SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLORER — Rule #1 of Twitter use – be helpful – right? Does that make sense to you? Absolutely. Can you screw up your implementation of Rule #1 and ruin your Twitter presence? Absolutely. By the way, this rule applies to all forms of social media. Let’s look at the idea of sharing in the context of two questions: What to share? How to share? You can automate parts of your social media presence. ReTweet buttons are a simple example: two clicks and you’ve Tweeted a useful link instead of typing it all out. You can even set up automated Tweets, similar to E-Mail autoresponders. Similar examples apply to other social media tools. But here’s the important question: Why automate? There’s two ways to answer this question...

MASHABLE — You have created a Facebook Fan Page. Now what? I bet these questions come to mind: "Is my page a success?" "Who is engaging with us?" "Is our engagement effective?" "Does our content strategy work?" The Facebook Insights dashboard will help you answer some of these questions. As defined by Facebook, "Insights provides Facebook Page owners...with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners...are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook." So what’s the best way to use this relatively new tool? We’ve outlined some steps below that should have you measuring Facebook engagement in no time...

MYCUSTOMER.COM — An increasing number of businesses are now using social network Twitter to engage with customers. But exactly how? Follow this guide to tweeting success. 1. Don't be cryptic: With only 140 characters at your disposal, it's often tricky to get ideas across, but being clear and concise is crucial in keeping your followers engaged. 2. Give followers a reason to click your link: Include a link in your tweets whenever possible and keep your tweets interesting to encourage click-throughs...

THE BLOG OF TIM FERRISS — There is an art and science to getting blog posts to travel like wildfire. This post will look at both, based on number crunching with 281 posts, 39,000+ comments, and almost 2,000,000 click-throughs via my Twitter profile and Facebook fan page in the last six months. Here’s what I’ve found to work well...

MASHABLE — So you paid attention to what everyone is saying and you created a Facebook Page for your business. You’ve got your press release links, photos and videos...but no one seems to care. What are you supposed to do now? You’re on the right track, so congratulate yourself. A lot of small business owners don’t even bother to create a page -- they’re simply not "on" Facebook. But it’s all about where your customers and future customers hang out. And with people spending more than 700 billion minutes per month on this social networking site, it seems pretty apparent that your business needs to be hanging out there too. Let’s review your Page. Go ahead, pull it up. Your Facebook Page should contain all or most of these:...