Twitter is fast becoming one of the most important ways to share information quickly, easily, and instantly over the web. Users and developers have found a lot of innovative ways to pack a ton of utility into just 140 characters, including sharing images, sharing video, and sharing documents. What about music? Turns out, there are plenty of ways to share tunes on Twitter as well. Below are ten of the best ways to tweet about what you’re listening to.

If you know of any other ways to share music on Twitter that we should be aware of, please let us know in the comments.

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1. Tinysong

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Tinysong is a very basic URL shortener for music powered by P2P music sharing service Grooveshark. On the plus side, that means it has a huge library of songs to draw from, but it also isn’t very tightly integrated with Twitter. Tinysong is dead simple: search for songs, find the one you want, get a shortened URL pointing toward that track. Actually sharing it on Twitter is up to you. Tinysong has an API, meaning that developers could easily integrate it into their applications.

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2. Twisten.fm

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If you want a more complete integration between Grooveshark and Twitter, you’ll want to check out Twisten.fm. Like Tinysong, Twisten.fm searches the Grooveshark library for songs, but it goes two steps further by allowing you to share what you’re listening to directly from the site, and also monitoring your timeline to create a stream of what your friends are listening to.

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3. Song.ly

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Song.ly is a Twitter music sharing service powered by the Russian media search engine Tagoo. You search for an artist or track and press the tweet button, which sends you to Twitter and pre-populates the tweet field with a Song.ly shortened URL pointing at your song. Song.ly has IE and Firefox add-ons and an API.

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4. Blip.fm

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On its own, Blip.fm is kind of like Twitter for music, where users share tracks with one another in a Twitter-style real-time stream. But Blip.fm also integrates with Twitter (among other sites), and allows you to share tracks back out to your Twitter friends with one click once you have synced your accounts. The site borrows some concepts straight from Twitter — like reblipping, which is akin to retweeting — and helps users find friends to follow that have similar music tastes in order to build a real-time “radio station” stream.

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5. Twt.fm

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Twt.fm uses OAuth to connect you to your Twitter account then recreates your Twitter page, including your background and avatar, to store your playlist of music tweets, each including a Flash-player. The site allows you to search for tracks (which it pulls from imeem), or add direct links to MP3s, YouTube music videos, SoundCloud, or imeem. You can then tweet those songs directly from the site using a Twt.fm short URL. Unfortunately, sometimes the tracks it finds are just clips, and it doesn’t allow you to search by just artist or track, so you have to know the entire name of the song you want to play, who sings it, and how to correctly spell it.

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6. Twiturm

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Twiturm (the “urm” stands for “ur music”) is really aimed at artists looking to share music with their fans. The site lets users upload MP3 files, or point to existing MP3 links on the web, then share them directly on Twitter via a shortened URL that links to a Twiturm player page. The player page allows visitors to play, download, or retweet the tracks, and keeps stats on how many plays and downloads each song gets.

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7. Musebin

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Musebin lets you share your favorite albums and artists over Twitter using exquisitely tiny URLs made possible by using a domain with a non-standard character: http://♬.ws/ The shared URLs link to a simple page about the artist or album that includes information about the year of release, record label, cover art, links to additional info, and a stream of tweets about the artist.

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8. Twittytunes

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Twittytunes is a companion Firefox (and Flock) plugin for the Foxytunes music player plugin from Yahoo! Music. Twittytunes essentially adds a button to the Foxytunes player that lets users tweet about what they’re listening to in one click. Tweets don’t actually include links to playable songs, but they do include links to Foxytunes informational sites about the artist that often include song clips and music videos.

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9. imeem

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Music sharing site imeem, on which many of the other sites in this round up rely, added their own “Tweet This” buttons a couple of months ago. It’s a pretty basic way to tweet about the music you’re listening to, essentially just sending you to Twitter with a pre-populated form field that includes the name of the artist and track and a link to the song’s page on imeem. But imeem has a huge library of music to search, so it’s definitely a good site to have in your arsenal when sharing music on Twitter.

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10. SongTwit

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SongTwit is one of the newest options on this list, and lets you search imeem and YouTube for songs, point to MP3 links, or upload an MP3, M4A, WAV, WMA, OGG or ACC file. You then log into Twitter (no OAuth), add a message in the remaining ~115 characters, and send your tweet. Your message should probably include the song’s title, since SongTwit doesn’t automatically include it. When I tested it, it was a bit finicky (or my connection was) and kept timing out before it would actually share something, but I have actually seen SongTwit working for some people in the wild.

Facebook is expanding its virtual scrapbook feature, Timeline. Now, in addition to letting people see your current and past Facebook activities, you can show them what you’re up to elsewhere on the Web.

