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There is no doubt that Twitter-mania is sweeping the world. You can’t turn on the television or radio without hearing about the latest in twittering tweets. Celebrities have caught the bug with talk show hostesses like Ellen DeGeneres making it the hot topic on one of her shows and stepping up to talk about it with others such as David Letterman and Oprah, who are both Tweeting now as well. Even the news media is not immune with news heavy hitter CNN facing off in a head to head battle with TV funnyman Ashton Kutcher in a battle to see who could attract a million followers first. The question is whether all this media attention is threatening to make Twitter a haven for spam.

Twitter has many excellent features that might appear to make it a spammers’ paradise. Firstly, there is the Twitter Search which allows users to search for tweets with a specific keyword much like a Google search. It is much easier to get to the top of these rankings than a search engine ranking; however, because all one must do is to have the latest tweet with that keyword to appear at the top. Does this make Twitter a spammers’ heaven? It might appear so, but it all depends on what Tweeters are using the Twitter Search for.

Chances are good that while spammers may be able to get to the top of the Twitter Search, it may not do them much good. One of the many benefits of Twitter is that each person has the right to choose whom they will follow, or receives Tweets from. How beneficial will it be for spammers to Tweet just for rankings when nobody clicks on their links? It would seem as though this medium would offer rather minimal benefits for the amount of work required because the spammer would have to keep re-tweeting his or her own message continually throughout the day and night to stay on top of a trending topic, the Twitter Search results, because it is loaded in real time and constantly changing.

Spammers may get some pleasure out of seeing their tweets rise to the top of the Twitter Search, but unlike Google where users are searching for web pages they would like to visit, Tweeters mainly use the Twitter Search to look for like-minded people they want to follow. It is also rumored that Twitter is taking precautions to stop spammers from ruining the landscape, so spammers beware.

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When it comes to moving and shaking, Twitter is ranking off the Richter Scale these days. Everyone from major corporations to major celebrities is turning to Twitter to increase their fan base and create good public relations. Beyond just the aspect of getting in touch with the general public it would seem that there are advantages to Twitter Search that are going to keep getting better and better in the coming months. Rumor has it that Twitter is updating their Twitter Search feature so that it will actually crawl the links that are included in the Tweets and not just the 140 character messages themselves. This means that it is time to start improving your SEO or search engine optimization for Twitter Search.

This could prove a major advantage to anyone who wants to increase traffic to their site, but there is a caveat: Twitter is reportedly creating some type of ranking system that would include the reputation of the Tweeter in its calculations. This is to prevent spammers from taking over and turning Twitter into just another place for people to send you unwanted advertising to spoil your internet experience. Search engine optimization (SEO) for Twitter Search is going to have to take some of the unique features of Twitter into consideration. Some useful SEO for Twitter Search tactics might include branding your Twitter profile, engaging with your followers and adding real content to the conversation, adding links as appropriate (don’t overdo as this will be a spam read alert), but still ranking high in importance are your keywords. Keywords are still king when it comes to SEO even on Twitter because that is what people are searching for. If your Tweets and/or website don’t contain the keywords people are searching for you simply aren’t going to rank in the search results.

There is a lot to be learned about SEO for Twitter Search. It is a fairly new idea and will likely be changing and growing as Twitter makes adjustments to the way its search function works. As spammers find ways to take advantage of the system, Twitter will undoubtedly be forced to change its algorithms to prevent them from tainting the experience. Meanwhile, now is the time to establish a good reputation and good relationships on Twitter as you strive to improve your Twitter SEO so that you can capitalize on this hot new internet marketing trend.

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Social networking mainly focuses upon building online communities for people that share common interests and activities. Most social networking sites are internet based and present a lot of ways for users to interact, such as through, chartrooms, e-mails and instant messaging.

Social Networking has given birth to newer ways to communicate and share information across the web and these sites are being used habitually by millions of people globally.

Niche Networking:
Niche Networking sites are focused groups of social networks usually much larger in size and information. You can find a niche network on any topic you want to like learning a new language, finding old classmates, improving your business or simply making new friends.

Age Groups of These Networks:
People for some reason tend to believe that the social networking sites are just for teenagers and those in their early twenties. According to a survey; however, most of these sites have a community well over 30 years. Most of these groups simply make new friends or discuss daily issues and some actually succeed in building their own networking groups.

The Features of a Social Network: Almost all social networking sites come with the following features:
• The facility to set up and add a personal profile.
• Privacy settings that enable you to choose who must see you and who not.
• A facility that can block unwanted members from contacting you.
• Can upload personal blogs, articles, short notes or even photos for everyone to see.
• You also have the ability to be a part of a social group or community and add gadgets and social apps that create a viral effect to making new contacts and sharing information.

Advanced Features of a Social Networking Group Include Features Like:
• Creating groups with similar social interests.
• Uploading live videos.
• Geosocial networking where you can interact with people with similar geographic settings.
• Open ID and Open Social are two such networks that enable interoperability between two or more social networks.

Top Social Networking Sites:
Top social networking sites include, Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, 43 Things, Windows Live Space – MSN, Gather, Worlds.com, Live Mocha, Stickham, Twitter and more.

