Guess it helps to be a Twitter “somebody” if you want better coverage from Microsoft’s new search thingy Bing.

Bing in its tenacious desire to beat Google at its own game has latched on to real-time search as a means to that end. On July 1, Sean Suchter, general manager for Microsoft’s Search Technology Center in Silicon Valley announced that Bing will be “unveiling an initial foray into integrating more real time data” into their  search results, “starting with some of the more prominent and prolific Twitterers from a variety of spheres.”

“We’re not indexing all of Twitter at this time..just a small set of prominent and prolific Twitterers to start,” he wrote. ..

Read the entire article By Ron Callari at: http://smashfuse.com/2009/07/bing-searching-for-twitterati-vs-tweeps/

When Lee Odden quized readers/ businesses to see which marketing tactic will dominate in helping their businesses, social media strategies come out on top. This topic is interesting in light of just how many businesses are cutting the monies available and/or normally used for marketing.
At the Online Marketing Blog (http://www.toprankblog.com/), 532 readers revealed that 63 per cent of those polled intended to focus using blogs and microblogs this year. Let’s point out that the microblog site listed was Twitter at 29 per cent, and 32 per cent of that figure for blogging.

Incredibly six of the top ten tactics are Social Media related.

Also in the mix of popular strategies listed included Search engine optimization with 28%.  social networking with 26%, email marketing and social media monitoring and outreach both at 17%, and pay-per-click advertising at 14%.

Lee Odden of the Online Marketing Blog emphasised the fact that the perfect digital marketing strategy very much depends on the type of organization and the target market, among other factors.

“Traditional marketing budgets are increasingly shifting to digital marketing and why not? Internet marketing is often more cost effective, builds awareness quickly, fosters relationships and is measurable in ways traditional advertising just can’t match,” says Odden. He mentions that some companies are prepared for digital and social media marketing programs and many are not. So to get ‘ready’, companies really need to develop strategic plans so they can get up to speed on both best and worst practices.
http://www.toprankblog.com/2009/02/reader-poll-top-digital-marketing-tactics-for-2009/

Oddens research does gowever fly in the face of a Forrester Research poll done last year. According to the Forrester survey, corporate blogs are the least trusted sources of information among U.S. consumers.

The most trusted?  Emails from friends.

G. Wayne Clayton is the founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Integerol/SocialMarketingExpert.org. He’s a former newspaper publisher and investigative journalist. He has been seen seen and heard on CNN, Fox News Talk radio, and is a Guest Blogger on FastCompany.com.

Truthfully? I’ve only got 1991 followers on Twitter. But by the time you read this I should have easily gone over 2000.

If you’ve ever thought about Twitter, and wondered if ANYONE would follow you, stop worrying. They do and will.

I’ve included what my results have been with Twitter using a very spotty application to get the maximum impact & influence with Twitter.

Just a few days ago, I ran an analysis on twInfluence. If you’re not familiar with the site, let me share what they explain they do from their site –

What is twInfluence?
twInfluence is a simple tool using the Twitter API to to measure the combined influence of twitterers and their followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus.

We know that “A-List” Twitterers like Scoble, LeoLaporte, and BarackObama have a lot of influence on Twitter, because they have tens of thousands of followers. However, social network analysis teaches us that there is a “horizon of communication” that extends beyond your own direct contacts, and this is demonstrated whenever somebody “retweets” a message. The significance is that not all followers are equal.

Imagine Twitterer1, who has 10,000 followers – most of which are bots and inactives with no followers of their own. Now imagine Twitterer2, who only has 10 followers – but each of them has 5,000 followers. Who has the most real “influence?” Twitterer2, of course.

As of right now, 24,269 twitterers have profiles analyzed on twinfluence.com.

So let me share with you my findings:

SocialMtgExpert’s Rank: #392 (98%)
Permalink to these scores: http://twinfluence.com/?u=SocialMtgExpert
2,013 friends
1,991 followers
4,098,722 second-order follower

Velocity: 14,499 second-order followers/day
Social Capital: 2,058.6 +1.8 High
Centralization: 1.46% / -1.1 Fragile

I had the chance to see the ”doctored” Sarah Palin pics (of her in a bikini holding a hunting rifle.) As far as graphic design goes it was a pretty good job…and I mentioned that in my Twitter post .

There has been talk about how attractive Palin is as a candidate. They also mention how strong of a candidate Obama is and he’s most assured to win the election.

My mind begins to wander just HOW strong is Obama? What if instead he was like Arnold Schwarzenegger strong? So I started digging. It did not take me long but I uncovered the photo the Obama camp does NOT want you to see.

This photo was apparently one of the lost election campaigns & slogans that got nixed due to being too “out there.” Behold The Obamanator.

While I’m sure the image won’t wind up on CNN or it’s sister publication the National Enquirer, it’s bound to make the rounds on the Internet.

Enjoy.