Alas, an early spring chirp was finally heard this week signaling a possible resurgence. At the Chirp Conference Twitter execs announced a series of significant changes that address much of what the industry has been crowing about:

• The really big news is promoted tweets, a new advertising platform where advertisers can buy access into a topical Twitter stream. With some similarities to Google’s AdWords platform, this might just start building a justification for the billion-dollar valuation the revenue-neutral service has earned thus far.

• User Streams, a new data service provided by Twitter to desktop applications. This allows developers access to real-time data directly from Twitter. Look for a flock of new Twitter-enabled applications in the near future.

• A developer roadmap to calm the fears of developers and marketers about the service and where it is going. Look for increased functionality around location awareness, annotations, and other features.

• A new home page to address the high abandonment rate of new subscribers. Early tests show a 20% increase in retention.

Along with the technical discussions, Twitter management also shared data about the service that has long been speculated and rarely confirmed. It turns out that Twitter is bigger than we all expected. According to cofounder Biz Stone, Twitter has nearly 106 million registered users and 180 million unique visitors a month—far above many previous industry expectations. To date, the service has been tight-lipped about this type of information. Even more impressive, Twitter is growing at a rate of 300,000 new users a day, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Twitter still has a rough flight ahead. Archenemy Facebook is gearing up for the annual F8 Conference, which promises the unveiling of new features and direction for the 400 million user–strong social network. But for now, Twitter can enjoy the warm glow of springtime optimism.

Key takeaways from Steve Chitwood, Director of Digital Media and Online Strategy:

• Social and Location Integration:
  • Moving forward we will see more integration with social channels such as Facebook Connect that do things like allow users to interact with a website and simultaneously publish updates to social channels.
  • We will also see a tying together of social connections and discussions to specific locations. Having discussion with friends that are near one another or topically connected to a location is all the rage.
  • Mobile applications such as Gowalla and Foursquare were this year’s “golden children.” Facebook and Twitter are now the old guard, or platforms for these newer applications to build off of.

I bring up this article because I see validity behind the points. I think it’s something to consider when suggesting Twitter to clients or for your own company. One director of social media strategy stated that Twitter was effective for only a few areas of marketing:

• customer relations management

• deals and promotions

• conversations for smaller, lesser-known brands.

The statistics also prove a point. Large brands, such as Verizon and Target, have 5,000 to to 10,000 followers. Smaller “organic” brands like Woot and Someecards have almost 2 million followers. And some celebrities? 3-4 million. Why? Because the smaller brands and the celebrities have distinct personalities that larger brands simply cannot have on Twitter (unless it’s the CEO or a customer service help-line like Best Buy’s Twelpforce). Think about how many checkpoints corporations have to go through if they want to get their tweets approved, etc. It takes a long time, and the personality gets lost in the process.

The CEO of Someecards, which has 1.7 million followers in a little over a year, credits his success to his ability to express his creative personality within his brand on Twitter (snippets of wisdom, random links, etc). Twitter matches with the company mission – their cards are all short-form communication. They are known for great one-liners. Twitter works.

Bottom line: No one is really certain how long Twitter will be around. But what I am learning is that before we jump into these social network tools, we need to be thinking about what purpose they serve us. Does Twitter really work for your company? It’s easy to set up an account, it’s easy to acknowledge that everyone in involved in it currently – but are you asking: Why is it good for me?

Being on the cutting edge is crucial in this industry. Equally so is our ability to evaluate these cutting-edge trends and decipher whether or not they align with our brands’ goals. I would love your feedback.

While the Aardvark addition pales in comparison with other acquisitions in recent years, such as the $1.6 billion paid for YouTube (now the second-largest search engine, masquerading as a social video-sharing site), it continues to extend Mountain View’s reach into the social web while taking another competitive swipe at perennial runner-up Yahoo! – this time targeting the popular Yahoo! Answers service with which Aardvark competes using a decidedly social media flair. The upstart leverages your own social network connections to provide answers to a user’s questions.

Earlier this week, Google Buzz came thundering onto the social scene offering much the same functionality as Facebook. With Buzz, users can create profiles; embed media from sharing sites such as Picassa, Flicker and YouTube; share information; create groups of friends; post status updates, etc. ¬– all from the comfort of a couple hundred million existing Gmail accounts. While disrupting Facebook’s momentum seems unlikely, the heft of Google’s offering, its reputation for solid technology and its immediate availability to the vast Gmail user base make it a social networking contender worth watching. While I was writing this post, this tweet came across my screen: “Google Buzz makes Facebook look like some college kids’ computer science project.”

One could catch the buzz about Buzz by following the very popular trending topic on Twitter. You could also point your browser to Google and take advantage of Google Social Search. For the last couple months, real-time content from Facebook, MySpace.com and Twitter has been integrated into traditional search results, blending in wall posts, blog entries, tweets and video tags and bringing real-time relevance to users’ queries.

