At one point, a print magazine about the online world was inevitable. (Remember Yahoo Internet Life?) But now, with the proliferation of smart phones, tablets and magazine apps like Flipboard, not so much. So the launch of The Social Media Monthly is a bit of a surprise. Even more so its distribution.

The first issue of the magazine is out today. Publisher Cool Blue Company announced its availability at the Barnes and Noble bookstore chain in the U.S., as well as distribution in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark.

Hopefully, the print version is more elegant and effective than the magazine’s online presence. Stumbling around the Geocities-inspired web site I made the signal error of clicking “Check In.” My browser crashed and my computer froze. So, there’s that.

The publication is also available as a “standalone flash digital e-zine” and an iTunes app.

The debut issue’s cover was designed by Yiying Lu, known for her design of Twitter’s fail whale.

Robert Fine, the founder of Cool Blue, says advance orders of the second issue are up 20% over the launch issue. Single issues are on sale for $4.99 for a print copy and $2.99 for the digital version. A year’s subscription runs $29.99 and comes with digital access. There is no information on how many copies of the first issue have sold.

It seems that, after a long period of expansion, with many products offered for free, we have now entered a period of contraction. Earlier today we wrote about the movement away from free online television content and maybe this magazine’s approach is an expression of that same trend.

The articles in the first issue do not seem particularly compelling to me. (See graphic below.) But you may feel differently. Let us know in the comments.

More generally, I personally I love the printed page. But I’m unsure of its utility when it comes to the topic of social media. What do you think? Is there a reason for a print magazine on an essentially paperless topic?

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Online contests can be a great way to build a fan base, gather data and engage an audience. Whether you have run a contest previously or not, there are four things to keep in mind as you prepare for, and execute, your campaign.

1. Get The Lay of the Land

Start with a clear understanding of your target audience and marketing objectives. Too often I’ve seen a clever promotional concept that is not well aligned with desired outcomes or simply doesn’t resonate with the consumer. Acknowledge the assets and limitations you have to work with. It is important to understand your audience and what you expect from them. It is also important to think about the appropriate channel for engagement, whether it be on your brand site or blog, a Facebook Page, Twitter, etc.

One of the biggest fears people have when it comes to setting up a contest is rules and regulations. Legal and policy concerns may seem like a daunting deterrent, but they needn’t be. So long as you adhere to some key criteria in the administration of your contest, there should be little to worry about. If you don’t have legal resources in-house, choose a promotional services company that can help advise you.

If you are planning to use Facebook for your promotion, be sure you are familiar with their Promotions Guidelines. Using a third-party application is important when conducting a contest on Facebook, but be sure that your application developer is familiar with all of Facebook’s platform policies. The guidelines for running a contest on Twitter are a bit less restrictive, but there are also limitations to what can be done with a promotion in 140 characters.

2. Plough the Soil and Sow the Seeds

You may have repaired your tractor, put a fresh coat of paint on the barn, or invested in a state-of-the-art new irrigation system, but if the soil wasn’t prepared or seeds were never planted, you can’t expect much to grow. Likewise, when it comes to online promotions there is often so much focus on the legal, the creative or the technology that the basic logistics and marketing don’t get the attention they deserve. Clients are left scratching their head or scrambling to put a plan in place when the contest launches and nobody enters.

Ensure that the entry process is easy to navigate and the entry requirements are clearly explained. A contest that requires someone to submit a photo or video through one platform, share through another and vote on a third, is bound to generate confusion and frustration. Having a good entry flow without unnecessary barriers will provide the groundwork to facilitate a positive user interaction with your brand.

If you are asking people to create an original piece of content for your contest, remember that this can take some time. You can avoid the appearance of a failed launch by promoting the contest in advance and sharing the entry requirements with those most likely to submit an entry. Having “seeder” entries in place can serve as an inspiration to other participants and help build early momentum around your campaign.

3. Tend to Your Crops

“If you build it, they will come” may have worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, but it is not a good mantra for running an online contest. Running a successful online contest requires a well thought-out marketing plan that spans the life cycle of the promotion.

It is important to continuously communicate through the various channels available to you. Communication should target both prospective and active participants, encompassing both entrants and voters (if you have voting in place). Like any other social media program, a contest is an opportunity to engage in an active dialogue with your fans and followers. Sharing contest updates, responding to questions and providing encouragement for users to share their entries or rally the vote are all tactics that will benefit your contest. Be prepared to deal with feedback, both positive and negative, that may be generated.

4. Harvest and Replant

Once your contest has concluded, you have the opportunity to learn and improve for your next campaign. The companies that see the most success are those that have a commitment to contests as part of their marketing, but also have an open mind to how they utilize them. Many farmers follow the practice of crop rotation, planting a series of dissimilar crops in sequential seasons. This practice helps to diversify risk but has also been shown to improve crop yield. Similarly, conducting a variety of promotional programs and repeating on a regular basis can yield social media success.

Whether you are simply a hobby farmer or plan to make contests your cash crop, the tips above should help your marketing. Let us know if you have any other tips in the comments.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, KLH49

The Social PR Series is supported by Vocus. Vocus helps businesses get heard and talked about on social media and beyond. It brings you all the conversations that matter, without information overload, and lets you find influencers fast. Take a quick online demo and see what it can do.

So you’ve got the social PR basics down, and you’re following and engaging with relevant media and influencers. Maybe you’ve even developed a few social media campaigns for your company or clients. What are some other ways you can give your PR efforts an added social boost?

Here are five social media tips for PR professionals.

