With more than 1,000 events happening in New York alone, as well as across the U.S. and in other cities all over the world, figuring out what you want to do on this special evening can be tough — so many shops and parties, so little time. You know your favorite brands and artists, but if you need to choose, we’ve come up with a list of some of the more innovative events integrating social media to really put you ahead of the crowd. If you plan on making your way around New York this evening, check out the guide below.

Map Your Night

There are over 1,000 retailers across all five boroughs of New York taking part in FNO. What you want to do and see and buy can be easily determined by visiting the event’s official site and checking out the event listings. Here you’ll find an interactive map, where you can search for specific neighborhoods, retail categories and specific event types. So if you want to hit a block party with celebrity DJs, giveaways and other projects in Greenwich Village, you’ll find the Teen Vogue and ASOS.com event, which you can then add to your night out. Once you’ve figured out where you want to roam, you can share your map on Facebook and Twitter or e-mail your plans to specific friends, and hope that your different tastes in fashion won’t keep you from meeting up.

Mobile Fashion

For iPhone users, FNO gets a little easier to navigate after downloading LUSTR, the official app for Fashion’s Night Out. The app gives you access to event information and allows you to search for events the same way the official site’s interactive map does. Once you’ve chosen your destination, you can check in and post your whereabouts to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Tag the app’s official partnered retailers — DVF, Jimmy Choo, Tory Burch, J. Mendel, Henri Bendel and Judith Ripka — as a favorite, and be entered to win various fashionable goodies.

The app will also give you a list of sales and deals that are close to you when you allow it to find your location, making it much easier to decide what events to attend and which you might want to skip.

Max Mara is launching its first iPhone/iPad app for the ‘S Max Mara Cube collection called Decode the Cube. Fashion’s Night Out is the launch date for the app, with iPad terminals set up for guests to try the app and enter to win a Cube jacket. Guests will also be asked to try on the actual clothes and mix and match and style it their own personal way. Max Mara hopes that guests will share photos of themselves dressed from head to toe in the designs on Facebook and Twitter.

Multimedia Integrated Events

Fashion and tech mix once again as Diane von Furstenberg offers the DVF and HP Experience Lounge — a multimedia event that will transform the Washington Street store into an “interactive fashion playground.” Hosted by fashion blog Refinery29, you’ll see fashion installations and a “Fall Favorites” photo booth featuring DVF items handpicked by Refinery29 editors and displayed for shoppers to use while browsing their favorite looks. The photos can be printed and then posted to Facebook or streamed live into the lounge on social feed monitors which will allow guests to interact with each other, the fashion community and DVF. Plus, you might see celebs Olivia Palmero and Molly Sims, and listen to beats by DJ Elisa Sendaoui.

Tonight from 6 to 9 p.m., hair salon Frederik Fekkai at Henri Bendel’s presents an interactive red carpet. Guests become the celebs by selecting from five award-winning Marchesa designs. The hair team at Fekkai will recreate these looks and a personal stylist will dress you to the nines. For $75, you get a red carpet keepsake photo print and a digital photo sent via e-mail or text ready to be uploaded to Facebook and Twitter so you can show off your look. Bonus — all proceeds go to the NYC AIDS Fund in The New York Community Trust.

Yves Saint Laurent has partnered with online style community Polyvore to launch YSL’s latest Edition 24 Collection. FNO marks the beginning of the YSL sponsored Polyvore “Community Challenge.” The contest asks members to “employ virtual styling to explore the art of travel using the Edition 24 Collection.” The network of trendsetters have already created more than 20 million “sets” of digital collages of clothing, accessories and other products. They are shared between members on the site, as well as on the big social networks and the Internet at large. The challenge is to do the same with YSL’s new collection.

The contest lasts for eight days and is open to Polyvore members as well as the public. The winning set of photos, chosen by YSL, will be handed YSL’s new fall bag, the Multy.

Can’t Make It? Livestream It

You won’t make it to every event; it’s just not possible. Or maybe you can’t make it at all. If so, don’t despair. Livestream is bringing you three different events, allowing you to enjoy FNO from the comfort of your laptop screen. At Nine West you can check out a musical performance by Joss Stone. On Juicy Couture’s channel, follow designer Erin Fetherston as she offers shoppers style tips. Then, tune in for a live performance by Janelle Monae over at Ralph Lauren.

