Are you an excessive Twitterer? One of those who posts updates every hour on the hour or takes the long way home to squeeze in as much Twitter time as you can before dinner? Well, for those of you who tweet straight through your daily commute and gym class alike, we have good news. Consider it exercise!

TweetCalories, a recently released web app created by ad agency Grupo ABC, measures the approximate number of calories you burn in a 24-hour period while tweeting. Based on a number of assumptions (including the average word length in a tweet, the average user’s typing speed, and the average weight of the Twitterer), the app’s creators have determined that sending a single tweet burns about 1.03 calories. So, send 50 in a day and burn off that handful of Skittles you couldn’t resist from the bowl in the break room!

Of course, we don’t recommend making tweeting your only form of exercise—but hey, next time you think you’re over-tweeting, just remember this post and keep on keeping on.

Within the enormous realm of social media, the primary goal of every blogger, Twitterer, Facebooker, and FourSquarer alike is to differentiate him- or herself—to be uniquely fascinating. If for no other reason, this is his purpose because the millions of others vying for the same attention as him demand it.

According to Guy Kawasaki, co-founder of the “online magazine rack” Alltop, “the challenge is to achieve a consistent level of fascinating information about your area of expertise.” The solution, he says, is to find good blogs, stories, and videos about the topic and then to provide links to them within your preferred social networking site or profile.

To uncover these subject-appropriate gems, Kawasaki offers three web-based sources:

1. StumbleUpon

2. SmartBrief

3. Alltop

Each site allows you to enter specific search criteria and then generates websites, industry-specific newsletters, or blog posts and articles, respectively, that pertain to your criteria. So take a minute to give them a go, and your readers, followers, friends, and business will thank you for it.

"Cyborg is Speaking," courtesy of http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/life-style/2010/05/32-pictures-caught-at-the-exact-right-moment.html

Click here for more irony and humor than you could ever expect before 9am on a Saturday. Our favorites are 13 and 27.

Despite the recent hubbub surrounding privacy concerns for Facebook users, the site has continued to grow at an incredible pace. In fact, there are over 400 million active users today-a number roughly equal to the population of the US, Canada, and Mexico combined. Of these users, 50 percent log in daily, 25 percent access the site through a mobile device, and 10 million have joined in the last 30 days. So, backlash? I don’t think so.

That doesn’t mean Facebook hasn’t received bad press, though. Last week, CNN reported a security hole in Yelp (one of the test partners in Facebook’s “Instant Personalization” program), and the week prior two security incidents (one involving a “Preview My Profile” button glitch and another, the unannounced addition of third-party applications to user profiles) stirred concerns over the degree of privacy the site’s users actually maintained.

The moral of the story? Be aware of the information you provide online and how the sites that receive it intend for it to be used, but don’t let a little privacy scare send you swearing off the internet forever. If you’re smart about the information you choose to divulge and keep up-to-date on the privacy policy and user agreement of any site you use, social media sites like Facebook can be a huge asset to both your business and your personal life.

I listened with interest to a SC Business Review interview last week, in which a career coach suggested 70% of this year’s college grads will either be unemployed or will need to enter their family business. Now…I might take issue with the notion that going into the family business is a fate almost as bad as unemployment (!), I do see the difficulty young people are having entering the workforce. So here’s the advice I give them: Work in your field, even if you aren’t getting paid for it. Come out of an internship or externship with real exerience makes you marketable!

We took a nice trip to Columbia, SC recently and came home with some bling for our clients. Touchpoint earned some appreciated Mercury Awards from SCPRSA (entries were judged by pros in Kansas City). We were thrilled to win for Bulldog Tours’ marketing program, and for our Brand-Aide effort last year. Best of all: our very own Grace LeSueur won Rookie of the Year! The only surprise there is that somebody so seasoned and talented is a “rookie.” Thanks, clients, for helping us do what we love!