Erica Nichole, Founder of YFS Magazine (Young, Fabulous and Self-employed), provides a great argument for the many reasons that small businesses need to take advantage of Twitter as a tool to interact with customers and prospects. Her insights in the article will help you to make dollars and sense out of Twitter while seizing market opportunities through an effective social media strategy using this platform.

1.  Lock in the Rules and Regulations. It is critical to determine eligibility, prizes, and how the winners of your contest are selected BEFORE you start promoting. Ensure your contest is legal in your state, and provide a link to the rules. Twitter offers guidelines for contests that you may want to review as well.

2.  Work Out the Kinks. Define the number of prizes you will offer, and a start and end date. Use a unique and memorable hashtag for promotion and analytics software tracking.

3.  Promote, Promote, Promote. This is a marketing campaign that you should treat seriously. Use flashy messages at key times to drive traffic. Encourage sharing of the contest as a way to improve chances to win.

4. Get Set to Launch. Make sure you aren’t bumping heads with other major contests or events on your chosen launch date and ramp up activity on the first day of the contest.

5. Finishing Touches. Once the contest is complete, award prizes promptly. Make sure to use the giving of the award itself as another opportunity to link with the followers and contest entrants.

Doing this right can go a long way toward creating customer crusaders who will promote your brand for you. Check out Mashable.com for even more details on these five steps!

Yoono is one app that may be worthy of your time. It can sort updates from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube–or you can view them all in one stream instead. (I personally prefer the Firefox add-on, although there are iPhone and desktop versions available too.) Yonoo also allows you update all of your status’ with one go, and provides widgets for shopping, email, and rss feeds.

Hustletown readers: Do you use Yoono, Seesmic, Tweetdeck or any similar software? Weigh in on what has worked best for you!

Mike Jones of MySpace

Facebook certainly established itself as the premier social networking site on the planet in 2010. The upcoming year will be interesting to watch, as the giant’s competitors examine new ways to reinvent themselves. MySpace President Mike Jones weighs in on a turbulent year, in socaltech.com’s year end interview with the top tech movers and shakers.

What was the biggest news for you/your firm this year?

The biggest news was a complete, new launch of a new product, strategy and brand. For us, it was a big departure from social networking and a new commitment to social entertainment.

What are the technologies, companies, or things you think the community ought to pay the most attention to in 2011?

One is to watch the companies who have the ability to leverage the power of social. The second thing, is to look at companies who are creating value on mobile and the web that is not advertising based. The third one, of course, is Myspace!

Read the full interview at socaltech.com.

According to the survey, 8% of online adults use Twitter. Seventy-four percent of American adults are internet users, which means that 6% of the entire adult population is tweeting–a percentage that will certainly grow. Other notable trends include:

• Young adults: Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than are older adults.
• African-Americans and Latinos: Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.
• Urbanites: Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.

If you have been balking at Twitter, these statistics provide encouraging data for giving your business marketing strategy a new outlet. Yet it is important not to become too reliant on social media as a means of reaching customers. Read the full report here.

Hustletown readers: Has Tweeting been a help or a hindrance to your business? Leave your feedback below!

Trend with Truth: The Brown Twitter Bird Movement « Black Web 2.0.

Black Web 2.0 provides some commentary on the Slate article about how black folks impact Twitter trending topics and the brown twitter birds that are beginning to pop up all over the internet. I don’t know what it all means–I believe that non-black people are making well intended efforts to describe our involvement and activity in influencing the online arena–but images and commentary often lack full dimension on the internet (it’s one of the realities of what it means to understand how to effectively communicate online). Good or bad, the article has sparked some conversation and a lot of comedy related to the new brown bird. Take a look at the article and catch my little birdie here.

The mad rush for internet real estate has started all over again now that .co domains are available but some restrictions apply. Read all about it via this great summary article by Rahsheen at BlackWeb 2.0. With almost 200,00 registrations so far, it just got a little harder to pick a good, descriptive domain while also worrying about whether somebody else will try to hijack your brand. BlackBusiness.co?

Why Small Businesses Shouldn’t Take Social Media for Granted.

There is a way to do social media right if you’re a small business owner. Most people spend a lot of time on Twitter, Facebook, and other sites keeping up with friends and sharing links and pictures from everyday things that happen in the course of their day. Savvy small business owners can also exploit these tools to create a greater following with their customers while also appealing to new customers who are already spending time online being social. Why shouldn’t people be more social with your business and share your products and services with their friends?