There are many more events offering awesome sales, performances and exciting chances to see the latest fashions. Make sure to head over to the Fashion’s Night Out site, or follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #FNO to get the real-time scoop on the evening.

Let us know in the comments below about your favorite FNO event.

More Fashion Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Follow Fashion Week Online
- HOW TO: Score the Best Fashion Deals on the Social Web
- 14 Sites Changing the Way We Shop
- How the Fashion Magazine Industry Plans to Profit from Digital This Fall
- 10 Essential Accessories for the Fashionable Geek

More About: celebrities, designers, Events, fashion week, fashion's night out, FNO, foursquare, geolocation, livestream, LUSTR, Maxara, nyfw, parties, polyvore, style, YSL

For more Entertainment coverage:

• Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Entertainment channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

With more than 1,000 events happening in New York alone, as well as across the U.S. and in other cities all over the world, figuring out what you want to do on this special evening can be tough — so many shops and parties, so little time. You know your favorite brands and artists, but if you need to choose, we’ve come up with a list of some of the more innovative events integrating social media to really put you ahead of the crowd. If you plan on making your way around New York this evening, check out the guide below.

Map Your Night

There are over 1,000 retailers across all five boroughs of New York taking part in FNO. What you want to do and see and buy can be easily determined by visiting the event’s official site and checking out the event listings. Here you’ll find an interactive map, where you can search for specific neighborhoods, retail categories and specific event types. So if you want to hit a block party with celebrity DJs, giveaways and other projects in Greenwich Village, you’ll find the Teen Vogue and ASOS.com event, which you can then add to your night out. Once you’ve figured out where you want to roam, you can share your map on Facebook and Twitter or e-mail your plans to specific friends, and hope that your different tastes in fashion won’t keep you from meeting up.

Mobile Fashion

For iPhone users, FNO gets a little easier to navigate after downloading LUSTR, the official app for Fashion’s Night Out. The app gives you access to event information and allows you to search for events the same way the official site’s interactive map does. Once you’ve chosen your destination, you can check in and post your whereabouts to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. Tag the app’s official partnered retailers — DVF, Jimmy Choo, Tory Burch, J. Mendel, Henri Bendel and Judith Ripka — as a favorite, and be entered to win various fashionable goodies.

The app will also give you a list of sales and deals that are close to you when you allow it to find your location, making it much easier to decide what events to attend and which you might want to skip.

Max Mara is launching its first iPhone/iPad app for the ‘S Max Mara Cube collection called Decode the Cube. Fashion’s Night Out is the launch date for the app, with iPad terminals set up for guests to try the app and enter to win a Cube jacket. Guests will also be asked to try on the actual clothes and mix and match and style it their own personal way. Max Mara hopes that guests will share photos of themselves dressed from head to toe in the designs on Facebook and Twitter.

Multimedia Integrated Events

Fashion and tech mix once again as Diane von Furstenberg offers the DVF and HP Experience Lounge — a multimedia event that will transform the Washington Street store into an “interactive fashion playground.” Hosted by fashion blog Refinery29, you’ll see fashion installations and a “Fall Favorites” photo booth featuring DVF items handpicked by Refinery29 editors and displayed for shoppers to use while browsing their favorite looks. The photos can be printed and then posted to Facebook or streamed live into the lounge on social feed monitors which will allow guests to interact with each other, the fashion community and DVF. Plus, you might see celebs Olivia Palmero and Molly Sims, and listen to beats by DJ Elisa Sendaoui.

Tonight from 6 to 9 p.m., hair salon Frederik Fekkai at Henri Bendel’s presents an interactive red carpet. Guests become the celebs by selecting from five award-winning Marchesa designs. The hair team at Fekkai will recreate these looks and a personal stylist will dress you to the nines. For $75, you get a red carpet keepsake photo print and a digital photo sent via e-mail or text ready to be uploaded to Facebook and Twitter so you can show off your look. Bonus — all proceeds go to the NYC AIDS Fund in The New York Community Trust.