1. Anticipate and Join Twitter Conversations

While you can’t always predict what news or events will become a #hashtag that people will follow, it’s a pretty safe bet that events like the #Oscars or #adtech will have a large group of people following the hashtag before, during and shortly after each event. PR pros should consider timing news or relevant content around these events so they have an immediately engaged audience for tweets about this content.

For example, indie fashion site Moxsie.com timed a Twitter-based “Fashion Police” contest around the #Oscars conversation, inserting contest-related tweets into the mix.

One thing to note: You can certainly drop your tweet into the fray and hope people will retweet it, but to truly participate in the conversation, you should actively engage — retweeting good content, following interesting people, replying to questions and posting more than just links to your brand content — so the community recognizes you and values your contribution.

2. Write Tweetable Press Release Headlines

When you use a news distribution service such as PR Newswire or PRWeb to issue a press release, you typically see a large number of tweets that feature your press release headline once your news hits the wire. Writing your release headline with “tweetability” in mind can impact the number of tweets and retweets of your release.

This is not only a great opportunity to get your company, product or client’s name out to the social community, but also to drive views of your release. According to data from Crowd Factory, whose technology powers social sharing functionality on PRNewswire.com, press releases that are shared bring an average of six people back to the site to view the release.

Four key things to ask yourself when writing a tweetable press headline are:

• Is it short enough to fit into a tweet that also includes a Twitter handle and a link?
• Is the company or product name in the beginning so it won’t get cut off?
• Does it contain relevant keywords to make it searchable?
• Is it punchy enough to generate retweets based on the headline alone?

3. Turn Your Blog Into a Social News Wire

Blogs have become very powerful tools for sharing news and multimedia content that doesn’t necessarily warrant a press release, but still may be of interest to the media.

For example, the New York Public Library (NYPL) uses Tumblr as a makeshift “news wire,” sharing stories about NYPL continuously. According to Angela Montefinise, public relations director at NYPL, “Many of our followers are reporters, and we’ll often find stories we posted on Tumblr in news outlets. For example, Gothamist often uses photos we blog, and it has picked up stories we’ve run. A short, fun piece we ran on Keith Richards ‘killing’ an employee’s orchid while he was at the Library got picked up by The NY Daily News, and then eventually around the world.”

4. Develop Social News Backgrounders

When pitching a story, it can often be tough to pack all of the background information into a single email or touch on everything over the phone. Reporters also have less time than ever to conduct thorough research into a topic and will appreciate content that makes their job easier. So consider creating a “social news backgrounder” to accompany your pitch, using a site such as Delicious.

Serena Matter, social media account manager at Peak Communicators, says that she uses Delicious to create social news backgrounders that consist of links to current articles and information on the topic she plans to pitch to media.

“I provide this resource to reporters I’m pitching so they can familiarize themselves with the topic and cut down on their research time,” notes Matter. “They can also refer to the backgrounder in the future in the event that they are writing another article on the subject.”

5. Use News Aggregation Services

If your PR program involves keeping Facebook and Twitter feeds updated with relevant industry news, you know how time-consuming it can be scour the social feeds and run news searches looking for daily content. Matter recommends using a blog aggregation tool such as Netvibes to create a dashboard of relevant content sources.

“I use Netvibes as a tool for updating clients’ social profiles by creating custom dashboards to amalgamate relevant content sources,” says Matter. “The dashboards allow me to easily find industry-specific information which I can then post to a client’s Facebook Page or Twitter feed. Updating my clients’ social profiles with the latest news and information helps to establish them as a reliable go-to source for industry intelligence, which in turn builds their reputation as an industry thought leader.”

The Social PR Series is supported by Vocus, the software that helps businesses get heard and talked about on social media and beyond. It brings you all the conversations that matter, without information overload, and lets you find influencers fast. Take a quick online demo and and see what it can do. Follow Vocus on Twitter.

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

While Facebook marketing is on the rise among small businesses, many are still struggling to master the basics.

“Many people have difficulty with just the basic Page set up,” says social media marketing consultant Nicole Krug. “For example, I still see people setting up their business as a profile page instead of a business Page. I have other clients who jumped into Groups when they came out and have divided their fan base.”

Here are five more common Facebook marketing mistakes to avoid:

1. Broadcasting

Ask any social marketing consultant what the number-one no-no is on Facebook, and he’ll likely tell you it’s “broadcasting” your messages instead of providing fans with relevant content and engaging on an continual basis.

“With Facebook, marketers of any size can do effective, word-of-mouth marketing at scale for the very first time. But Facebook is all about authenticity, so if your company is not being authentic or engaging with customers in a way that feels genuine, the community will see right through it,” says Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta.

Peter Shankman, social media consultant, entrepreneur and author of “Customer Service: New Rules for a Social Media World,” agrees.

“Your job is to interact, not just to broadcast,” says Shankman. “Fans are looking for a reason to connect with you, and they’re showing you that by clicking ‘Like.’ Your job is to give them a reason to stay.”

According to Andy Smith, co-author of “The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective and Powerful Ways to Use Social Media to Drive Social Change,” many businesses immediately ask how Facebook is going to make them money and have that be the focus, as opposed to trying to engage customers and provide a meaningful, authentic online experience. “Marketers need to recognize that people go to Facebook to make a connection or feel like part of a community,” says Smith.

2. Not Investing Adequate Time

Another common mistake is underestimating the amount of time a successful Facebook strategy entails. Many social media consultants report seeing a pervasive “set it and forget it” mentality among small businesses.

“Some small business owners are under the impression that if they set up a Page on Facebook, that’s all they have to do. They think people will just naturally come and want to be a fan of their product or service,” says Taylor Pratt of Raven Internet Marketing Tools. “But it takes much more of a commitment than that.”

