EXPERIENCE: THE BLOG — In the Forrester report, Tapping The Entire Online Peer Influence Pyramid, we introduced the Mass Influencer, a category of online influencer comprised of people who create most of the peer impressions about about brands in social channels. Although just 16 percent of the online population, Mass Influencers create 80 percent of all peer impressions about products and services. Engaging Mass Influencers is tough -- getting a sufficient number of bloggers or Twitterers to mention your new product or participate in your promotion is challenge enough -- but keeping them engaged is tougher...

CLICKZ — There's little doubt Twitter will be hailed as one of the success stories of 2009, having continued to grow throughout the year from the solid base it achieved during 2008, and attracting a steady stream of media attention along the way. According to Nielsen, traffic to the network's Web site alone increased 1,448 percent year-over-year in the month of May, from 1.2 million unique visitors in 2008 to 18.2 million in May 2009. That data excludes use from third-party software such as Tweetdeck and mobile applications, suggesting the actual numbers could be higher...

CLICKZ — Brands are achieving tangible ROI from marketing activity on Twitter, according to speakers at a "Twitter for Brands" event hosted by New Media Age in London Friday. Representatives from Dell and Web site builder Moonfruit described measurable uplift in sales as a direct result of their marketing activity on the social network. Kerry Bridge, part of Dell's Digital Media Communications team, said the firm's @dellOutlet account -- which promotes offers on refurbished Dell merchandise -- has driven in excess of $3 million in sales since it's conception in 2007. "Although $3 million in sales for a brand like Dell isn't huge, it's still worthwhile," she commented...

CLICKZ — Does your company run the risk of being a spammer on Twitter? Web site builder Moonfruit apparently didn't think it would when it ran a contest. It gave away one MacBook Pro a day over 10 days to someone who had sent a message on Twitter using the hash mark and keyword, #moonfruit. The contest was so popular that Moonfruit became a Twitter trending topic, meaning it was one of the top keywords being used in Twitter messages. When #moonfruit disappeared from trending topics, Moonfruit marketing director Wendy Tan White questioned whether Twitter considered its campaign spam -- and asked what exactly constitutes Twitter spam. In light of that case, ClickZ asked Omar Zaibak, author of the Blue Falcon Marketing blog, to answer these five questions about Twitter spam and what marketers can do to avoid getting labeled a spammer...

Moonfruit. The campaign that was said to be the first seriously successful viral Twitter campaign. Moonfruit is a free website building service that was offering free MacBooks in exchange for exposure of their brand on Twitter. Each day, a random user that included the hashtag #moonfruit in one of their tweets was selected to win a MacBook. There were no limits in number of mentions and you had to follow @moonfruit on Twitter in order to win a MacBook. Now, almost three weeks after the ending of the campaign, its time to have a serious look at the impact of this (ab)use of the Twitterplatform. Lets have a look at statistics and the influence on the Moonfruit brand...