Few dispute that social media is here to stay, that the rise of social networking has truly changed online behavior and that new technologies and evolving trends promise to maintain the dizzying momentum we have seen over recent years. Even fewer should dispute that, however social media matures, Google will be an ever-strengthening force.

Statistics can be fun, and are used to justify many positions. In fairness, as I have no State of the Union address nor party rebuttal to prepare, I will dare to add clarity to the rhetoric. Reports by HubSpot and RJMetrics both show a decline in the rate of growth of new Twitter memberships since its peak last summer. Does that mean users are abandoning the service in droves? No. It means the pace of adoption has slowed. It is still noteworthy that the service is adding more than six million new users a month (versus a recent peak of nearly eight million). It’s still growing and growing fast—just not as fast as it was when frantic passengers were tweeting their harrowing survival story from the wings of Flight 1549 while floating in the Hudson River, or amidst the prime-time race between Ashton Kutcher and Anderson Cooper to best one another in first ascending to the million-followers club.

Much attention is being paid to the numbers of inactive users and users who use the platform sparingly. Combined with the reports of a slight slowing of the rate of new members, a dramatic story can emerge. While RJMetrics focuses on the increased number of inactive or less active users, both reports agree that, for those who use the platform regularly, their dependence on the platform is growing.  HubSpot notes a dramatic rise in both the number of tweets and number of followers for the average user from July 2009 to January 2010.

Perhaps some of the sparkle has dimmed. But there is a more relevant story here.  Users of the platform, of which there are upwards of 100 million, seem to be settling into a pace. The platform has matured. While there should be no surprise that many curious people register and never become active users, both reports indicate that among active users, the service is gaining ground.

From my vantage point, I see mainstream acceptance. Gone are the days (thankfully) of tweeting one’s dinner choice or sock-color mismatch adventures. On the rise are countless examples of the effective use of a relevant communications channel. Companies in every industry are learning to leverage direct micro-communication to build brands, engage customers and provide quick service to an increasingly mobile audience.  People are connecting, learning, reporting and communicating—and doing it more effectively in just 140 characters at a time.

Join the conversation via the comment section below. Which quote do you think describes Twitter’s fate?

• “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”  Dr. Seuss
• “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain

I read an article in Brandweek magazine that discussed the advertising strategies for partnering brands, all of which incorporate social media from the get-go. The level of integration and the central focus on social media in each of these plans is no surprise and only reiterates the change to digital in the past year.

With social media connecting fans to the games, it’s also no surprise that people are becoming more involved with the Olympics than ever before – you can now become a Winter Olympics “advocate”, commenting on blogs, winning contests, and getting retweeted by sponsor handles. Here’s a few examples:

Samsung –  “Mobile explorers” will record their experiences at the games via blog posts, Youtube videos, and Twitter updates. On the microsite, you can also help Samsung promote its company blog about the games. If you are the “Gold Blogger,” you win a trip to the Olympics to write about athletes and their performances.

Visa – Its “Go World” microsite features big-time athletes such as skier Julia Mancuso with their own videos, photos and widgets that connect you to Facebook and other social networks. The site also has plenty of contests that result in trips to the games.

McDonalds – “How do you McNugget?” Athletes will record themselves showing how they eat McNuggets in creative ways and will share their videos on McDonald’s YouTube channel.

NBC Universal – The main sponsor has collaborated with Twitter and Swarm Collective to produce Olympic Pulse, where visitors can view athlete tweets, NBC Olympics blogs and top trending stories on Digg.

I’ve never been one to hold those all-day-all-night Olympic marathon parties, but with all of these fun games, contests, and ways to get involved, I just might have to. What about you – has the integration of social media heightened your excitement for the Winter Olympics? Do you use these sites and applications to gather information about which games you want to watch? Do you feel more inclined to comment or blog about the games with its huge online presence? I’m curious to know.

We have all witnessed the rise of embedded Facebook applications by major brands. Recently, Gap and Southwest Airlines deployed sophisticated campaigns centered in the social network. Pepsi, in a newsworthy announcement, shared its plan to abandon the expected Super Bowl TV spots in lieu of a social marketing campaign. But new opportunities for innovation abound, and not just for those with eight-figure online marketing budgets.

A small San Rafael specialty coffee roaster has recently taken a subtle step that just might foretell a gathering storm. Armed with a relatively simple software product from San Francisco start-up Milyoni, Equator Coffees & Teas launched their ifanstore – an e-commerce application embedded within the company’s Facebook page. Rather than using Facebook, like millions of others, to promote a product and drive traffic to an external website shopping cart, Equator has brought the store to the masses. It has rolled its espresso wagon right into the middle of the conversation.

While Equator will probably never compete on the scale of a major brand like Pepsi or Gap, I would expect the trend they are at the forefront of to rapidly grow. Amidst all of the video and interactivity of Gap’s Facebook jeans promotions, it seems like a logical next step to simply order a pair of jeans without having to leave the party. Southwest does a great job drawing me into the conversation and whetting my appetite for a cheap weekend adventure. Why should I have to leave Facebook and head off to another website? Just let me buy the ticket and invite my online friends to join me.

