’re losing out.

In a time when many companies are drafting carefully thought out social media policies to try and find a balance between employee censorship and freedom of speech, several departments in the UK police force are actually encouraging police officers to use Twitter and Facebook during shifts. Rather than treating is as a time-waster and drain on company resources, not to mention an open door for bad publicity, social media is being embraced as a modern day crime fighting tool.

In an interview with the BBC, the web officer for the New Yorkshire Police Department, Tom Stirling, says that social media allow officers to communicate directly with the public. Facebook pages, for instance, allow people to relate their experience of police services – good and bad – so that departments know what they need to change or do more of.

First off, I love words, which is natural considering I am a writer. But more importantly, I respect words. Not for nothing is the pen deemed mightier than the sword. Words have untold power and when used carelessly often have far reaching consequences that you could never have imagined. Now that I have given you some context, perhaps you will understand my dismay at the New Oxford American Dictionary’s choice of Word of the Year: Unfriend.

I don’t deny that it given today’s increasingly online social society it’s a relevant word. And I think that it’s placement in the dictionary has been legitimately earned, but is it really The Word of the Year? I don’t think so.

Last year, during the height of recession induced consumer panic retailers took the battle for budgets online. From Black Friday, considered one of the biggest shopping days in the US (the day after Thanksgiving) right through to Christmas day, retailers did their utmost to attract online shoppers, from online coupons to special offers that varied from 10%-90% off, the race was on to negate the wariness of cash-strapped consumers.

This year, there is less recession-related panic but online is still where it’s at for retailers, only this time the battlefield is social media.

Facebook and Twitter were around last year, and some companies put them to good use (Starbucks for instance Raised money for World Aids Day via Facebook), but the social hype wasn’t nearly as big then as it is now. In an article for Reuters, Nicole Maestri said that social media provides retailers with the perfect opportunity to interact directly with consumers and also provides an avenue for immediate feedback. She cites Chris Bruzzo, vice-president of brand, content and online for Starbucks, who said, “This is going to be a really interesting holiday season with social media.”

Where do you like to hang out online? Do you like the (relatively) clean lines of Facebook or the busy-ness of MySpace, the professionalism of LinkedIn or the casualness of Twitter? Are you aware that your choice of social network is indicative of your social status? Apparently, the invisible castes that delineate the social classes in the real world also apply online.

Nielson Claritas recently conducted a study on the demographics four different social networks (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter) and found that affluent, highly educated people congregate on Facebook, while less affluent, less educated people favour MySpace.

According to the study, nearly 23% of the people on Facebook earn more than $100,000 per year; nearly 42% earn more than $75,000. 37% of MySpace users earn less than $50,000, while only 28% of Facebook users fit into this salary bracket.

Know what I love about social media? The fact that it caters to everyone. There isn’t an interest (or fetish) that doesn’t have some online outlet. Lauren recently wrote about some of the weird and wacky social networks that have made themselves at home in cyberspace (myweirdbeard and hatebook were my two favourites) and recently I noticed a crop of diet related sites cropping up. Tweet What You Eat, Nutristyle and Gling (both in Vancouver) aim to promote healthier living, provide the help and support needed to stick to a healthy diet and, in the case of Tweet What You Eat, shame you into sticking to your eating plan.

Nutristyle’s adopts an holistic approach to healthy living. It works to increase awareness of the dangers of obesity, especially childhood obesity and donates 2% of all revenue to non-profit organisations dedicated to stamping out childhood obesity. Basically, it bridges the gap between grocers and consumers. You register, and fill in the comprehensive profile questionnaire, which includes sections for exercise and weight goals, menu preferences and favourite foods.