This is thanks to the new Timeline Apps feature, which allows a new set of apps to grab and post activity from other websites and services into your Facebook Timeline.

For example, if you install the Words With Friends app, all your Words With Friends account activity appears in Facebook.

As of this writing, 80 apps are available, but Facebook has promised to release even more. The apps already available include some big names, including Hulu, Yahoo! News, eBay, Zynga, Rotten Tomatoes and TripAdvisor. A full list is below.

To install Timeline apps, first you need to activate Timeline. Here’s how to do that.

Then visit the Timeline Apps page to find apps you want to use. Each app has an install page that shows you what the app does and allows you to adjust its privacy settings.

Not all apps post to Timeline automatically. For some apps, you turn on the “post to Timeline” feature right from the app install page. Others require you to enable from within your Facebook Account Settings.

Go to Account Settings >Apps to manage all your apps. You can set the privacy of each app at any time from there.

In addition to the apps’ overall privacy setting, you can control privacy post by post as well. Click the X in the upper right corner of any app post to show or hide it in Timeline.

Not sure if there are any apps you’d want to use? Here’s a list of the first 80 apps available. See if your favorite site is here.

MUSIC
Saavn, Turntable.fm, Earbits, Rhapsody, Songza, Jelli, MOG, Rdio, iHeartRadio, Slacker, Spotify

NEWS
Wetpaint, WSJ Social, USA Today + Me, BuzzFeed, Rockmelt, The Daily, Yahoo! News, Washington Post Social Reader, The Independent, The Guardian, InHindi, IBNLive with Friends, Joinsmsn, Digg

GIVING
FundRazr, Causes, Artez Interactive

TRAVEL
Gogobot, TripAdvisor, Wipolo, Where I’ve Been, Airbnb

FOOD
Urbanspoon, Snooth, Foodspotting, Foodily, Yummly

SHOPPING / FASHION
Polyvore, Oodle, Lyst, Sneakpeeq, Pinterest, GiftRocket, Payvment, Living Social, Pose, LAX World, GiantNerd, Fab

FITNESS
Runkeeper, MapMyFitness

ENTERTAINMENT
Goodreads, Ticketmaster, Snapstick, ScoreBig, Ticketfly, StubHub, Soundcloud, Words With Friends, Zeebox, Castleville, Hulu, Dailymotion, Bubble Island, Cinemur, Kobo, Diamond Dash, Draw My Thing, Rotten Tomatoes,

OTHER
[s]edition, BranchOut, Autotrader, Artfinder, Apssfire, Grockit, Ford – Mustang, Ford – Grab-a-Badge, Chegg, Color

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/01/28/how-to-get-most-out-facebooks-new-timeline-apps/#ixzz1kmBdBO00

Whether they like or not, all Facebook users will be forced to use the new profile called “Timeline” in the next couple of weeks.

The idea behind Timeline is a visually appealing story of someone’s life. Facebook has a section on its website introducing the new update with the phrase, “Tell your life story with a new kind of profile.”

The idea was originally introduced in September 2011 and made available to developers. More than a million people signed up as of early December 2011 for beta access and gave feedback on the new profile. On Dec. 15, 2011, it was announced Timeline was available to everyone.

According to a blog post Tuesday, “Last year we introduced timeline, a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story. Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline.”

Opting in gives a user a seven-day preview period to fix up the timeline before it is published. However, the timeline goes live automatically after the seven days if a user doesn’t choose to make it live before the preview period is over.

A cover photo, which is a big photo across the top of a user’s profile, may be the first noticeable change with a switchover to Timeline.

As the user scroll down he sees all the main posts and life events that happened during the year being scrolled through. These include photos, friend connections, places visited, pages liked and more.

Users can add important life events to their timeline and also have the option to hide posts, giving control over what to highlight during a certain time period.

If someone wants to see certain activity that happened on a certain day, he can click on “activity log” under his cover photo. That shows all activity that can be sorted by year but cannot be searched by date. As of now, a user has to scroll to the certain date he wants to look at.

There has been backlash for every Facebook profile change, and Timeline will not be an exception. Brian Carter, an Internet marketing and social media expert, does not think people will delete their profiles.

“It’s the typical freak out every time it changes,” Carter said. “One of the complaints I’ve heard [is that] people think it looks like MySpace. I think it looks classy. The cover photo is an opportunity to show people more about your life. People didn’t really leave MySpace until there was a better option, everybody is on it [Facebook] and it’s only growing.

“The other thing about the Timeline: How often do you go to your friend’s pages?” he said. “Most of the time they’re on newsfeed or a group. It’s gonna be cool but we don’t spend a heck of a lot of time on other people’s pages.”

