Learn how to build relationships, express identity, and manage information with Facebook.

With the recent explosion and expansion of online video, the biggest question is how to best drive viewer action and monetize this new medium. Online video has a lot of promise. It offers what was once limited to expensive TV advertising: reach and emotional engagement with potential customers. And, it’s relatively cheap and provides immediate, measurable feedback.

One of the reasons I was able to draw so many readers to Zen Habits within the first year was that I treated the promotion of Zen Habits as you would any other product—I branded it.

Of course, there are other reasons as well—I really focused on creating as useful content as possible, for example—but branding is what really helped Zen Habits take off so quickly.

When you think of your blog as you would a brand, you have to create a consistent message and have everything you do—on and off the blog—send the same message. And you have to repeat the message as often as possible to your target audience until it’s stuck in their head.

Today we’ll look at some of the basic ideas of branding and how you can use them to promote your blog (or book or other business, product or service).

Mary Madden of the Pew Internet Project discusses podcasting.

E-mail is so last millennium. Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder—a parent, teacher or a boss—or to receive an attached file. But increasingly, the former darling of high-tech communication is losing favor to instant and text messaging, and to the chatter generated on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

Social media mimics real relationships—in many cases. Would you do the following within real face-to-face relationships?

• Jump on the friendship bandwagon without properly introducing yourself?
• Consistently talk about yourself and promote only yourself without regard for those around you?
• Randomly approach a friend you barely talk to and simply ask for favors—repeatedly?
• Introduce yourself to another person as “Pink House Gardening?”

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may need a refresher course on social media etiquette—and perhaps real-life etiquette also. Here are some egregious sins that you must not perform on social media sites.  Avoid these violations and learn how to manage and maintain online relationships on a variety of popular social media sites.

Millions of people worldwide now use social networking tools to find old friends and stay in contact with new and existing friends. In the U.S., the social networking Web sites MySpace and Facebook are most often used, according to published data. Many companies, large and small, are taking advantage of this more personal way to reach out to current and potential customers.

Don Tapscott talks about how web sites such as Facebook and Wikipedia are changing the way corporations do business.

Today, Part 1 of my two-part interview with the awesome social media team at Kodak. I was impressed with some of their blogging during this year’s Olympic Games, which prompted me to want to learn more about what they’re up to.

We’ll be talking about their blogging efforts, the role social media plays in their business, and how they’ll be incorporating social media into their future plans.

Be careful what you write in e-mails, especially at work because your boss may be watching.