When 17 year old Chelsea King went missing on February 25^th, her family called the police as soon as it became obvious the teen hadn’t returned from her run. The search for the missing girl started that same night, turning up nothing but a locked car that Chelsea left outside the Rancho Bernardo Community Center. Then they did something that isn’t as standard . . . they set up a Facebook Group and a Twitter account for Chelsea.

The pages are the perfect way to keep friends and family updated on the worrying situation, but it has done much more than that. In a very short time, close to 6,000 people (and growing) have joined the group, spreading the word about the missing teen through the world of online media and putting Chelsea’s photo and description out on the internet. Hundreds of volunteers showed up to help search for the girl, some as a direct result of the page. Social networking is giving back!

Chelsea’s Facebook Group isn’t the first time social media has been used as a cry for help. In 2007, Tom McEwan set up a Facebook page to help find his 19 year old son Kyle. Today, his MySpace page continues to share songs and memories of Kyle.

If you are a frequent user of Twitter, chances are you’ve seen a few Amber Alerts retweeted there.  The micro-blogging network is often used to share alerts when a child goes missing and to update information. Social networks like Twitter and Facebook get the word out faster than any other medium and can reach thousands or millions within seconds.

A more recent example of using Twitter to help find missing family members occurred just after the 8.8 earthquake in Chile. Sheryl Breuker hadn’t heard from her sister-in-law after the quake and used Twitter to post pertinent info and ask for people to help her find the woman. Just two hours later, a local man tracked the woman down, assuring Breuker via Twitter, that her brother’s wife was indeed safe (See Mashable post).

Social media has been used for many things, from dating to business promotion, but now it can help save lives as well. An organization called Help Find My Child has set up a system to help parents of missing children get the necessary information out fast on multiple networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, among others. It’s just one way to make sure that social networking sites are giving back to families and helping them find their missing children.

Please help retweet and share this blog post on all your social networks so we can help find Chelsea King fast.

The most popular social media question is:  “Where do I start with social media if I want to use it for my business?”  The very first step is to understand the entire social media landscape before jumping on the bandwagon.  This is paramount if you want to succeed with using social media for your business!

The social web consists of many categories and is not just about social networking.  I have created the below diagram to help you understand the types of social media categories.  The categories you decide to use for your business will depend on your business goals and what you are trying to achieve with social media.

Of course, there is a cross between many of these categories.  For example, I placed Twitter under micro-blogging, but it also belongs under social networking; I placed Facebook under social networking but it is also the largest photo-sharing site.

The key to success with social media is to not put your eggs in one basket.  Once you have a clear understanding of the social web, the next step is know how to integrate some or all these categories together so you can leverage and maximize your efforts with social media.

Please note, in this diagram I am giving a comprehensive look at the categories of social media.  The tools in each category are only an example.  There are literally thousands of tools out there that would fall into each category and would not be possible to fit into a single diagram.  Please feel free to add tools that you think belong under specific categories in the comment section below.

The logos and images shown are trademarks of each site.  Let’s hope the sites don’t mind that I borrowed them!

Social Media Landscape Image

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networking sites around and with all those new users have come new ways to use Twitter, in the form of customized applications that do everything from search for jobs to finding people with like interests.

For your convenience, here are my top 7 Twitter apps to maximize the usefulness of the micro-blogging site.

1. TweetDeck
TweetDeck allows you to create multiple columns with groups. For example, all your marketing contacts can appear in one column while another would show personal contacts or perhaps others interested in travel or another common hobby.

2. TwitterBar
This is a Firefox add on that lets you tweet right in your browser by adding a special toolbar. It is particularly handy for tweeting specific webpages that you want to share with friends.

3. Twhirl
For those who aren`t following huge numbers and just want a simple pop up application, twirl is perfect. It minimizes to your status bar and updates appear in brief pop ups and has all the basics for tweeting, retweeting and sending direct messages.

4. TwitterFeed
Named as one of the most useful Twitter applications by Darren Rowse, aka ProBlogger, this handy app lets you post links from your blog. To avoid the typical automated look, you can customize the message on your tweets.

5. Socialoomph
This tool lets you set up scheduled tweets, something that is particularly useful if you`ll be on the road or live in another time zone from the majority of your audience. If you schedule blog posts to go live at a specific time, you can now schedule a tweet about it, as well.

6. Twello
Lauded as the Yellow Pages of Twitter, this site lets you find people on Twitter in specific professions or areas of interests. If you`re interested in advertising and marketing, for example, Twellow will give you a useful list of people to follow.

7. TwitScoop
Looking for what`s hot on Twitter? TwitScoop lets you see at a glance what people are tweeting about. You can see all the most popular keywords in a tag cloud. This application is actually integrated right into TweetDeck, for added usability.

What are your favorite Twitter applications? With the hundreds now in existence, I`m sure there are some I haven`t used that could be very useful.

Many people still ask us what Twitter is. They hear everyone saying: “We were tweeting or someone tweeted this and that on Twitter.” So, we thought what a perfect opportunity to share another Commoncraft video, which we absolutely love! But first, here is the Wikipedia definition of Twitter:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging platform that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are posts of up to 140 characters, displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers). Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow anybody to access them. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.