It’s not just fan growth that will suffer from this approach — it may also hurt your relationships with existing fans, particularly customers who have come to expect timely responses to their posts and queries.

“Unlike traditional advertising methods such as a radio spot or a Yellow Pages listing, you can’t just create a Facebook Page and just let it run its course,” says Alex Levine, a social media strategist at Paco Communications. “Creating a Facebook Page is the first of many steps, but the Page needs to be updated and monitored constantly.”

3. Being Boring or Predictable

When they’re thinking about marketing, some business owners forget that Facebook is a social place where people share things they find funny, interesting or useful with their friends. Think about what kind of content your fans would actually want to share when planning your posts.

Shankman also cautions against becoming too predictable. “Status updates by themselves get boring. But then again, so do photos, videos and multimedia as a whole. Your job is to mix it up. The moment you become predictable, boring or annoying, they’ll hide you from their feed. So keep it varied and personal — a video here, a photo here, a tag of one of your fans here.”

Creating too much “filler” content by auto-publishing content from your blog or Twitter feed can also derail your efforts. Joseph Manna, community manager at Infusionsoft, recommends using Facebook’s native publishing tools to gain the most benefit from Facebook.

“Whatever you do, DON’T automate everything,” says Manna. “It’s nice to ‘set and forget,’ but the risk is two-fold: publishing systems sometimes have issues, and Facebook places low-priority on auto-published content.”

4. Failing to Learn About Facebook Mechanics and Tools

Since Facebook is a relatively new medium, some businesses have yet to explore all its functionality and they’re missing out on creating an optimal brand experience.

“Many small businesses do not take advantage of the tools to introduce themselves to the Facebook audience,” says Krug. “For example, the ‘Info’ tab is rarely utilized well, and very few small businesses [create] a custom welcome page.”

Krug also sees frequent mistakes around one of the most basic elements of Facebook presence: the profile image. “Most companies upload a version of their logo, but the resulting thumbnail image that shows up in news feeds often only captures a few letters in the middle of their logo — this partial, meaningless image is then how they’re branded throughout Facebook,” says Krug.

Facebook Insights, Facebook’s built-in analytics system, is also often overlooked, and with it the opportunity to analyze post-performance to see what types of content gets the most engagement.

5. Violating Facebook’s Terms

Not only is it critical to know how Facebook works and what tools are available, it’s also important to know the rules of the road — something that many businesses miss.

“Every day I see organizations endangering the communities they are growing by violating the terms they agreed to when their Facebook presence was created,” says small business marketing consultant Lisa Jenkins.

What are the most common violations? Some build a community on a personal page instead of a proper Facebook Page. Others fail to abide by Facebook’s rules around running contests. And don’t even think about “tagging” people who are in an image without their permission.

“Tagging people to get their attention is not only a violation of Terms but can be reported by those you are tagging as abusive behavior on your part — which brings your violation to Facebook’s attention and opens your Page’s content to review,” warns Jenkins.

To avoid these common mistakes, invest time in learning about the Facebook platform, educate yourself on how to build and sustain an audience, and don’t forget to engage with people like you do in real life.

“What sets small businesses apart from large companies is their ability to make personal connections with customers,” says Ben Nesvig of FuzedMarketing. “They tend to forget this when they join Facebook, yet it’s their biggest strength and asset.”

More Facebook Resources from Mashable:

– 4 Ways to Set Up a Storefront on Facebook
– HOW TO: Add Social Sharing Buttons to Your Website
– The Future of Social Search
– 5 Creative Facebook Places Marketing Campaigns
– Dog: Man’s Best Facebook Friend, Too? [INFOGRAPHIC]

Chris Boorman is the chief marketing officer and senior vice president of education & enablement at Informatica. He is responsible for Informatica’s global voice to the market, which includes corporate, partner and field marketing.

The thinking about social media in corporate marketing departments is rapidly evolving. Initially, social media was seen as yet another broadcast opportunity for pushing messages out into the world, and for many companies that view persists. A social media consultant recently said that even today, when he approaches potential clients for the first time, they typically refer him to their PR agency, because “they handle Facebook for us.”

There’s nothing wrong with using social media as a tool for disseminating marketing messages or trying to establish deeper relationships with current or potential customers. However, there is another use of social media which may prove to be more powerful over the long term: listening to the voice of the customer by data mining social networks.

Currently, CRM systems create customer profiles to help with marketing decisions using a combination of demographics and prior behavior, primarily historical buying patterns. These systems essentially enable companies to see their customers in the rearview mirror.

The customer data available via online communities like Facebook is both richer and more forward looking. A financial organization with access to such data would not only know that a customer had a checking account, savings account, two CDs and a mortgage, but also that the same customer was interested in golf or gourmet cooking — information that could be useful in planning future marketing initiatives. Every minute of every day, Facebook, Twitter and other online communities generate enormous amounts of this data. If it could be tapped, it could function like a real-time CRM system, continually revealing new trends and opportunities. Here’s how.

Tapping Social Media Data

The good news is that with today’s technology, this data can be tapped. But the process is not without its challenges. The data stream is a prime example of “Big Data.” Dealing with data sets measured in petabytes is a challenge in itself, and there is a serious problem with the signal-to-noise ratio. At my company, we estimate that at best, only 20% of the social media data stream contains relevant information. But before this problem even arises, companies face the issue of identifying their customers among the millions of participants in any given online community.