Yves Saint Laurent has partnered with online style community Polyvore to launch YSL’s latest Edition 24 Collection. FNO marks the beginning of the YSL sponsored Polyvore “Community Challenge.” The contest asks members to “employ virtual styling to explore the art of travel using the Edition 24 Collection.” The network of trendsetters have already created more than 20 million “sets” of digital collages of clothing, accessories and other products. They are shared between members on the site, as well as on the big social networks and the Internet at large. The challenge is to do the same with YSL’s new collection.

The contest lasts for eight days and is open to Polyvore members as well as the public. The winning set of photos, chosen by YSL, will be handed YSL’s new fall bag, the Multy.

Can’t Make It? Livestream It

You won’t make it to every event; it’s just not possible. Or maybe you can’t make it at all. If so, don’t despair. Livestream is bringing you three different events, allowing you to enjoy FNO from the comfort of your laptop screen. At Nine West you can check out a musical performance by Joss Stone. On Juicy Couture’s channel, follow designer Erin Fetherston as she offers shoppers style tips. Then, tune in for a live performance by Janelle Monae over at Ralph Lauren.

There are many more events offering awesome sales, performances and exciting chances to see the latest fashions. Make sure to head over to the Fashion’s Night Out site, or follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #FNO to get the real-time scoop on the evening.

Let us know in the comments below about your favorite FNO event.

More Fashion Resources from Mashable:

- HOW TO: Follow Fashion Week Online
- HOW TO: Score the Best Fashion Deals on the Social Web
- 14 Sites Changing the Way We Shop
- How the Fashion Magazine Industry Plans to Profit from Digital This Fall
- 10 Essential Accessories for the Fashionable Geek

More About: celebrities, designers, Events, fashion week, fashion's night out, FNO, foursquare, geolocation, livestream, LUSTR, Maxara, nyfw, parties, polyvore, style, YSL

For more Entertainment coverage:

• Follow Mashable Entertainment on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Entertainment channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Name: Cadmus

Quick Pitch: Cadmus is a real time filtering service that manages your stream (Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS) by displaying the most relevant content since the last time you checked in.

Genius Idea: Any avid Twitter user can speak to the challenge of information overload. Cadmus is here to help. The service takes your Twitter stream, plucks out the most important tweets and organizes them by relevance. Cadmus is conversation management at its best, giving you access to the most significant content since your last login — it’s almost akin to Priority Inbox for your Twitter stream.

To use Cadmus, simply login using Twitter OAuth. Cadmus will process your tweets and present you with a page of posts, sorted by relevance since your last login.

Cadmus groups tweets into conversations, filtered around similar posts, and places the most important conversations at the top. You can then dig deeper in to your most important missed conversations, and filter around time, Twitter Lists and personal trending topics, via the left-hand column.

The feature allowing Cadmus to pick out relevant conversations from Twitter Lists is quite impressive. The same holds true for Cadmus’ ability to scour the tweets trending in your own social sphere. If you’ve ever been displeased with the quality of tweets that show up for trending topics on Twitter, try looking at the tweets for a personal trending topic. Much better — if only because the conversations happening around the particular topic are more relevant given your relationship to the Twitter users.

Cadmus’ secret sauce is its ability to accurately determine relevance. We may never know what the exact ingredients are that make up the sauce — the startup believes its relevance algorithm is second to none. Still, Cadmus does disclose that it tracks relationships, ranks the importance of the source and determines the importance of each post.

Cadmus is capable of filtering more than just tweets. FriendFeed hangers-on can connect their accounts to auto-sort conversations by relevance. Users can also add their favorite RSS feeds and zero in on buzz-worthy articles.

Cadmus has even released an API, which means the company’s filtering technology can be utilized inside other applications. Seesmic Desktop 2 users, for instance, can install the Cadmus plugin for fast access to their stream of relevant tweets and conversations.

Cadmus, an application made by Anomaly Innovations, is one of the very first projects to hail from i/o Ventures, a four month long incubator program for early stage startups.

Image courtesy of Mykl Roventine, Flickr

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: cadmus, i/o ventures, twitter

For more Social Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Name: Cadmus

Quick Pitch: Cadmus is a real time filtering service that manages your stream (Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS) by displaying the most relevant content since the last time you checked in.

