More and more companies understand the need to be present at social media but not many of them do social media properly and effectively. Why? Because in order to succeed in social media we can no longer treat it as yet another communication channel. It can’t be a random activity. It should be aligned with the overall strategy. Many companies take up SM but have no idea what for and what they will do there. Then it’s like “teen sex” - Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise it’s not better.”

Two weeks ago Facebook launched a new social plugin (”like” button) that works with the Open Graph protocol as part of the strategy to make the Web more social and personalized. The button spreads across the internet and it’s clear that websites’ owners quickly embraced the new social plugin.

There is already a lot of controversy around the plugin. Some people wonder how it will influence the privacy on the net? Many people feel Facebook will soon dominate most of our online experience. Some don’t like that FB is selling user’s private information to marketing companies. Will it affect Twitter or Digg? How will it change advertising and marketing strategies? Time will tell.

When you open your LinkedIn page to update your status, you will notice a new feature. From today LinkedIn enabled easy sharing of news and links. A nice new feature which enables you to share what’s hot in your domain. It’s easy to share the news with your network. LinkedIn is step by step becoming more social.

Apparently, the only constant thing in this world is change. Also social trends change along with the customs and we need to get used to completely different etiquette rules to survive in the jungle of social media. Like with any other form of communication people get to like us or we simply annoy them.

When using social networks we may also offend people and put them off for not following some basic rules of polite behavior. Below I’m presenting the list of practical tips on how to use Twitter in a way that we avoid irritating our potential valuable followers. I hope this list will make things easier for all of us.

The adoption of social media is increasing at high speed. You only have to watch the impressive increase of Twitter and Facebook accounts. They offer both new opportunities and challenges to stand above the crowd. If you listen to all the advice there is hardly any way to escape from it. On the other hand the group of users is still rather small. Besides many accounts are hardly used and there is a big group of very passive users. Depending on your type of business this means you have to analyze carefully where you can meet your potential clients. Because there is still a big chance you have to meet them offline! The social media area might still be a geek domain.

Have you ever wondered how much time you waste using social networking sites during your work day? According to surveys carried out in the UK, an average Joe spends around 40 minutes a week which leads to around €1.56bn annual income decrease. Over half of the 1460 office workers surveyed claimed that they use social networking sites for their personal use during office hours.

Some weeks ago I decided to give Gist a try. This week I became even more interested after they released Gist for iPhone. By using Gist, which by definition means “the essence”,  both on your desktop and iPhone keeping track of your social network becomes very easy. Do you want to know everything about the people you really want to follow? Give Gist a try!

If you don’t know what to do with your time register for every available social network. But for me keeping all my social network accounts up to date is taking too much time. It’s possible to use all kind of tools to link all different networks, but what’s use in it? Is that social? Couldn’t we just all together agree to use just one or two social networks? Which one would win? Please vote on our poll!

Last week I mentioned many people were waiting for the Facebook 3.0 update on the iPhone. Honestly, I wasn’t. I used not to be such an intensive user of the previous version. The interface didn’t satisfy me, besides hardly any of my European friends were using Facebook and Twitter took most of my “free” time. Curious as I am I decided to install this new version to give it a try. Some days later I have to admit that I am still positively surprised about the major change of the usability of the application. But I have a major remark as well.

Many people have been waiting for the Facebook 3.0 update on the iPhone. Its available in the App Store now and therefore the major question that has to be answered is: What’s new? Will it improve the Facebook experience when using the iPhone? The bottom line answer is yes. Facebook 3.0 offers you a completely new Facebook experience on the iPhone. I will describe some of the main new features.