For quite some time now, everyone has been telling us how to use Twitter as a business tool and, until now, we had to take their word for it.

Twitter has launched what they call Twitter 101, with the focus of educating businesses on how to use Twitter, follow the lingo and leverage their business using the platform. Finally Twitter has come out and is telling users how the whole thing works and how to use it effectively.

Twitter 101 covers many aspects of Twitter, from the setting up your account and your first tweet to best practices for business as well as case studies.

“One of Twitter’s key benefits is that it gives you the chance to communicate casually with customers on their terms, creating friendly relationships along the way—tough for corporations to do in most other mediums.” Source: Twitter 101

So if you are a heavy Twitter user or just starting out, Twitter 101 offers most of tools you need to get tweeting with a results, they even have it available in PDF so you can take your online, offline.

Facebook Connect has been around for some time now, but it seems its adoption in the local marketing sphere needs more of a drive.

Intergration of Connect can take many forms, and from the testimonials that Facebook have on their blog it seems to have a huge impact on not only traffic but the obvious viral effect that takes place.

Connect allows users to share content by interacting and taking action on your site like commenting, reviewing, making purchases, rating, and more. The natural viral effect that Facebook has, through streams and notifications, creates a “viral loop” through the users Homepage by introducing their friends to your content. This viral loop is essential if you have embarked on a pull marketing strategy; users introduce their friends to your content, hence instilling a sense of trust and familiarity with it which gives them the confidence to in turn share it within their extended circle of friends.

Apart from the viral effects of Connect from your content point-of-view, it offers users and easy subscription to your services. By making use of Connect in your website, users are a couple of clicks away of registering without the time consuming efforts of filling in forms that sometimes create a drop rate of users.

One last thing about Connect is the instant gratification it offers. Once a call-to-action has been answered, it is instantly streamed into the users Homepage. This is powerful function when dealing with NGO’s and other socially driven initiatives like Causes

I believe that if you are offering the right content to users that Connect is an essential part of any Online marketing toolkit.

Versatility and understanding of the online landscape can give marketers a huge advantage when it comes to positioning your brand.

I recently read an article on Mashable! about the resurfacing of the Konami Code. If you ever played an  8 or 16bit “tv game” you would know exactly what I’m talking about. For those that don’t, the code was punched in on the controller to unlock special features, aka easter eggs, within the game. These varied from special skills and weapons to hidden stages that were unlocked.

How does this apply to marketing you might ask, its quite simple, once someone slaps you in the face with it. A great example of this is the Ford Fiesta Movement. The concept is simple, you give a couple of people some cars, give them tasks to complete and have them blog, tweet, stumbl, digg and go on an absolute social media tangent. Easy enough, too easy actually. Its the stock standard “online strategy”. But with a bit more understanding and planning it can be great. In the end it is the little things that make the experience so much more awesome. So getting back to the konami code…

The team from Ford spoke to the developers at OMPOP about a multi player online game that they wanted part of and after, I assume, some tricky negotiations, the team from Ford could up;up;down;down;left;right;left;right;b;a and voila. No longer are you driving the stock standard hovercart, but instead you are tearing up the track in a lime green Ford Fiesta.

Ford is not the only brand using the code though, it can be applied to any app / game or even website, Facebook and Google Reader have the code, so its just about having the right marketing message, ensuring that you have a viral strategy (to get the code out there) and to make sure the easter egg is worth the hunt.