Genius Idea: Any avid Twitter user can speak to the challenge of information overload. Cadmus is here to help. The service takes your Twitter stream, plucks out the most important tweets and organizes them by relevance. Cadmus is conversation management at its best, giving you access to the most significant content since your last login — it’s almost akin to Priority Inbox for your Twitter stream.

To use Cadmus, simply login using Twitter OAuth. Cadmus will process your tweets and present you with a page of posts, sorted by relevance since your last login.

Cadmus groups tweets into conversations, filtered around similar posts, and places the most important conversations at the top. You can then dig deeper in to your most important missed conversations, and filter around time, Twitter Lists and personal trending topics, via the left-hand column.

The feature allowing Cadmus to pick out relevant conversations from Twitter Lists is quite impressive. The same holds true for Cadmus’ ability to scour the tweets trending in your own social sphere. If you’ve ever been displeased with the quality of tweets that show up for trending topics on Twitter, try looking at the tweets for a personal trending topic. Much better — if only because the conversations happening around the particular topic are more relevant given your relationship to the Twitter users.

Cadmus’ secret sauce is its ability to accurately determine relevance. We may never know what the exact ingredients are that make up the sauce — the startup believes its relevance algorithm is second to none. Still, Cadmus does disclose that it tracks relationships, ranks the importance of the source and determines the importance of each post.

Cadmus is capable of filtering more than just tweets. FriendFeed hangers-on can connect their accounts to auto-sort conversations by relevance. Users can also add their favorite RSS feeds and zero in on buzz-worthy articles.

Cadmus has even released an API, which means the company’s filtering technology can be utilized inside other applications. Seesmic Desktop 2 users, for instance, can install the Cadmus plugin for fast access to their stream of relevant tweets and conversations.

Cadmus, an application made by Anomaly Innovations, is one of the very first projects to hail from i/o Ventures, a four month long incubator program for early stage startups.

Image courtesy of Mykl Roventine, Flickr

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

More About: cadmus, i/o ventures, twitter

For more Social Media coverage:

• Follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Social Media channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Gartner expects manufacturers to take a similar approach with Android, with budget Android-based devices coming to market from manufacturers like Sony Ericsson, LG and Motorola. In other words, in addition to the Droid X and Galaxy S devices we see today, manufacturers will also be releasing low-cost Android devices that are probably more similar to feature phones than smartphones.

On its face, Gartner’s predictions make a lot of sense. We agree that open source platforms are likely to dominate the global mobile landscape, especially as more and more phone makers shift to a smartphone OS of some type.

However, we do question Gartner’s prediction that even in 2014, Symbian will be at 30.2 percent market share. As it stands, Nokia is moving away from Symbian on most of its flagship phones, focusing on MeeGo instead. As a platform, Symbian may retain a huge userbase but developer interest and innovation in the space just isn’t there.

Additionally, while there will still be markets where offering a fully-featured smartphone isn’t economically viable, consumers and users from all over the world are demanding more from their devices, not less. It’s hard to imagine that in four years time, the Symbian platform will still exist in its current form and that device makers will want to use it.

We’d place our bets on a highly customized low-end Android stack taking over the bottom of the world market, with the higher tier smartphone market still at play amongst the big players like iOS, Android, RIM and the upcoming Windows Phone 7.

Four years is a long time in mobile phone years; we’ll just have to see how accurate these predictions prove to be in the future.

More About: android, iOS, Mobile 2.0, mobile market share, Nokia, Symbian

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• Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter
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Gartner expects manufacturers to take a similar approach with Android, with budget Android-based devices coming to market from manufacturers like Sony Ericsson, LG and Motorola. In other words, in addition to the Droid X and Galaxy S devices we see today, manufacturers will also be releasing low-cost Android devices that are probably more similar to feature phones than smartphones.

On its face, Gartner’s predictions make a lot of sense. We agree that open source platforms are likely to dominate the global mobile landscape, especially as more and more phone makers shift to a smartphone OS of some type.

However, we do question Gartner’s prediction that even in 2014, Symbian will be at 30.2 percent market share. As it stands, Nokia is moving away from Symbian on most of its flagship phones, focusing on MeeGo instead. As a platform, Symbian may retain a huge userbase but developer interest and innovation in the space just isn’t there.