The Problem of Customer Identity

Most companies approach the problem of finding customers on social sites through the slow, arduous and expensive process of participating themselves. On Facebook, for example, businesses can gain access to the profiles of anyone who clicks the “Like” button on the company’s business site (depending on each customer’s privacy settings). With the right pitch, offer or game, companies can gradually gain an enhanced understanding of a subset of their social customer base.

With new matching technology that’s now available, the process is faster and more comprehensive. For example, matching technology uses artificial intelligence to figure out whether a given “John Smith” in a company’s customer database is the same individual as a particular John Smith on Facebook. The algorithms that accomplish this are extremely sophisticated, and they work. In fact, matching technology has been successfully used by law enforcement agencies to locate criminals.

If a company has one or two key pieces of information about its customers — e-mail address is often the most important — that company can accurately identify them on a social site and extract a substantial amount of data, including both profile data and transactional data that can reveal relationships important for marketing purposes. (Again, the amount of data available for any given customer depends on that customer’s personal privacy settings.)

Putting Data to Work

The second problem with social media is transforming data that is potentially useful into data that is actually useful. Social media data is generated by an entirely different technology stack than the transactional data that typically feeds CRM systems. Accordingly, it is stored in entirely different formats. That data can be transformed into a useful format with Master Data Management (MDM) technology.

MDM is the process of managing business-critical data, also known as master data (about customers, products, employees, suppliers, etc.) on an ongoing basis, creating and maintaining it as the system of record for the enterprise. MDM is implemented in order to ensure that the master data is validated as correct, consistent, and complete.

MDM has been used for more than a decade by companies that want to integrate disparate databases for a 360 degree view of their customers (or product portfolios, for that matter). It is equally effective in integrating social media data into existing CRM systems, and filtering that data for relevance.

What this all means is that companies can achieve important process improvements with bottom-line significance. For example, they can:

• Obtain behavioral data that will allow them to more appropriately target segments for better marketing results.
• Obtain data on personal preferences and interests to move closer to a true one-to-one relationship with their customers.

The disciplined use of demographic and historical customer data has enabled large numbers of companies to substantially increase the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. Social media data will enable marketers to take targeting to the next level. It’s Big Data, but today’s technology can handle it.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

– HOW TO: Change Your Business Model From Paid to Freemium
– HOW TO: Use QR Codes for Event Marketing
– HOW TO: Grow Your Sales and Revenue Using 2D Codes
– 2D Codes: The 10 Commandments for Marketers
– How The iPad Is Helping Businesses Go Green

Image courtesy of Flickr, Kaptain Kobold

We had so much fun pulling together the gallery of new Facebook profile photo hacks (not to mention a great reader response), we decided to follow up the original collection with 10 more creations.

This time around we’ve sourced all the images from the marvelous Mashable readership, either your own profiles you’ve shared or ones you have highlighted as particularly impressive.

So if you enjoyed the first 10, see below for 10 more creative uses of the new Facebook profile page layout and please keep on sharing your own designs in the comments!

1. Rob McCann

Rob MacCann’s train works so well with Facebook’s design, it’s a shame it’s doomed!

2. Katie Sokoler

Katie Sokoler says a colorful hello on her new profile page.

3. Luke Kingma

Luke Kingma has gotten into the festive spirit with his fun hack for Christmas.

4. Cyril Boggs Serrano

A lovely landscape and some arty photo panels make Cy Serrano’s profile stand out.

5. Imran Latheef

A twist on the many frontal face shots, Imran Latheef offers his profile for his new profile page.

6. Hajann Man

Abstract and arty is how Hajann Man’s played it, making for a very effective page.

7. Airport Nurnberg by Simon Schlerf

Simon Schlerf has given the German flughafen’s Facebook profile a bang-on-trend makeover, showing that companies and brands can join in the fun.

8. Marc Laurent-Atthalin

Marc Laurent-Atthalin had us at “shark” with this playful take on the medium.

9. Tobias Hanika

Pretty, simple, yet effective. Tobias Hanika has decorated his page with daisies for a fresh, floral look.

10. Holly Knowlman

Holly Knowlman is enjoying some typographical fun with a cheeky “yeah?”

BONUS: Prashish Rajbhandari

Finally, using the same principles as the profile page trick, Prashish Rajbhandari has wowed us with an entire album hack.

More Social Media Resources from Mashable:

– 10 Cool Facebook Status Tips and Tricks
– 6 Reasons Why Social Games Are the Next Advertising Frontier
– 3 Things Brands Must Do to Reach Millennials Online
– How Social Media Can Help With Your Long Distance Job Search
– 4 Awesome Photo Sharing Alternatives to Flickr and Facebook

The holidays are coming, and there’s nothing that’ll quite get you in the spirit like a big ol’ list of tools and resources from your friendly neighborhood Mashable HQ.

Our Social Media section provides tips for making your music video go viral, ways to empower your social giving this season, and the perils of digital snooping. Tech & Mobile features the top 10 gadgets Mashable readers want for the holidays, photo sharing alternatives to Flickr, and five of the best user experiences of 2010. Finally, for the business-savvy reader, check out six promising companies of 2010, essential steps in executing your social media strategy, or how to sell your expertise online.

Looking for even more social media resources? This guide appears every weekend, and you can check out all the lists-gone-by here any time.

