CYNTHIA BARNES :: sharing the latest information on new media marketing

People are always asking me how to get started learning about social media. The great thing about getting an education in social media marketing is that there are a ton of resources out there and they majority are completely  free. Except for a couple of the books I mention, following blogs or Twitter don’t cost anything. However, there is so much information out there, it can be hard to navigate. So I’ve boiled it down to my top resources for those who are just getting started, or who are looking to keep up on the latest:

 I will admit that I’m a social media geek, and I’m what you could call an “early adopter”, meaning that I like to try the latest and greatest social media tools just for fun. So I’ve been using Foursquare for over a year now. Foursquare allows you to use your smart phone (like an iphone or blackberry) to “Check-in” at a venue.

This is the biggest city so far on our journey. And I know we’re getting closer to civilization because my iphone has reception for the first time since arriving in Brazil!

The sleepy little town of Parintins, Brazil, comes alive once every June as the Boi Bumba festival begins. This is a party 2nd in size only to Rio's Carnival.  People come from all over Brazil, most travelling by boat, hanging hammocks and using the boats as floating hotel during the 3 day extravaganza.

Brazil is alive with color, music...people. I think that's why I liked it so much...buildings are brightly painted, but downtown Manaus was a little sad because many of the beautiful old buildings, built when the Europeans were here during the rubber boom are now abandoned and covered with graffiti. In the mid 1800's they discovered rubber here, and there was a boom, akin to the gold rush. The sad part of it is that the indigenous people were pratically enslaved, treated poorly, beaten if they didn't produce enough rubber.

Welcome to the first entry in my new travel section!

For the holidays, my 85-year-old father and I embarked on Princess Cruises’ 600 passenger Royal Princess for the adventure of a lifetime – a 2 week, 3,500 mile journey from Manaus, Brazil, up the Amazon River to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Gone are the days when you could just take out an ad and start talking about yourself. Social media tools like Twitter make the conversations two-way now and you need to know how to thrive in that environment. Here’s my step by step guide to get your company started on Twitter. My first advice: Be patient -- this is about building relationships so it can’t happen overnight. Don’t skip ahead, or you’ll miss the whole point.

1. Have a goal

Barack Obama appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman on Monday night – and he did things right. He didn’t walk in there with the health care guns blazing and start talking about the economy, although, that was probably his goal.

The best thing about podcamp was the great discussions with insightful people. I’ll try to re-cap one of the most interesting ones here, but I’ll leave out names to avoid misquoting anyone. I do want to thank Kathryn Jones for setting up the session, and being a great moderator with a very passionate group!

 At the recent MITX forum, “To Tweet or Not to Tweet” the inevitable subject of how to measure your return on investment on Twitter came up. CC Chapman mentioned that social media guru Scott Monty, when asked this question, retorts back – what’s the ROI of putting on your pants in the morning?