netwitsthinktank.com

Working on the Consumer Engagement Marketing team, we don’t have textbooks to help us out when we have a question. Blogs on social media trends are our Textbooks 2.0, and we thought it’s about time we share our appreciation for all the great tips and thoughtful guidance we got from our favorite bloggers.

MASHABLE—We LOVE Mashable and follow their updates almost religiously. Their blogs are the words we live by. One of the largest blogs on the Internet, it’s also one of the “funnest”—at least for us, semi-geeky girls on the digital division. Thanks to Mashable, I can find my way in the ever-changing universe of Social Web 2.0 (or, better to say, I don’t feel completely lost anymore.) Plus, I know all about upcoming iPhone applications and can shamelessly show off my erudition in front of my boyfriend’s pals. What I love the most about Mashable is reading user comments on the posts: witty one-liners or three-paragraph-long “reviews.  The responses help us look at the news and trends from different perspectives.

TECHCRUNCH—Here at BBC, we live in a very feminine environment (just two guys to our more than a dozen girls) and work with mostly female-oriented products. But we also read TechCrunch — and truly enjoy it. After all, every girl needs a break from all that tabloid craziness once in a while.

CISION BLOG—Coming from a traditional PR background and working as “digital communicators,” we have to be adapting to the changing media landscape every day. Luckily, there’s the Cision Blog – a great resource for news and trends from the worlds of PR and digital. They cover all we need to know about the present state of the PR industry, evolution of social media, and provide useful tips on media analysis, monitoring, and research.

ROTOR BLOG—Rotor Blog is a great destination for news on social networking and online communications. The blogger, Maris Dagis, is the 25-year-old CEO of an IT company and blogs from Latvia. The content is always fresh and interesting; all the posts are super-easy to comprehend, and there is something appealing for everyone, from online fashion and style news (check out his blog post on StyleCaster) to finding the perfect personal trainer online.
 
NETWITSTHINKTANK.COM—This blog publishes great information on social media for non-profits, how to fundraise via Twitter, how to recruit volunteers on Facebook, how to leverage web technology for charities. Net-Wits-Think-Tank has it all. It is also a great place to read about the growing role and power of social media in online marketing. Our pro-bono client charity:water is often mentioned in this blog because of its success at maximizing the potential of various social media tools. For instance, all the funds charity:water raised via Twestival back in February 2009 and all the donations it received via YouTube’s Call To Action tool were among the success stories, described on the blog.