Social Media

• We Hold These Tweets To Be Self-Evident [COMIC]
  If the U.S. Founding Fathers had Twitter at their disposal in 1776, there’s no telling what sort of social media hijinks would have ensued.
• How To Make Your Music Video Go Viral: 10 Tips From Cee-Lo, OK Go & More
  We’ve talked with musicians, including Cee-Lo Green, Auto-Tune the News and OK Go, gathering together their top tips for making an eminently shareable vid.
• How Social Media Is Changing the Way Movies are Promoted
  From self-funded independent projects to big-name Hollywood blockbusters, the movie industry has embraced social media. Big time.
• HOW TO: Follow Mashable on Social Networks, E-mail & RSS
  Now that Mashable is even more connected across social media, we thought we’d let you know how to find us however works best for you.
• Facebook Co-Founder Launches Social Network for Social Good, Jumo [IMAGE]
  Facebook Co-founder Chris Hughes has launched his much-buzzed-about social network, Jumo.
• HootSuite Reaches 1 Million Users [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Social media dashboard HootSuite has reached an important milestone: 1 million registered users.
• 16 Handy iPhone Apps for Better Blogging
  Keep your blogging activities flexible and mobile with these great apps for iPhone.
• World Cup, Miley Cyrus and BP Are Yahoo’s Top Searches of 2010 [INFOGRAPHIC]
  Yahoo has released its annual “Year in Review” report, a dive into the top searches and search trends on the world’s second largest search engine.
• The Perils of Digital Snooping
  You can minimize the damage both to your own conscience and to your relationship by following our three rules of digital snooping.
• 5 Online Community Killers to Avoid at All Costs
  Today’s online communities are beautiful to look at and easy to join, but the real trick is getting users to stick around. Be sure to stay away from these 5 pitfalls.
• Why Amazon Dropped WikiLeaks
  Amazon is insisting it didn’t remove WikiLeaks because of political pressure — or because of a recent series of DDoS attacks on the site.
• HOW TO: Cheat at Foursquare [COMIC]
  Just because you can no longer check in remotely doesn’t mean you can’t get crafty in your ruthless quest for (imaginary) world domination.
• 3 Ways to Empower Social Media Giving This Holiday Season
  Here’s a look at three socially enabled giving platforms that allow donors to support their favorite non-profits in creative ways.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tech & Mobile

• Especially For You: 8 Great Gadgets You Can Personalize
  We’ve found eight examples of top technology that can be custom made, tweaked, tailored, personalized, customized and otherwise made special just for you.
• 5 of the Best New User Experiences of 2010
  We examine five groundbreaking new UX/UIs from 2010 and discuss how each one expands our expectations of the user experience.
• 6 Free iPad Apps for Planning Your Next Vacation
  Check out these six iPad apps for getting inspired, booking flights, hotels, car rentals and cruises, checking the weather and doing currency conversions.
• Inside Qwiki’s Plan to Revolutionize Search [VIDEO]
  Many search engines provide multimedia results, but Qwiki automates them into dynamic presentations without the need to sort through pages of blue links.
• 4 Awesome Photo Sharing Alternatives to Flickr and Facebook
  Check out the pros and cons of SmugMug, picplz, Instagram and Path.
• Top 10 Gadgets Mashable Readers Want This Holiday Season
  After telling you what we think are the hottest tech items on the market this year, we asked you to tell us what’s on your holiday gadget wish list.
• 5 Innovative Classroom Management Tools for Teachers
  Didn’t get into teaching for the administrative tasks? These five virtual tools can help you complete them more efficiently.
• 5 Stylish Computer Mice for the Design Aficionado
  You don’t have to stick to a boring input device. A stylish mouse can add a touch of design chic to your computing setup.
• 5 Better Ways to Read “Hacker News”
  Hacker News is one of our favorite places to find interesting stories. The only problem is the interface. Here are a few workarounds.
• 10 Compelling Music Videos Shot on the Apple iPhone
  Can the iPhone cut it as a pro camcorder? We take a look at 10 music videos shot on the Apple mobile.
• 3 New Mobile Devices Poised to Make Waves Next Year
  These three devices have piqued our interest in the past few months, but, for one reason or another, just didn’t meet their potential. We’ll be keeping an eye on them to see if they get it right.
• 10 Free Holiday Icon Sets to Give Your Site a Wintery Makeover [GALLERY]
  If you like to get into the holiday spirit, then you might want to add some festive touches to your website or blog. Here are some free icons to choose from!
• Susan Kare: Interview With an Iconic Designer [GALLERY]
  Susan Kare has created graphics that are part of the visual language of computing, with a career spanning from Apple to Facebook. Here’s a look at her famous designs, with commentary from the artist.
• How the World Is Using Cellphones [INFOGRAPHIC]
  The infographic illustrates the number of cellphones per capita in various countries, the rate of cellphone adoption in the U.S. over the past decade and the acceptability of certain behaviors regarding cellphone use.

For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business

• 6 Promising New Companies That Emerged in 2010 [Mashable Awards]
  It’s too early to project if any of these companies will be the next Twitter or Facebook, but as 2010 comes to a close, it’s clear that these six startups had breakout years.
• 4 Misconceptions About Marketing in Social Games
  A look at why social gaming isn’t just a fad, for middle-aged moms, always about capitalism and limited to marketers known as “fun brands.”
• 6 Ways to Score a Job Through Twitter
  Twitter has become a great resource for just about anything, including jobs. From industry chats to dedicated accounts, there are a ton of ways to land a gig.
• 5 Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online
  Your expertise can help attract new customers and develop lucrative business relationships, but it can also be utilized as a separate revenue stream in its own right.
• Why Your Business Should Consider Reverse Mentorship
  Take a look at how your business can facilitate a two-way dialogue between newcomers and veterans to encourage sharing of useful skills and knowledge.
• How Entrepreneurs Are Using Kickstarter to Fund Their Dreams
  Entrepreneurs and artists are turning to crowdfunding platforms to raise money to make their dreams a reality. We talked to a few successful project owners to get their take.
• 6 Essential Steps for Executing Your Social Media Strategy
  Before you launch your strategy, consider how you will manage the execution. These six steps can help get you started.
• The 12 Days of Holiday Revenue Maximization for Your Online Store
  If you can address these 12 important opportunities in the next two weeks, your holiday revenue could dramatically surpass your expectations.
• Beyond Viral: How Successful Marketers Are Embracing the Social Web
  Marketers who take advantage of the Internet’s unique capabilities are winning the race. Check out these examples on the cutting edge of social media engagement.
• How the Fortune 500 Use Social Media to Grow Sales and Revenue
  Generally speaking, the Fortune 500 have just 5 different approaches to social media. Here’s a look at what you can take away from their strategies.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Image courtesy of Webtreats Etc.