Additionally, Facebook is making new apps available to users to incorporate into their Timelines. This goes along with the new Open Graph platform, which was introduced in September. According to Facebook, this platform is how Facebook introduces new features such as photos and places.

Now, Open Graph has been opened to third party apps, including 60 new apps announced last week, such as Pinterest, a virtual pinboard website. Carter thinks the success of these apps will depend on what people create.

Facebook is a networking site that constantly grows and changes.

In a 2008 interview with The New York Times, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg discussed previous profile changes. Before the first big change in September 2006, users had to search the pages of their friends for information. But then Zuckerberg introduced “News Feed,” now an accepted feature. At the time, there was a backlash. People’s information on their profiles was now on everyone’s home pages — everything from break-ups to the embarrassing pictures from the party the night before.

A group was formed against the News Feed and by the end of the first day, the group had 284,000 members. In response, Zuckerberg decided to add a privacy feature to the News Feed though he kept the News Feed active because he thought people would get used to it. He started to get positive feedback after the initial shock.

Soon after the News Feed was introduced, Facebook was opened to the public rather than just students and the amount of users grew to million.

There are numerous pages and groups against the new profile, plus negative comments on the blog post announcing the switch. The most popular comment is from Facebook user Mohamed Isham, “Old One is Better!” with more than 2,000 “likes.”

There are also those who embrace the change. As of today, more than 1.9 million people have “liked” the page introducing Timeline.

Mike Parlitsis, a college senior from Somers, N.Y., switched over to Timeline in October of last year by taking advantage of the developer access time period. He is a fan of the new layout.

“I love that Facebook deviated from the typical layout of every social media outlet,” he said of Timeline. “They created a whole new interface while keeping everything user friendly and aesthetically appealing.”

The one aspect he especially enjoys is the integration of apps.

“My favorite is the integration with Spotify,” Parlitsis said. “It is an amazing way to share music with your friends and you can even collaborate on playlists and share them with your friends.”

According to Facebook, there are currently more than 800 million active users and more than 50 percent of users log on in any given day.

ShoeBox, the mobile app that lets you scan old photos and post them online, is today announcing Facebook Timeline integration. Using the newly released version of the ShoeBox iOS application, users will be able to scan photographs of family and friends using their smartphone, tag users by name, and then share those photos to Facebook.

But here’s the really cool part: ShoeBox is one of the first Timeline-integrated apps that’s letting you post photos into the past. By that, I mean you can edit the date on your photo, and it will post to the correct place on your Facebook Timeline. Nifty!

I’ll admit to being a huge fan of what 1000memories is doing with its ShoeBox app, something which probably shows my age. I, like many of you (old people), didn’t “grow up” on Facebook. My childhood and young adulthood were captured by flash bulbs, printouts, and trips to the drug store to pick up prints – not smartphones and social networks. ShoeBox provides an easy way to get those old photos online so they can actually be shared and enjoyed.

In its first release back in October, the ShoeBox app allowed you to quickly snap a smartphone photo of a printed photo, crop, flatten and rotate the image, then fill in missing information, like that which might be scrawled on the back of the printout (where the photo was taken, who’s in it, what you were doing, date, etc.)

However, until today, none of that information actually appeared in the correct format to be useful on Facebook. It only worked to supplement on 1000memories’ own website, its social network of days past at 1000memories.com.

With today’s launch of the new iPhone application, things have changed. Now you can find and follow Facebook friends in the app and tag your Facebook friends by name so they’re alerted when the photos go online, a much-needed addition. You’re also now able to edit the date on the Facebook post to send it “back in time” to the date you specify.

Interestingly, this process of posting to the past could have been automated, but 1000memories says the team decided to use Facebook’s Photos API and not the OpenGraph API. Since the Photos API allows posts to appear on the Timeline in a different way – big and beautiful like Instagram now does – they decided to use it instead.

But the company is pushing Facebook to revive support for EXIF data for the ShoeBox app itself, which would allow users to automatically post pictures to the right spot while also still appearing in the attractive, larger format. EXIF (exchangeable image file format) is a standard format that contains a digital photo’s metadata information, – e.g., details about the camera’s make and model or the photo’s timestamp.

Facebook briefly supported EXIF data during Timeline’s tests, but stopped doing so because users were “freaked out” that Facebook knew when a photo was taken. Now Facebook is now more cautious about when and where it supports EXIF.

However, in a case like ShoeBox’s, using EXIF data would simplify the process of time-stamping these photos appropriately. Although the photo in question wouldn’t have been a digital photo to start, ShoeBox could still send Facebook EXIF data that relates to the scanned-in photo’s actual data of capture as indicated by a user’s caption (e.g., “Halloween 1985,” “beach trip 1997,” etc.).

