That’s a humongous amount of people. Now don’t make the mistake of reading those two statistics as the same. Three out of four of all Americans use Social Technology. Two-thirds of the global base of internet users visit Social Networks. 230 million people in the U.S. and nearly 4.5 billion people worldwide visit and interact through Social Media. That is your audience!

That’s right, email has come crashing down as the number four behemoth of online activities. Social Media is more active and more instant, growing at 3x the rate of every other activity that you and I do online. Forwarded emails are now being replaced by ReTweets. An unlimited text box full of spaced out text and attached files has been superceded by 140 characters and instant upload and commenting. We’re all about instantaneous, efficient exchange of information. It’s only been recently that Viral marketing has become a major marketing outlet. Browsing endlessly has been replaced by searching Google and Social Media sites.

We’ve advanced throughout history in our abilities to communicate. Social Media is one more advance because everyone has a voice. It used to be that just those with the resources to write a book or the ability to cover the news could have any opinion that would reach any substantial number of people. Now, you and I can reach millions at any time without bounds. Social Media really is a beefed up form of word of mouth. Think about it: If you share with 10 friends, who share with 10 friends, who share with 10 friends, all in a matter of one or two minutes, you’ve reach a crowd of 1000 people. It only took you 100+ characters and thirty seconds. That is power.

Yes, Yoda is the wise one. Social Media is a force. Don’t mess with it, don’t defy it, embrace it. Now you know what Social Media is and why you should care. Stay tuned to for more in depth analysis and explanation. I want to hear what you have to say. Let me know by leaving a comment or Contacting Me. Don’t forget to read Part 1 or watch the entire presentation here.

Wikipedia’s definition, while broad, is accurate. Social Media is a very broad arrangement of services and channels that make up most of the interactions online. Most people think of Social Media as Twitter or Facebook, and they are right, but to assume that those are the only forms would be a huge mistake. Take advantage of every opportunity you can. Location, location, location is now Exposure, exposure, exposure. If you are overwhelmed by the massive capabilities, good. Most important piece of advice: Start Somewhere!

Like I said, start somewhere. Get involved. The way that you build up a following is not by sitting on the sidelines and holding up a sign that says “Call Me”. You have to get involved in the conversation. People are looking for information sharing when they get plugged in to social media. It isn’t enough to hang up a shingle and call that your social media effort. You’ll become stagnate and ineffectual. Continue to stay involved in the conversation and contribute.

Social Media is a lot like running. You may hate it at first. It may hurt, it may take time but, if you work at it every day, it’ll become easy.

If you own a company and you don’t yet have a Twitter account or have a grasp on other Social Media outlets, this presentation and series of posts is for you.

I’m going to break down each portion of this presentation and explain the importance and relevance it has to business. Whether or not you have ever opened a Facebook account or looked at someone’s Tweets is not important. It’s important that you get involved in the conversation now.

If you have questions, leave a comment or contact me. Let me know what has and has not worked for you. Subscribe to the blog’s feed and stay updated.

Now, Twitter is an awesome service and an awesome resource, but Project ReTweet seems like a bad idea when all is said and done.

Dan Zarella has a good writeup on the project at his blog. And Mashable has two writeups to help you understand the project better as well, details and analysis.

I agree with both of these writeups in that it doesn’t seem like this is a problem that needs fixing. It would be great to be able to see ReTweets directly in your Twitter feed for quick overview purposes and it would be great to have them formalized, so to speak. But if that shatters the way that information is exchanged, someone should step back and take a closer look at how to implement Project ReTweet.

My suggestion: Essentially the same as Dan’s. Add the APIs, formalize ReTweets, but don’t change their behavior. Twitter is and always will be about democratically disseminating information. That importance of that information is given weight based upon who ReTweets it. I would much rather read a link from one of my friends than from someone I have never seen on my feed before, which is what this formalization intends to do.

What do you think about Project ReTweet? Is it a good idea to formalize ReTweets? Would you more or less likely to read something new from someone you never heard of as opposed to your friend?

I’m going to walk you through getting your website up and running to reach your customers.

1. Get a domain name! Go to mydomain.com, networksolutions.com or any other domain name registrar you can find through Google. Begin to check for domain names that are appropriate for your company. You might have to get creative and think laterally to find one that is available for you. Add your city or blog or something else to the name to make it unique and easy to find/remember.
2. Now you need website hosting. There are dozens of places to use for web hosting, but some of the best that I have worked with are: HostGator & AN Hosting. I highly recommend both of these sites for their uptime, large servers and ease of use.
3. Next, you need to design a site and get it filled with some content. I would suggest using WordPress for your site’s backend management. Go to WordPress.org to learn about it. Search on Google or hit up a good friend of mine at wpblogger.com.
   • If you want to jump right in to setting up WordPress and playing with the features and if you used one of the hosts I recommended, it is really simple. Login to your control panel and look for Fantastico. Click on it, then on the left side of the screen should be a list of applications it can install. Click on WordPress and follow the instructions.
   • Now that you have WordPress installed, we need to find a theme. For ease of use, I would suggest looking for themes over at WooThemes. They have great support and spend a lot of time making their themes extremely user-friendly. A second option is ThemeForest. ThemeForest is a site where multiple developers come to sell their designs. Since ThemeForest is more of a broker, the support isn’t quite as good, but I have used some great themes there. For the more adventurous out there, Headway is a great theme for WordPress that allows you to customize the site yourself.
4. Phew! Domain is registered, we’ve got our hosting set up, WordPress is online. Now we need to add some content. Login to your WordPress site, click on Posts and get to work.
5. Good news, your site is up, bad news, it’s still hard to find. Subscribe to our blog to get constant updates and new tricks to get your site to rank higher in Google, Bing and other search engines.