As this year begins to wrap up and businesses start preparing big plans for 2011, we expect social media and technology innovations to be a bigger part of small business digital budgets. To spark a bit of creativity and help get that process rolling, we’ve gathered 35 of our most useful small business posts from the past few months to make sure businesses are in the digital know.

Each week we put together a roundup of essential social media resources that you may have missed that week — you can check those out here. But this week we decided to take it a step further and provide you with another megalist of just our top small business resources from the past few months, including social media, tech, marketing & advertising, dev & design and mobile articles written especially for our small business crowd.

Of course, if you’re still hungry for more business resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. Happy reading!

Social Media

• 5 Big Social Media Questions From Small Business Owners
  From group buying and location-based marketing to SEO and blogging, here are five fresh questions that small business owners have on their minds.
• How SMBs Can Start Using Facebook Places Now
  Here are a few pointers for how SMBs can leverage Facebook Places and other marketing tools starting today.
• Should You Search Social Media Sites for Job Candidate Information?
  Here are some pointers from recruiting and legal experts about when it is and is not appropriate to search social sites for job candidates.
• 5 New Ways Small Business Can Offer Location-Based Deals
  Small businesses can leverage verified checkins, barcode scanning, group buying initiatives, activity-based rewards, and opt-in lists for location-based deals.
• HOW TO: Respond When Social Media Attacks Your Brand
  Here are three examples of companies that received negative attention on social media and how you can learn from their mistakes or successes.
• 12 Clever Social Media-Friendly Business Cards
  While virtual business cards are becoming a viable alternative to paper cards, there is still a huge demand for traditional business cards. Here are 12 biz cards that integrate social media.
• HOW TO: Use Social Media for Lead Generation
  Being that social media is a great place to attract new customers, we put together a quick guide on how to use social media for lead generation.
• Why Small Businesses Shouldn’t Take Social Media for Granted
  When done right, social media can be a valuable source for customer acquisition, retention and satisfaction. Here a few reasons to help drive the value home.

Tech

• Are Groupon Stores and Do-It-Yourself Deals Worth the Risk?
  Groupon is rolling out a self-serve product called Groupon Stores that allows merchants to set up virtual storefronts and manage their own deals through the group buying site.
• How Online Private Sales Work and How Businesses Can Get Involved
  A look at the ins and outs of online private sales and how businesses can benefit from getting involved.
• 12 Video Tutorials for Improving Product Photos
  If your company sells items online, product photographs can be a key factor in how well they sell. These 12 tutorials will help improve your presentation.
• HOW TO: Connect With Other Entrepreneurs Online
  The best way to learn how to run a business is to run a business. But the second-best way is to ask someone else who runs a business. Check out these sites for advice.
• 5 Tips for Utilizing Skype for Business
  We could write a book-length guide on using Skype, but here are just five of our favorite tips for getting the most out of Skype for small business.
• HOW TO: Run Your Business Online With $10 and a Google Account
  Follow these steps and you’ll be on your way to a customizable and scalable business infrastructure that lives where your employees do: in the cloud.

Marketing & Advertising

• HOW TO: Run Location-Based Google Ads
  Learn how to use Google Boost, a new location-based ad product for local businesses.
• HOW TO: Earn Some Inexpensive Online Exposure for Your Small Business
  Looking for inexpensive PR? We spoke to some PR pros to find out how to tap into the online media and get your biz a little exposure without breaking the bank.
• HOW TO: Manage Your Presence on Google Maps
  Many of the features that you might normally associate with Yelp are actually included in what Google calls Place Pages. Learn how to manage your Google Maps presence.
• 4 Tips for Writing SEO-Friendly Blog Posts
  Search rank can be a powerful way to drive readers and customers to your site. Check out this advice on how to make your business blog more Google-friendly.
• 15 Excellent Corporate Blogs to Learn From
  Although the act of blogging can be quite simple, forethought and planning must first go into the creation of a corporate blog in order to keep the processes running smoothly.
• 10 Tips for Corporate Blogging
  There is a laundry list of issues that need to be addressed when it comes to improving corporate blogs, but here we’ve narrowed it down to 10 tips that companies should work on.

Dev & Design

• 10 Free Drupal Themes for Small Business
  Drupal, an open source CMS, is a wonderful option for businesses needing a powerful website without the typical costs of having one made from scratch. Check out these free themes.
• 5 Beautiful Tumblr Themes for Small Businesses
  There are hundreds of great themes that you can use with Tumblr to give your blog its own unique look. Here are five clean and professional faves for small business users.
• 10 Free WordPress Themes for Small Businesses
  Need a professional-looking WordPress theme to complement your business website or blog? Here are 10 great free options.
• HOW TO: Hire a Designer or Developer
  Here are four tips that will help you hire the best tech creatives and ensure you’re getting what you paid for.
• HOW TO: Communicate Needs & Expectations to Web Designers
  Hiring a designer is simple. But what you get from that designer depends on how well you communicate what you want, need, and expect. That part’s not so easy.
• HOW TO: Avoid Being a Disaster Client
  We spoke with a few designers to find out about their worst client experiences and what could be learned from them.
• 5 Lightweight CMS Alternatives for Small Businesses
  These five lightweight alternatives might not have as many options and features as a traditional CMS, but they are built with an emphasis on making web pages easy to create and update.
• 5 Small Biz Web Design Trends to Watch
  Here are five current design trends that most small businesses can tap into for great effect.

