- A star-studded cast of experts from various areas within social marketing are set to speak at the upcoming 2012 Social Boom Conference, to be held in September. Keynote speaker Gary Vaynerchuk joins other social media experts to talk about new tools and techniques to give companies an edge. More information can be found at http://www.sacbee.com/2012/08/29/4768339/2012-social-boom-conference-poised.html
- Even the Pentagon is ramping up social media operations. In this case, to take on the Taliban and other anti-American hate groups and are using social media to aggressively respond to falsehoods and other reporting violations. More information is at http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2012/8/30/pentagon_fighting_taliban_on_social_media.htm
- A new tool from RC Bryan called SocialAdr has been released giving users the ability to quickly create social signals and backlinks for various websites. While some of the components are automated, SocialAdr also uses humans to manually post links. A nice video describing the new tool is at http://www.rcbryan.com/SocialAdr-Review/ and a story in Virtual Strategy magazine at http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2012/08/30/socialadr-review-released-showing-value-social-media-driving-traffic
- PublicRelay has released an update to their social media marketing suite that allows for collaborative coverage management and "one-click" sharing tools, and gives access to other social media providers. More information at http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/860457 - the software is targeted towards Fortune 500, government and non-profits.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced that they will be looking to social media to help with weather warnings and public response and have put together more than $850,000 worth of funding for projects that will help with this cause. More information can be found at http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120827_oarsocalscienceawards.html
- Google+ has launched a suite of new tools aimed at businesses. In a blog post, which can be read at http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/08/bringing-google-to-work.html Google outlines the various integrated features that will take their Google Apps technology to the business professional.