The updated ShoeBox app is likely to be the first of many Timeline-integrated apps to come, now that the Facebook Timeline is mandatory. Although not everyone is thrilled about Facebook’s new look, when you can get past the knee-jerk “change is bad” mentality, there’s a pretty compelling use case here with the idea of filling out the missing Timeline dates with old photos. With Timeline, Facebook is no longer just a utility for social networking, it’s a digital representation of our lives. For it to be a truer reflection those lives, however, properly supporting the 4 trillion printed out photos in the world would be a good start.

The new version of the ShoeBox app is available here. (And yes, Android is coming)

Balancing your work and personal life on social networking tools such as Facebook has become more complex than ever — and the dangers go beyond the well-publicized examples of posting party pictures to your profile.

1. Choosing your profile picture

Thoughtful: Some people militantly believe that Facebook is all personal while LinkedIn is all professional. If this sounds like you, you might choose a Facebook pic of yourself fishing, hanging out at a party or playing a guitar.  You’re better off to err on the side of caution here, by keeping your profile picture professional, or at least neutral. Your photo doesn’t need to be in a studio with a boring canvas backdrop – it could be outside on your deck or on a mountain side, for instance – but it has to be fairly even-keeled. (This is different than LinkedIn, where photos should be strictly professional.

Thoughtless: According to Dixson, don’t post profile pictures that are “too sexy, cartoonish or that might alienate your audience.” A look through your friend list can usually reveal the ones she’s talking about. The stylized glamour shot, the quick snapshot of slicked up hair or low-cut dresses taken right before heading to a party, or worse, costume-like pics: wet suits and surfboards, bike gear, Halloween outfits -the list goes on.

2. Filling Out Your Biography

Thoughtful: The biographical section of social networks vary. On Facebook, the service provides fields for a variety of interests, both professional and personal. Don’t be afraid to post some nuggets that convey who you are, within reason. On Facebook, you can decide with great granularity what information people can view by altering your privacy settings. For instance, you can set it so every visitor to your profile sees that you enjoy golfing, reading and civil war history, but maybe only a certain group of people see your religion, political affiliations and relationships. For Facebook’s “About me” section, building on the Twitter doctrine, you need  to be short and concise. Don’t worry about being clever.

Thoughtless: While there aren’t many numbers to back this assertion (because Facebook is a private company, and data can be hard to come by), most social networking and identity experts believe a great many Facebook users never so much as glance at their privacy settings pages. The same probably holds true for other social networks. Remember that social networks plan to monetize their service by ensuring that you share as much information as possible. As such, you should believe that they’ll share as much information about you as they can, and make it available to the widest audience.

The default settings for Facebook, for example, make all your profile information available for everyone on the service to see. “Assume from the get go that anything you put in there is viewable on the public internet,” Dixson says. “Go in with that line of thinking. Then go in and say, if you don’t want to make certain information available to certain people, go turn them off with the privacy settings.”

With the information you do share, avoid being vain. Social networks do enable, if not encourage, a bit of narcissism. But don’t assume people want to read a novel about your life. Also, be protective of your family. It’s fine to list yourself as “married” in the info section, for instance, but don’t necessarily feel that you have to put down a link to your significant other. If you have young children, for their protection and privacy, Dixson recommends you don’t include their names anywhere in the bio or in pictures of them that you decide to share.

Oh, and a word about age. While you may want to include your birthday on your Facebook profile, so people can message you on the big day, you should exclude the birth year. Your friends and family know how old you are, and there’s no reason for your professional ones to know.

3. Posting content, links, and news

Thoughtful: Post content that highlights your personal interests and
your professional areas of expertise. A marketing professional might post some
interesting links for a relevant trade publication he or she wanted to share,
for example. Posting personal picture slideshows is fine — again, within
reason. You clearly want to avoid the aforementioned pitfalls of displaying
shots of wild revelry. But for all the agony about what’s acceptable and what’s
not, remember that offering contacts a decent glimpse into what makes you you
can have business benefits. “It strengthens relationships,” Dixson says. “It
really helps establish connections. People like to do business with people they
know.”

Thoughtless: Spamming people is a big no-no, as it can irrevocably
ruin your social capital. It’s great to be so passionate about things in both
your professional life and personal life that you feel compelled to share it
with people who are important to you, but remember that people can only take so
much time out of their day. Also, don’t assume they care about every little
thing in your personal life. People know you’re proud of your kids, for example,
and that speaks to your commitment as a parent. Yet you need to know when to
draw the line somewhere in how much they want to hear.