What Can You Expect From a Social Networking Site?
There is a lot you get from a social network like friendship, a large community, help with your common problems, sharing things that mean the most to you like music, literature, photos, videos and albums. Could you possible get anything more wonderful than this in a ‘virtual’ world of social networking?

YouTube has developed to becoming such a trend that optimizing for it alone requires an in-depth analysis. So here are a few facts and figures that will help in improving your videos performance on YouTube.

Some Facts About YouTube Videos:

• 50-70% of the uploaded videos get between 25 and 100 views.
• 20% or less of the uploaded videos get about 5000 views.
• 10% or less of the uploaded videos get about 1,500 views.
• 3% of the uploaded videos are in for 25,000 views.
• Only 1% of the uploaded videos get a whopping 500,000 views.

Best Length For Your YouTube Video:

• Most famous videos on YouTube are less than 3 minutes short. The ideal timing of a video can be between 2-5 minutes. Longer videos that last for 10 minutes are not generally preferred by visitors unless it is very important or of general interest issues.

The Most Popular YouTube Videos That Receive the Maximum Number of Hits Are:

• Entertainment
• Current Affairs and News
• Music and Movies
• Sports
• Comedy

Viewers’ Ratings: A lot of successful videos are so because of viewers’ ratings. It is always advisable to let your viewers rate your video as it increases their participation and response. Most of the videos receive a 4+ rating!

How Should the Uploading Times Be Decided?

• A lot depends on when you actually upload the video. The most viewership for YouTube is between 12:00 PM and 1:00 PM in the time zone where you want it to be viewed and rated.
• Uploading a new video on a Wednesday or a Thursday also brings in good results.
• There will be some lag between the time you upload your video and it’s processing on YouTube. You need to be patient without expecting immediate results.

The Best Resolution For a YouTube Video:

• The best resolution for YouTube is 355 pixels in height and 425 pixels in width. Creating a video close to this quality will ensure proper display.

YouTube Optimization:

• Create an optimized feed that is visually famous.
• Use social networking to popularize the channel.
• Every video submitted needs to be optimized.
• Try and look for subscribers to your videos.
• Always ask for ratings from the viewers.
• Try to get into the popular categories such as featured, most viewed, favorites, etc.
• Make sure to use relevant tags for your channel.
• Tags need to be short like keywords and not lengthy phrases.

Following these steps will ensure popularity and higher rankings for your YouTube Video apart from making you the proud owner of these fun and entertaining videos!

Online social media encompasses a variety of heavily interactive web sites, including MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Digg, Twitter, and many others. More conventional systems like newsgroups and message boards are also part of social media. If you’re interested in getting involved in this type of media for marketing and/or SEO purposes, where should you start?

To some extent, the best place to start depends upon your skills. To effectively use social media for marketing, you should also be able to contribute useful or interesting material that grabs the reader’s attention. If you’re good at photography and own a digital camera or scanner, try using Flickr. People who are proficient at research and editing might get involved in Wikipedia, while someone with good writing skills may prefer posting on forums or making linked blog comments.

So what are some of the best social media sites to start with? For social bookmarking, Reddit.com has a very quick registration process and it’s generally easier to get your links noticed there (compared to Digg and Delicious). Although not often recognized as such, Yahoo! Groups may also be one of the best social media sites; it allows anyone with a Yahoo account to easily join and create groups where members can send out messages, respond to polls, upload files, and more.

Sometimes the best way to approach social media is to start your own web site; a subject-specific wiki, a “micro blog”, a photo collection, etc. This way, you will be able to gain advertising revenue and have more control over the format. However, successfully starting your own forum, video, or bookmarking site would be more difficult. Having your own site is better if you intend to earn money from your content, using someone else’s site is desirable if you want to benefit from links.

Overall, the right social media sites to start with depend upon your specific abilities and goals.

Twitter, a form of “micro blogging”, has become increasingly popular in recent months. It has been used by various celebrities and attracted media attention on multiple occasions. One noteworthy aspect of “twittering” is the Hashtag, which is usually preceded by a number/hash sign.

So what are hashtags and why are they important to the site’s users? According to pbwiki.com, they are a type of tag (or keyword) which can be placed within individual entries by putting a hash sign before any word. Words posted in this manner automatically become hashtags in Twitter.

A Twitter hashtag is sort of like a META Keyword tag on a web page, except that it is visible to anyone looking at the entry it applies to. Users can post hashtags in Twitter within a sentence, or at the end of their posts, as these two examples demonstrate:

1.) The #weather is cold here today, but it will probably be warmer tomorrow.

2.) Netherlands tourism expected to increase this spring. #Europe #Holland

Applying hashtags to relevant keywords makes it easier for readers to find specific entries about subjects they are interested in. Also, various related web sites use hashtags to generate statistics on the subjects people are “twittering” about.

However, if you plan on using hashtags in Twitter, it is best to follow these recommendations:

1.) Don’t use them excessively; people don’t want to read sentences with a hash/number sign before every other word.

2.) Only use words which are closely related to the content of your entries. Avoid hashtag words with multiple meanings.

It is also worth mentioning that each Twitter hashtag is clickable when it appears in the site’s search results; searchers can click on them and get a list of entries on the same subject. However, they are not clickable when viewed as part of a regular page.