Additionally, while there will still be markets where offering a fully-featured smartphone isn’t economically viable, consumers and users from all over the world are demanding more from their devices, not less. It’s hard to imagine that in four years time, the Symbian platform will still exist in its current form and that device makers will want to use it.

We’d place our bets on a highly customized low-end Android stack taking over the bottom of the world market, with the higher tier smartphone market still at play amongst the big players like iOS, Android, RIM and the upcoming Windows Phone 7.

Four years is a long time in mobile phone years; we’ll just have to see how accurate these predictions prove to be in the future.

More About: android, iOS, Mobile 2.0, mobile market share, Nokia, Symbian

For more Mobile coverage:

• Follow Mashable Mobile on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Mobile channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Citing a recovering economy and increasing marketer interest in the space, research company eMarketer recently raised its 2010 spending forecast for advertising on social networks by nearly 30% to $1.68 billion domestically.

Within the social media world, however, a number of trends are dictating how, why and where money gets spent — trends that will push the industry past the $2 billion mark in 2011, according to eMarketer’s projections.

A Snowball Effect at Facebook

Not surprisingly, the biggest beneficiary of the current euphoria around social is Facebook, with several estimates now pegging the company’s 2010 revenue at better than $1 billion. That growth is being fueled in part by what some advertisers see as competition to scoring prime advertising space on the site.

“Most of our clients see a real need to spend a lot on Facebook ads … the amount of dollars other brands have spent has forced spends up overall,” says Andrea Wolinetz, a partner at MEC Global, which represents the likes of Ikea, AT&T, and Citi. “There’s so much noise and clutter on Facebook now, that spending a good deal has become important in order to be heard.”

There’s also a growing sense that social media advertising can deliver a return on investment. Neil Kleiner, head of social media at Havas Media UK, says “We’ve found advertising on social networks to be very effective, but mainly as a part of a larger piece of activity that involved more ‘traditional’ social media techniques … ads on social media work best when they drive interaction and engagement. Interaction and engagement can then drive purchase.”

Kleiner, whose firm does work for brands ranging from McDonalds to Warner Brothers, adds that Facebook advertising has become a “default for most brands as a part of their media spend.”

Twitter’s Experimental Phase

After years of fielding questions about how it plans to make money, Twitter has launched numerous experimental business models over the past several months. At the forefront is Promoted Tweets, a program that inserts a brand-sponsored topic into Twitter’s “trending topics” list and presents a tweet from that sponsor to users, in hopes of generating retweets, replies and other forms of engagement.

Early testers of the program include Virgin America and Coca-Cola, the latter of which reported 86 million impressions and an “engagement rate” of 6% back when it used the program in June during the World Cup. More recently, the online brokerage firm Zecco reported that engagement on its promoted tweets was 50% higher than its regular tweets, with “200 to 300% increases in some cases.”

Case studies are still limited, though. Kleiner says, “Promoted Tweets have not seen that much traction [with my clients],” though he sees an opportunity to “add real value to a long tail of advertisers.” For the moment though, that long tail is mostly left out of Promoted Tweets, as the program remains in limited beta.

As the program sees public rollout later this year, the results could be significant for Twitter and advertisers. In its report, eMarketer wrote that it expects “spending on the microblogging service [to] be low in 2010,” but adds that, “the potential for 2011 and beyond could be dramatic if it proves that its ‘resonance’ model of measuring advertising effectiveness works.”

Location Excites Marketers, Maybe More than Consumers

The latest extension of social — knowing not just what your friends are doing but where they’re doing it — is one of the hottest trends of the year.

The field collectively referred to as “location” has marketers from Starbucks to Best Buy excited about the possibilities of increasing foot traffic through programs that reward customers for “checking in” and sharing their location and brand affinity with their friends.

That said, such programs are largely experimental, and many of the startups in the space lack the critical mass to significantly move the needle for big brands. “Foursquare is the buzz word on a lot of people’s lips,” says Kleiner, “but it has such a comparatively small audience that are niche to the point of incestuous. It’s mainly used by people that work in marketing, not ‘normal’ people.”