Definitely keep your romantic break-ups and get-togethers in private forums,
like e-mails, IMs and (who still uses it anymore?) the phone.

Oh, and this one should be self-explanatory: don’t go flapping your gums
about your company’s affairs.

4. Talking to One vs. Many

Thoughtful: Posing a question to your entire network is OK, provided
it’s relevant to all of them, or at least won’t be viewed as a nuisance. For
instance, you might ask, “Getting a new phone. iPhone or BlackBerry?” Such a question will be relevant to a
lot of folks who have gone through the same issue. The key is, if you’re on the
receiving end and want to weigh in on such an issue, be sure to respond to that
person only – unless it’s been made clear that he or she wants your comments
public. This way, you avoid spamming people.

Thoughtless: Know that self-satisfied guy who unrelentingly decides
to hit reply-all to every group e-mail that’s sent in your company? You don’t
want to be that guy on social networks. On Facebook, one of the most utilized
features is the Wall. It’s a fun place to leave publicly displayed messages and
a bit of witty banter. However, making specific plans with a person on the Wall,
for example, is rude to that person’s other profile visitors. Too many times,
you see “let’s get a drink at 5 today” posted to someone’s Wall. Unless you want
to include all of that person’s friends in on the social engagement, there’s no
reason not to pose that question in the private messaging section of Facebook
(or any social network for that matter; Twitter, for instance, has the direct
message function).

5. Watching Your Tone

Thoughtful: It’s important to keep a polite and measured tone on
social networks; after all, the mainstream ones like Facebook are an extension
of our lives in real life (that’s not necessarily the case in virtual worlds,
but that’s a whole other topic). Say things you’d feel comfortable saying in
person, and avoid inside jokes that only a few of your contacts would
understand.

Thoughtless: With a social network that is fairly open, nobody is
really going to be impressed when you post inside jokes that they don’t
understand; in fact, you run the risk of insulting people if they think you’re
making some veiled or coded comment about them. Remember, within most social
networks, you can set up private groups where those kinds of exchanges will not
only be more appropriate, but also encouraged. “It’s better to be clear than
clever,” Dixson says. “Don’t expect people to get it. Be very explicit.”

Finally, sarcastic humor and anger can be dangerous in social network
postings, just as they are in e-mail messages. Think twice before sharing.

As we branch out and accept that fact that the many outposts we create in social networks require content, participation and engagement in order to grow, the task of managing just gets harder and harder.

While creating systems and processes for listening and participating in ways that are inline with the objectives of your business are helpful, employing a social media management tool effectively is the grease that turns the wheel.

Public relations has changed dramatically in the last couple years. We are living in a world constantly bombarded by media. Not only has mass media increased in the last decade, but so have smaller media outlets and institutions that weren’t previously engaging in marketing campaigns such as colleges and universities. With the staggering rise of Internet usage and social media platforms, there is more competition. The Internet has also leveled the playing field by removing the barriers between large institutions and consumers, and many corporations find themselves now having to learn the new social media technologies.

We understand how big the social media picture is for your business. If you don’t already feel the effects of not having a blog or a Twitter account, wait another six months and you will see just how much these public relations tools can make a difference. A large online presence with followers and fans can revolutionize the way your business interacts with consumers, and ultimately draws in more of them. A public relations campaign through social media can lead to business insights, new areas of development, and increased growth. These tools and networks are available to you if you know how to use them.

Social media marketing through blogging, Twitter, Facebook and other websites means connecting to your customers, listening to them and learning about what they want from you. If done properly, you can effectively harness hundreds of thousands of interested consumers. But social media marketing takes creativity, perseverance, and skill. Gone are the days of “selling your product”. Nobody will want to buy from you on the Internet if you are engaging in traditional marketing tactics. In fact, social media is wedded to public relations by the promise of a relationship with your customers.

The new Public Relations is the great equalizer in the world of business – everyone has a chance at going “viral,” building a social media network following, creating a popular blog, or manipulating one of the many tools, available for virtually free, to reaching a core audience. It’s also a much more transparent process: poor planning, off-key messaging and lack of integration among your tactics can produce poor publicity. In short, the new PR is widely accessible, yet easily mismanaged. Do it wrong, and people will notice and shut you off. Do it right, and people will notice and respond by asking for more. Now that’s great publicity!

 We understand the nuances of social media marketing and public relations through social technology. We know the proper social media etiquette using these tools. And most importantly, we’re aware of the groundswell that your business can tap into. The opportunities are limitless with our technology. Contact us for more Information at 480-648-4251. Make Sure You Leave a message if we are helping another client