Twiststl

 So!  You've just started your own business.  Congratulations... now what?  That moment of relief once you've finally launched your own business can be quickly replaced with, "Now how do I stay in business?"  Dina Kaplan, co-founder of Blip.tv, shares some of her tips in a recent article for growing a small group of video bloggers to a site that thousands of users access to host and upload their shows to.

Look out iPhone owners, you won't be ad free when you're surfing from your phone for much longer.  As of July 1st, iPhone's first iAds will be launched.  The ads could signify the next generation of digital advertising because they will load when a device is synched eliminating download time, use rich targeting for each user taking into account location and iTunes preferences, and deliver the high emotive quality of television ads with the interactivity of existing website marketing. 

Many of the marketers that have signed on to advertise with iAds won't be ready for the roll out though.  Apple is handling all technical production of the iAds and it takes 6 to 8 weeks after the creative concept has been submitted for the actual ad to be created that is suitable for the iPhone and, in November, the iPad. 

With big technological changes comes big responsibility.  And with the way technology has been leaping ahead lately, there also comes a big opportunity to mess up royally, especially when it comes to managing a brand using social media.   To understand these potential sticky points, article author Jolie O'Dell consulted six media pros with extensive backgrounds in marketing, PR and branding to learn about the unique challenges marketers now face and how to over come them.  Here are what the experts revealed about brands and social media and the challenges out there.

1.  The transparency challenge.  You need to be everything to everyone, and the way to do this is to not hold back on your branding and marketing. Communicate clearly to your employees what the message is, and then be straight about it to the outside world.  If your company screws up, be the first to acknowledge it, likewise if you rock, toot your own horn.  Just communicate in an honest, diligent way, and be prepared to devote a lot of time to the effort - it's an ongoing, ever evolving process. 

Have you ever heard of Gowalla or Foursquare?  In case you didn't know, they're location based networking tools enjoying a great deal of attention at the moment. It seems that everyone and their grandmother is jumping on the bandwagon of geo-location and the notion of "checking in." But as Yan David-Ehrlich points out in his article, we really need to decide what we want to accomplish with social media.