If you are using Twitter, or for that matter, publishing any kind of links on the Internet via a social forum – e.g. blogs, Facebook, Posterous, etc – you should start a bit.ly account (it’s free). Here’s why.

A couple of weeks ago there were two significant events in social media marketing. The first was the “quiet” launch of some new Apple products, and the second was the change to the Skittles corporate site. Both used social media in very different ways. The results for both campaigns was massive exposure. So, mission accomplished?

Social media – when applied to the web and mobile technologies – is a collective term for any place where dialogue can occur. This dialogue is generated by members of the community where the interaction occurs and could be text, pictures, video or audio, or any combination of these.

We’re still in the early days of Web 3.0, but there is a quantum shift on the horizon and we need to be ready for how pervasive this shift will be in our physical lives, and ready for it in our organisations digital ones. There is a lot of research being conducted into the role social media will play in our corporate future and I will be following this to see how close to my vision Web 3.0 comes.

Twitter provides a platform for micro-blogging. So what is Twitter? It’s similar to your subconscious – a list of things you might like to blog, but are either too short or not quite on-brand (for business blogs), or conversely too business-like (e.g. blatant self-promotion) for personal blogs. But how do we apply it to marketing?