Perhaps it was intrigue over a new approach to a classic online marketing problem. Perhaps it was just the prospect of a great cup of coffee. Regardless, I purchased a pound of Equator’s coffee after reading what other followers had to say, and posted my success on my own Facebook wall. I could probably use a new pair of jeans, and I could definitely use a weekend on a sunny beach, but I’ll settle today for the prospect of a great cup of coffee and continuing the dialogue.

Rest assured, this trend will grow. The advent of the Facebook applications platform and the growing sophistication of related tools and add-ons has begun blurring the lines between a company’s website and its Facebook page. Embedded e-commerce, though in its infancy, accelerates that trend and leaves us all wondering what’s next. Where is the line between a company Facebook presence and a website? Do we need both? Please leave your comments below to continue the discussion.

As a PR professional, I am an advocate of social media, but as a human being I surely don’t agree that this is the evolution of how we show affection. I would love to know who came up with this statement. I think the idea to include the Tweet Me Sweetheart is clever, and the brand received a huge story in USA Today (also linked on the Huffington Post), as well as coverage in the Boston Herald. Also, I am blogging about it (as are others), Twitter is a partner, and there are tweets rolling in about it. But I would have recommended focusing on the fact that the brand responds to what is happening in the culture. The article also talks about its iPhone app, which sounds interesting and further demonstrates NECCO’s ability to evolve with the current happenings. For what is a smart partnership and a great campaign for building conversation about the brands, I would have expected a smarter statement as to the “why.”

In the end, the brands fit really well together … short and sweet. But I have to admit that personally, when it comes to showing affection, I prefer a call, a note, flowers or a hug.

This is an open letter to people who do not see the benefit of social media in marketing – namely, my husband, who thinks “social media marketing” is just an excuse to cruise around on Facebook while at work and who to this day is the only person I know without an account. First, let’s take a quick look at the history of censuses. They began during the early Pharaonic Period in Egypt and were used to issue land grants and for taxation purposes. The first U.S. census was conducted in 1790; a census is done every 10 years to record the population, which also helps determine the number of United States Representatives each state receives (thank you Wikipedia).

So, the goal is to count EVERY American. In 2000, the census counted more than 281 million people…talk about a daunting task. This year, though, they have social media to help the campaign. Below are reasons why I think this is cool:

1. If this ancient practice can evolve into the social media landscape, any business can.

2. The U.S. Census Bureau’s sole goal is to reach as many people as possible, and it is turning to social media to help accomplish that. Those wary of social media in business, think about it…the census needs to reach everyone. If social media can help with that, it can certainly help reach different target markets and customers.

3A. I can’t remember hearing a word about the census 10 years ago. I was also in college and had recently turned 21, so that may have had something to do with it. Different priorities.

3B. My 22-year-old brother HAS heard of the 2010 census because it’s being talked about on Facebook and in different blogs he reads. That doesn’t guarantee he will participate, but it certainly presents a better opportunity.

4. It’s mind-blowing to think about how social media/online applications will be utilized in the future and even more exciting that we have the opportunity to help shape it. Will the entire census take place through Facebook or iPhone apps? That means my husband probably won’t be counted as a human because he still won’t be on Facebook.

5. It’s interesting to watch how social media continues to infiltrate different aspects of our lives. We no longer have to look for information, it finds us. The census found me, and for the first time, I will be accounted for.

So, here are my collected observations about the future of social media.

1. Social media will certainly increase in size before it decreases. Welcome India and China to the mix – they will undoubtedly grow the networks at an exponential rate.
2. It will become more targeted, with subcultural social networks forming as more people join them. It will gain exclusivity and specificity- losing the clutter and retaining more value for its participants. No, I don’t want to know what you think about the weather. Yes, I do want to know where I can get the best burger in town. (FYI- City Grill with Cherry Cricket in a close second)
3. Social media will escalate in importance in the corporate world. We’ve seen companies catch on to the necessity of sites like Twitter for their free advertisement and customer service boost. But beyond that, almost all companies will change their organizational structures to allow a place for “emerging media managers”  who can develop in-depth social media strategies.
4. Say goodbye to print. Although not entirely vanished, print media will be converted to 140 character tweets, blog posts, interactive sites, email newsletters, viral videos, and iPhone applications. Just look at Time Inc’s video demo of a tabletized Sports Illustrated.
5. Mobile devices will be the most predominant method of utilizing social media. Why? Because about 70% of organizations are banning personal social networks, forcing employees to use anything but their computers to log on. And because the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Droid are only expanding their app libraries. This means mobile marketing will be taken to an entirely new level as well.

And there you have it. I’ll get back to you in a year to see if these are right, and maybe then I can call myself a social media expert.