Mobile

• 13 Branded Mobile Apps That Got It Right
  Branded apps can be a great way to market your company while providing utility to users. Take a lesson from these 13 mobile marketing success stories.
• 9 iPhone Apps for Managing the Recruiting Process
  Instead of creating new processes or downloading a bunch of new apps, here are some iPhone apps you might already have that can help you manage the recruiting process.
• HOW TO: Build an App for Your Small Business
  Small to medium-sized businesses looking to build a Facebook, mobile or web app can choose to employ online DIY tools, freelancers, agencies or in-house devs. Learn more about the options.
• HOW TO: Accept Credit Card Payments on Mobile Devices
  Learn how to set up mobile payments with Square, Intuit GoPayment and Verifone’s PAYware Mobile.
• Why Small Businesses Should Care About Mobile Payments
  Studies show that mobile transactions are increasing exponentially. Will your business be ready when this trend hits the mainstream?
• HOW TO: Use QR Codes for Small Business Marketing
  If you’re unfamiliar with the business potential of QR codes, use this post as a crash course in how to get started.
• 5 Useful iPhone Apps for Business Networking
  Five useful iPhone apps that will help you become a better business networker.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Image courtesy of Flickr, windsordi

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

When Facebook overhauled its Groups this month, users responded with a healthy dose of skepticism and a little bit of confusion. Would these new Groups be powerful new social tools, or just another social media distraction to keep track of? Business owners can wonder the same.

First off, you need to know that unlike Pages, Facebook’s new Groups are not made strictly for brand promotion. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get some value out of them, either by using them to reach out to would-be clients or customers or to facilitate communication and community inside your company.

Here’s what you need to know about how Groups can be used by your business.

1. Groups Are Made By Users, Not Your Business

Way back in the day, businesses would set up Facebook Groups that their customers or clients could join for updates, promotions and other helpful information. Those days are over.

Facebook has moved that function to Pages, which are specifically made for promoting brands, businesses or publications. The new Groups are not intended for that by any stretch of the imagination.

You can’t create a group to promote your brand because Groups are meant to form organically out of Facebook’s network of users. Users add each other to Groups to create communities based on interests, careers or other commonalities, and they also do so to reflect real-world social groups — for example, a clique of close friends, or a family.

Since you have to be friends with someone to add them to a Group, forming a Group around your business isn’t practical, and it probably wouldn’t be welcome anyway. The bottom line: Don’t try to create a Group around your brand or business.

2. You Can Market In Groups, But Take It Easy

You can request to join an existing Group, and if you’re admitted, you’ll be able to post items to the group’s news feed. It’s here that you can promote your services, but we’d advise against the direct approach. If users wanted to receive promotions directly, they’d “Like” your Facebook Page. Not everyone in the Group is likely to have done so.

There are alternatives. You can more subtly promote by hosting events (concerts, tastings, or what have you) that would be of interest to the members of the Group, then post notifications about the event in the feed. Don’t overdo it or word it like a sales pitch and you should be fine.

Better yet, engage in Group discussions and add something to the community besides a pitch. If you can find a Group of ideal clients or customers and demonstrate that you’re a considerate and reliable source of info and insight, that can go a long way towards building your brand in their eyes.

3. Groups Are Ideal for Internal Communications

Not bold enough to step out into the wilds of Facebook Groups formed by others? That’s okay, because arguably the biggest opportunity for businesses in Groups is facilitation of communication and community inside the company.

Enterprise-focused social networks like Yammer have been a niche product for a while now, and Groups are (among other things) Facebook’s answer to those services. You can add your company’s employees and partners to a Group and set it to private to use it as a free alternative to something like Yammer.

Employees can share updates on what they’re working on or pass links and other items around that might prove helpful to the organization as a whole. You can also use it to make company announcements.

4. You Should Get Focused with Groups

Because the new Groups feature was designed for intimate settings, the setup is ripe for targeting and interacting with very niche audiences. Check out this post by Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove in which she discusses how the new Groups feature could be used for consumer review groups, event groups and live chats, using the group chat and document uploading features within the platform.

Do you have any other ideas for utilizing Facebook Groups in small or medium businesses? Be sure to share them in the comments.

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More Business Resources from Mashable:

– 5 New Ways to Market Your Brand on Facebook
– 4 Ways to Improve Ad Performance on Facebook
– What the Future Holds for B2B Social Media Marketing
– 5 Tips for Startup Success from the CEO of Meetup
– HOW TO: Optimize Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Mollie Vandor is the Product Manager for Ranker.com and Media Director for Girls in Tech LA. You can find her on Twitter and on her blog, where she writes about the web, the world and what it’s like to be a geek chic chick.

The sweet memories of summer vacation may be fading, but that doesn’t mean travel season has to end too. In fact, fall is one of the best times to travel, as many airlines and hotels try to fill their books between the summer and winter vacation seasons.


