4 Ways to Mix and Mash Social Media to Boost Your Business

The registration system is pretty impressive, yet the registration staff wanted more information, faster, from the system. So one of our smart tech guys programmed a neat tool that leverages the power of Twitter's Tweets and hashtags to send updates to a giant flat panel screen when someone check into the convention, or when we canceled a room or made other changes.

To create this sort of update system on our own would have taken a long time. So instead we leveraged Twitter's Application Programming Interface (API) and connected it with our own registration system to give ourselves a free update system using Twitter. This is called a "mashup."

There are so many powerful online services being created every day. Why not consider what business challenge you are facing, and see how you can leverage these tools for your own businesses needs?

1. Status Updates (Twitter)

I've already given you one "hidden" way to use Twitter. Connect it to your database, for example, and use it to give private updates to subscribers to your protected Twitter feed. No use creating this from scratch when the guys at Twitter have spent lots of money on their own engine.

2. Check In System (Foursquare)

Foursquare's a great tool for enabling your customers to check in to your establishment and be rewarded or just become the mayor. Why not use it as a private way to enable people to "check in" to a party, corporate reception, or just check in to work? You can set up a private system to monitor and manage the checkins using the power of Foursquare.

3. Raffle with Your Cell Phone (Twilio)

Twilio is a powerful open source platform that enables you to create awesome applications for using a telephone, and even better, a cell phone. For example, for the Sixth Annual Small Business Summit I worked with Twilio to create a digital raffle ticket using the attendees' cell phones. They called a telephone number and then at my command Twilio randomly selected a cell phone number to ring. The person who answered won the raffle. If you want to build an awesome communication app, Twilio can do it.

4. Leverage Digital Maps

Google, Bing, Mapquest (and I'm sure others) have great online maps. Instead of creating static maps and addresses on your website, why not leverage the immense power of one of these mapping technologies? Enabling your customers or employees to addresses related to your business on a map not only increases their productivity but also empowers them to geographically interact with your business, in more ways than a static address can.

These tools are just the beginning of how you can leverage the power of online services to boost your business productivity. Some of these "mashups" you might be able to do on your own, while others might require the expertise of a programmer. Either way, it's cheaper than creating the entire application from scratch.

Some things to be careful of?

Happy computing!