Still, getting started in the location realm requires less of an investment than competing for space on Facebook, says Wolinetz. “We spend a lot of our time testing and focusing interest in location-based services and Twitter, as our clients are eager to ‘master’ these emerging platforms, and [they] generally require less of a paid media investment than Facebook does.“

Kleiner concedes that he’s bullish on the potential of Facebook getting into location with the recent launch of Places, though the tools aren’t yet there for advertisers. “We will have some real mass to play with when Facebook allows advertisers to buy against location,” he said.

Social No Longer Sits at the Kids’ Table

While the market sorts out the winners and losers from a platform perspective, one thing that’s becoming clear is that social — which eMarketer estimates will account for 6.7% of total online ad spend this year — is being thought of in a much broader light than even the increasingly optimistic projections show.

“Social campaigns used to be more siloed from the rest of the communications and marketing strategies,” says Wolinetz, “but now we’re seeing social as either an extension of an overall activation idea that occurs throughout other media outlets, or conversely, the marketing/communication strategy is at its heart and inception social, and we’re using other media outlets to drive awareness and scale.”

And while that might mean social’s share of ad dollars is still relatively small, its importance within organizations is as high as it has ever been. “The biggest shift for us is that we are now seeing brands move away from pure campaign planning altogether and are allowing social media to be the bedrock for a 24-7, 365 days a year chance to engage their customers,” says Kleiner.

With increasing interest in social media marketing among advertisers, we’re excited to see where the industry will go in the next year. Let us know your thoughts on the topic in the comments below.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Emerging Social Platforms and How Businesses Can Use Them
- 10 Free WordPress Themes for Small Businesses
- The Future of Ad Agencies and Social Media
- HOW TO: Run Your Business Online with $10 and a Google Account
- 5 New Ways Small Business Can Offer Location-Based Deals

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, briancweed

More About: advertising, business, facebook, Facebook Places, MARKETING, Promoted Tweets, social media, social media advertising, social media marketing, twitter

For more Business coverage:

• Follow Mashable Business on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to the Business channel
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Citing a recovering economy and increasing marketer interest in the space, research company eMarketer recently raised its 2010 spending forecast for advertising on social networks by nearly 30% to $1.68 billion domestically.

Within the social media world, however, a number of trends are dictating how, why and where money gets spent — trends that will push the industry past the $2 billion mark in 2011, according to eMarketer’s projections.

A Snowball Effect at Facebook

Not surprisingly, the biggest beneficiary of the current euphoria around social is Facebook, with several estimates now pegging the company’s 2010 revenue at better than $1 billion. That growth is being fueled in part by what some advertisers see as competition to scoring prime advertising space on the site.

“Most of our clients see a real need to spend a lot on Facebook ads … the amount of dollars other brands have spent has forced spends up overall,” says Andrea Wolinetz, a partner at MEC Global, which represents the likes of Ikea, AT&T, and Citi. “There’s so much noise and clutter on Facebook now, that spending a good deal has become important in order to be heard.”

There’s also a growing sense that social media advertising can deliver a return on investment. Neil Kleiner, head of social media at Havas Media UK, says “We’ve found advertising on social networks to be very effective, but mainly as a part of a larger piece of activity that involved more ‘traditional’ social media techniques … ads on social media work best when they drive interaction and engagement. Interaction and engagement can then drive purchase.”

Kleiner, whose firm does work for brands ranging from McDonalds to Warner Brothers, adds that Facebook advertising has become a “default for most brands as a part of their media spend.”

Twitter’s Experimental Phase

After years of fielding questions about how it plans to make money, Twitter has launched numerous experimental business models over the past several months. At the forefront is Promoted Tweets, a program that inserts a brand-sponsored topic into Twitter’s “trending topics” list and presents a tweet from that sponsor to users, in hopes of generating retweets, replies and other forms of engagement.

Early testers of the program include Virgin America and Coca-Cola, the latter of which reported 86 million impressions and an “engagement rate” of 6% back when it used the program in June during the World Cup. More recently, the online brokerage firm Zecco reported that engagement on its promoted tweets was 50% higher than its regular tweets, with “200 to 300% increases in some cases.”

Case studies are still limited, though. Kleiner says, “Promoted Tweets have not seen that much traction [with my clients],” though he sees an opportunity to “add real value to a long tail of advertisers.” For the moment though, that long tail is mostly left out of Promoted Tweets, as the program remains in limited beta.

