There's been a ton of buzz about a study about the power of Twitter to predict the stock market. That's not the only Twitter-business connection.

Loic Venance | AFP | Getty Images A new report finds that social media has a huge impact on buying habits. Consumers are checking in with friends on Twitter and Facebook before they buy.

A new report finds that social media has a huge impact on buying habits. A full 45 percent of consumers check with friends on the likes of Facebook before they buy.

That means individuals can impact many more of their friends' purchases than ever before — "word of mouth" is now a much more powerful, fast-moving Tweet or status update.

Sep 8, 2010

As location-based services have emerged as compelling ways for businesses to interact with potential customers, there have been a flux of marketing and social media platforms that help set up campaigns. Context Optional, SnackSquare, Geotoko, Sprout Social and a number of other platforms are helping brands run campaigns on services like Foursquare, Twitter, Gowalla and now Facebook Places. PlacePunch is launching its platform in the space, and has already enlisted a well-known brand as a client.

According to the final edition of ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report, the differences between email, Facebook and Twitter also include their influence on customer loyalty.

Daily Twitter users who followed a brand were more than twice as likely as daily Facebook users who “liked” a brand to say they were more likely to purchase from the brand after becoming a social media follower. What’s more, Facebook fans were the most likely group to actively disagree with the question. Subscribers to opt-in marketing emails fell in the middle.

Meet the new Twitter.com

An easier, faster, and richer experience.

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New design

You will now find @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists just above your timeline – creating a single, streamlined view on the left of the screen. On the right, you can see the features you’re familiar with, including whom you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and Trending Topics.

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View photos, videos, and other media content

Now, it’s easy to see embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with Dailybooth, DeviantArt, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, Twitvid, USTREAM, Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube.

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Discover related content

When you click a Tweet, the details pane shows additional information related to the author or subject. Depending on the Tweet’s content, you may see: @replies, other Tweets by that same user, a map of where a geotagged Tweet was sent from, and more.

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Mini profiles

You can click a @username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

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Follow @Twitter

Rollout timing

These changes will roll out as a preview over the next several weeks. During the preview, you'll be able to switch back and forth so you have time to grow accustomed to the way things work. Eventually, everyone will have the updated version of Twitter.com.

Are you a fan of the new Twitter? Will it some of your time away from your favorite Twitter desktop client or from Facebook? How do you see the new twitter changing existing Twitter marketing and social media marketing strategies and tactics?

IKEA Canada has launched an advertising campaign and contest that encourage consumers to share their favourite images from the home furnishing retailer's latest catalogue.

The campaign includes television, print, online and out-of-home creative touting the arrival of IKEA's 2011 catalogue. Each execution also alerts readers to IKEA's "Capture the Page" contest, an online initiative that invites consumers to upload pictures of their favourite images from the catalogue to a microsite,

So when you're reading through the Ikea catalogue and it asks you to take a picture of a page and then email it to win 10k will you take the time to do it? Maybe they should encourage the same thing in their Ikea stores -- take a picture of yourself with the thing you see that you like in the store and email it to enter to win that item. Instead of "Capture the Page" maybe Ikea can get permission to use "Swede Yourself" from Be Kind Rewind fame. Do you think a whole Sweded version of the Ikea website would draw any viral or grassroots attention? I'd visit it and watch submitted videos of people swede'ing non-ikea-purchased furniture or things in their life (whatever that might mean).

According to the post, by Twitter engineer Ryan King on the Twitter Engineering Blog this evening:

"Our analytics, operations and infrastructure teams are working on a system that uses cassandra for large-scale real time analytics for use both internally and externally."

In other words, Twitter is in fact working on an important analytics product that will launch to the public soon.

Twitter analytics? Here's hoping they're useful and enable businesses to develop more effective twitter and social media marketing strategies.

Even before Michael Farah opened the doors to his first Berry Chill store, he was working the social media scene to create awareness of his frozen yogurt.

"Before we opened our business, we created a Facebook page," Farah said. Then he added Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare to the mix.

Two years later, he hasn't been disappointed with the results. Berry Chill has more than 10,000 Facebook fans and about 3,000 Twitter followers, Farah said.

Many consumers are learning more about their favorite businesses through social media networking sites.  What does this mean for your local business?  If you are not participating in social media, you are missing a critical way to engage with current and new customers and boost your online identity and visibility.  

Foursquare is hands-down the leader of the location-based/geo-social marketing space when it comes to hype. But other services are making their marks among both brands and users.

In fact, three of the five location-based services briefed below have more users than Foursquare, which has roughly 1 million. Like Foursquare, most utilize the mobile "check in" system, while rewarding users for registering an arrival at a store, restaurant, or another kind of business. Though, the services are being leveraged in different ways by brand partners.

Here are snapshots of recent campaigns by name brands on five prominent location-based platforms not named Foursquare:

Offerpop, a software development company for social media applications, has launched a new marketing app that lets retailers and brands bolster their Twitter and Facebook profiles for maximum impact. Only the Twitter application is currently available to the public, but the company is accepting beta testers for its Facebook version.