But, with rates falling faster than the autumn leaves, how do you hone in on the hottest deals happening right now? Fortunately, there are plenty of ways the social web can help you save money on major travel expenses like airfare, lodging and car rentals.

Read on for ways to save money on every leg of your trip, from take off to lights out.


Airfare

Every airline, from JetBlue to United to Virgin, seems to be jumping on the social networking bandwagon these days. You can follow them all on Twitter or Facebook for good, last-minute deals on flights they’re looking to fill. Check out these master lists of all the airlines on both networks to make finding your favorites even easier:

• Airlines on Twitter
• Sparksheet’s Airlines on Facebook

For a more diverse selection of deals, follow an aggregator like CheapestAirfare or AirFareWatchdog, which feature offers from multiple companies at once. There’s also the Twitter-sanctioned EarlyBird account, which has previously featured major discounts from Twitter advertising partner JetBlue, and has plans to release more travel deals in the future.

Another good resource is FareCompare, a site where you can see a map of multiple Twitter-based airfare deals happening at the same time. You can also “Like” FareCompare on Facebook to get deals sent directly to your Facebook stream all day long. And, if there’s a specific city that you like to visit or fly out of, you can find a feed from Fly.com that features fares for that particular place, like NYCFares, ChicagoFlightDeals and DenverFlightDeals. They even have a Twitter list of all their city-specific fare alerts, so you can browse deals from all over or find an account that’s listing flights for your city of choice. 

Hotels


Aggregator sites are still the way to go when it comes to surfing for hotels on the web. Sure, a single hotel is likely to post some special offers on their site from time to time, but you’re bound to get a better deal if you search multiple sites at once to compare their coupons.

Online coupon company EBates recently released a service that helps you do just that. Additionally, if you book through Ebates, you become eligible for easy cash back rebates on whatever you spend. Similar sites like Kayak, GetARoom and TravelZoo allow you to search all sorts of offers at the same time and quickly compare rates on everything from luxury hotel rooms to amusement park admissions.

Private sale site Jetsetter.com – an offshoot of Gilt Groupe – lets you sign up to receive exclusive e-mails full of deals and discounts from the best luxury travel brands. For luxury deals, you can also check out Off & Away, which lets you bid on high-end room rates in an eBay-style auction format. Many of these sites also offer RSS feeds, so you can keep a constant stream of assorted travel deals coming into your regular RSS reader.

Another great way to get access to multiple hotel and attraction deals at once is to follow the social networking profiles of a company with many properties, like Joi De Vivre Hotels, Mandarin Oriental Hotels and W Hotels, who have locations around the world and loyalty programs that can mean big discounts during the off season. These sorts of deals are also starting to pop up more and more on services Foursquare and Whrrl, as hotels look to capitalize on the popularity of location-based social networks by offering special rewards to customers who check in regularly. Similarly, you can sign up for TopGuest, a service that turns check-ins from all of your services – including Twitter, Facebook and Gowalla – into points that earn you perks from any hotel loyalty programs you’re a member of.

Finally, if you have a specific destination in mind, one of the best quick tricks for tracking down great lodging is to Google newly-opened hotels in the area. A brand new hotel looking to book up its rooms and build up its reputation is likely to charge a lot less in its first year or two than it will once it has already made a name for itself. 

Housing

You could significantly cut your lodging costs by skipping the hotels entirely. For example, instead of booking a hotel, you can find a couch to crash on at CouchSurfing.org. Advocates of couchsurfing say it allows them to meet new people in the place they’re traveling to and get access to locals-only experiences they may not have found otherwise. Plus, it’s almost always a whole lot less expensive than a hotel room.

Alternatively, you can find someone to swap houses with at HomeExchange or HomeLink, and get the benefit of becoming a temporary resident of your vacation destination — cooking your own meals, interacting with neighbors and enjoying the comforts of a home — even if it’s not your own. Even if you don’t want to swap your home for a stranger’s, you still have plenty of similar options at short-term vacation rental sites like AirBnB, VRBO and HomeAway, where you can often book lodging for a lot less than what you’d pay for a hotel, especially during non-peak travel times.

Either way, you’ll likely pay less than what you’d shell out for a hotel room, and you’ll definitely save money on meals and activities by having a “home base” where you can cook, eat and hang out. During the fall season, many more gorgeous vacation homes are available for rental, as their regular owners return to their full-time homes, making must-see destinations like the Hamptons more affordable for the average traveler.

Transportation

Once you get to your destination, you have to get around. Social media can save you money on that as well. Use Google Maps to plan public transportation routes in a strange city or save on cab fare by finding the fastest route to your destination. If you’re driving yourself, use Bing’s Gas Prices app to figure out the cheapest place to fuel up for your big trip. You can also use sites like ZimRide and RideShare to find people to share the driving load, and cost, on the way to your destination, or from one attraction to another.

While enroute, do some social media research on your destination, or use the time to sign up for Groupon, Gilt Groupe or LivingSocial to check out daily deals waiting for you when you arrive. Often, you’ll find great prices on food and attractions this way. You can always cancel your subscription when you leave that city, if need be.


Just because summer is over doesn’t mean your fabulous travel plans have to be too. Thanks to the combo of off-season fall travel deals and social media sites that help you track them, an impromptu excursion doesn’t have to break the bank. Affordable travel means more travel. Who doesn’t love that?












More Travel Resources from Mashable:

– Tech Tourism: 10 Great Geek Destinations
– 5 Great Sites for Exploring Cities Around the Globe
– How the Resort Industry is Using Social Media
– 5 Ways Airlines and Hotels Can Drive Revenue with Social Media
– 11 iPhone Apps for Stress Free Family Travel

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Sportstock