How much of a social influencer are you?

I personally feel that being on Twitter, it's not necessarily how many followers you have, it's about truly reaching the ones that do follow you. Well, guess what? I may be seriously wrong. According to website like Twinfluence and WeFollow, I am an absolute failure as a social influencer. If social influence were measurable (which it is), Twinfluence and WeFollow can let you know how much of a social influencer you are. After entering my twitter name in the analyzer, I realized I am in the 0.0 - 0.1 percentage. I guess that makes some sense considering how many people are on twitter and how many followers I have. It's nice to know that people that I follow are recognized as "friends" in the analyzer. The categories that the site breaks down our social influence are, reach, velocity, social capital and centralization - all of which I am either low on or are "fragile." Bottom line, I am not a great social influencer...at the moment.

Until the day that I am somewhat influential in the social media world, I can learn a thing or two from Tweeters who are at the top of their game. WeFollow is the ultimate Twitter directory, which leads us to all the many tweeters out there! It's main page separates the most influential tweeters into categories, whether it's in music or social media. Through this website, we can easily follow all the most influential tweeters in their categories. It's learning from the top Tweeters all in one place!

Are you familiar with Foursquare?

For those of you who aren't very familiar with Foursquare, it is an application that can be used with a user's facebook or twitter account. To be honest, I had to do a little googling myself to figure out how exactly this works. So if I grasped how this application works, users "check in" their location and let others following them know where they are, how convenient. Foursquare is growing in popularity, thanks to the help of reality show celebrities. I personally believe that without the help of these celebrities making use of this application, it would just be another application. Now, with the deal (MTV/VH1) in place, Foursquare is definitely going to grow in popularity.

It appears to be a win-win situation that Foursquare and MTV/VH1 has in their hands. It is a current trend that viewers have grown obsessed with, reality tv. However, in reality, reality tv is possibly the most scripted as tv shows come. Nonetheless, viewers love the shows and love the characters. So, with an application like Foursquare that gives the viewers easy access to their favorite reality star in person? They are so there! Foursquare is certainly beyond facebook in which you can become a fan; it is beyond Twitter in which you can tweet or retweet him or her. For those willing celebrities that can't wait for the attention they get, they can "check in" and use it to their advantage. The celebrities as well as the Foursquare application get the publicity they want or need. Foursquare is definitely something to watch for in 2010.

Is this an addiction?

I was taking my midterm one afternoon and suddenly felt my phone vibrate, it was a twitter update. Risking the professor thinking that I was cheating, I checked it; my friend just wanted to share her horrible day with her twitter family. Call me ridiculous or call me addicted, the anticipation of what that twitter update might have been made me part of the percentage. There really is no surprise there since my generation is so technology oriented. Forget the whole mumbo jumbo about getting the ipad, what good is all this technology without the social networks and applications?

People use to go online mainly to check their emails and maybe glance over headlines on popular then sites such as yahoo or aol. Fast forward to post social networks, I strongly believe people check their Facebook for updates every morning BEFORE they check their emails. I think we are just lucky that people even check their email anymore since they're on Facebook so often, they mainly use Facebook messages. So while people are checking their Facebook for updates, they get a twitter news update and then end up doing some follow up on via google. Users of social network sites are all too comfortable with accessing everything all in one place. I would say it's more of how a user feels being connected and not so much how he or she may feel when he or she gets an update, wouldn't you say? I believe it's not an addiction, it's just staying more connected to each other than people back in the day.

What does today mean for Twitter?

Happy birthday Twitter! It's been 4 years since the day the first ever Tweet. Although a birthday is self explanatory with the parties and the cake, there's also the significance of this day, moving forward being another year older! I'm certain Twitter has some great plans in store for the next couple of years, possibly to become a bigger trend than it already is now? When Twitter first started out, there were critics that said it wasn't a means of social networking that would last in the long run.

A large part of this was due to it's supposed limitations. Although Twitter is limited in comparison to networking sites like Facebook, it is enough in it's own way. Despite how Twitter is only meant for users to Tweet 140 characters at a time and RT @ others, it is THE social network. With social networks like Facebook, users get so caught up in getting all those different applications rather than using it as a means of staying connected. It is true that you can be connected to over 500 friends on Facebook, but without communication, they are just people you're connected to, but don't necessarily interact with them.Twitter is simple, it keeps users communicating and interacting with one another. It is this direct relationship between users that makes Twitter a proud 4 year old social network.

The future of advertising...online forums?

We certainly saw this coming or as far as I was concerned, it's been happening. As technology continues to advance, we slowly move away from reading newspapers in print and watching tv. Yes, we love to read our books on the Kindle, get our news sent via text message to our phones and catch back episodes of Glee on Hulu. So where does this leave space for advertising to get their ideas across to the consumers? They're going to go where we are, online forums. Honestly, aren't we sick of watching bad commercials on tv and sit there wondering what they're selling? Even better than producing commercials for you to decide whether or not you want to watch, you can be part of an online forum.

Advertisers let you know what and how they want to sell their products or services and consumers can let them know what you think. This is the perfect solution for advertisers and consumers being that it's cost efficient as well as time efficient. Advertisers don't have to waste time on commercials and ads that don't really reach the consumers. Online forums directly reaches their target audience while getting back a straightforward and fast response. Everybody can get what they want to some extent. We might actually not mind advertisements in the near future.

Facebook is in the lead and Myspace is not dead?

If people ever decide to take two minutes to stop updating their facebook statuses and stop tweeting/retweeting, they might be interested in knowing a little more about their beloved social networks. Facebook has been found to be the leader of social networking sites and Myspace is in a not so close second; "what that boils down to is that the time spent on Facebook is almost five hours longer than the time spent on Myspace" (Mashable). It seems that it was mostly popular among users as a dating site. Perhaps it is due to the use of it by many of the musicians today, it is back on the map as a networking site - woot, number 2!

Nevertheless, we certainly have been changing with the times. When people use to meet each other, they exchanged cell phone numbers and email addresses, but now all we really hear is, "Hey, are you on facebook? I'll facebook you." Yes, it's that simple. Why wouldn't we spend at least 6 hours per person per month on it? It keeps us connected to everyone, every minute and every second. Not to mention all the applications that have been made available for facebook users with all the many interests. I have several friends who now believe they are capable farmers, courtesy of the farmville application.

I am actually surprised that even the global average per person per month is ONLY 6 hours since there is really so much that Facebook offers. Personally, I sign in to Facebook for at least 2 hours a day on a daily basis and I thought that was below the average! The possibilities for Facebook in the near future seem endless because it is always quick to create what its users want and need. Is it even possible for another social networking site to come in and replace Facebook?