As the program sees public rollout later this year, the results could be significant for Twitter and advertisers. In its report, eMarketer wrote that it expects “spending on the microblogging service [to] be low in 2010,” but adds that, “the potential for 2011 and beyond could be dramatic if it proves that its ‘resonance’ model of measuring advertising effectiveness works.”

Location Excites Marketers, Maybe More than Consumers

The latest extension of social — knowing not just what your friends are doing but where they’re doing it — is one of the hottest trends of the year.

The field collectively referred to as “location” has marketers from Starbucks to Best Buy excited about the possibilities of increasing foot traffic through programs that reward customers for “checking in” and sharing their location and brand affinity with their friends.

That said, such programs are largely experimental, and many of the startups in the space lack the critical mass to significantly move the needle for big brands. “Foursquare is the buzz word on a lot of people’s lips,” says Kleiner, “but it has such a comparatively small audience that are niche to the point of incestuous. It’s mainly used by people that work in marketing, not ‘normal’ people.”

Still, getting started in the location realm requires less of an investment than competing for space on Facebook, says Wolinetz. “We spend a lot of our time testing and focusing interest in location-based services and Twitter, as our clients are eager to ‘master’ these emerging platforms, and [they] generally require less of a paid media investment than Facebook does.“

Kleiner concedes that he’s bullish on the potential of Facebook getting into location with the recent launch of Places, though the tools aren’t yet there for advertisers. “We will have some real mass to play with when Facebook allows advertisers to buy against location,” he said.

Social No Longer Sits at the Kids’ Table

While the market sorts out the winners and losers from a platform perspective, one thing that’s becoming clear is that social — which eMarketer estimates will account for 6.7% of total online ad spend this year — is being thought of in a much broader light than even the increasingly optimistic projections show.

“Social campaigns used to be more siloed from the rest of the communications and marketing strategies,” says Wolinetz, “but now we’re seeing social as either an extension of an overall activation idea that occurs throughout other media outlets, or conversely, the marketing/communication strategy is at its heart and inception social, and we’re using other media outlets to drive awareness and scale.”

And while that might mean social’s share of ad dollars is still relatively small, its importance within organizations is as high as it has ever been. “The biggest shift for us is that we are now seeing brands move away from pure campaign planning altogether and are allowing social media to be the bedrock for a 24-7, 365 days a year chance to engage their customers,” says Kleiner.

With increasing interest in social media marketing among advertisers, we’re excited to see where the industry will go in the next year. Let us know your thoughts on the topic in the comments below.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 10 Emerging Social Platforms and How Businesses Can Use Them
- 10 Free WordPress Themes for Small Businesses
- The Future of Ad Agencies and Social Media
- HOW TO: Run Your Business Online with $10 and a Google Account
- 5 New Ways Small Business Can Offer Location-Based Deals

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, briancweed

More About: advertising, business, facebook, Facebook Places, MARKETING, Promoted Tweets, social media, social media advertising, social media marketing, twitter

For more Business coverage:

• Follow Mashable Business on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
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Stand Up To Cancer is a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a non-profit organization. Tonight, dozens of celebrities will participate in a live telethon event to be broadcast across all major networks to fundraise for cutting-edge cancer research.

For the first time ever, viewers can pick up Facebook instead of the phone, and use credits — with 100% of donations going to the program — as an alternative way to donate to the cause. Facebook Credits is a virtual currency that site members can use to purchase digital goods in more than 150 social games inside Facebook.

Facebook members can visit Stand Up To Cancer’s Facebook Page to make a donation. The page is already accepting Facebook Credits donations, and will also host a live stream of tonight’s Stand Up To Cancer pre-show and broadcast event.

The 2008 Stand Up To Cancer telethon raised more than $100 million. With Facebook Credits, this year’s event could raise even more by tapping into the world’s largest social network for social good. Donors who choose to give through Facebook can share their donations through wall posts, spreading the word about Stand Up To Cancer with their friends.

Donations and Facebook Credits seem to go hand in hand. Earlier this year, the Red Cross raised millions for Haiti relief by soliciting text message donations. The success of that initiative confirms consumer interest in simple, alternative donation options. It should be interesting to see if Facebook’s 500 million + members will respond to the option of making donations through Facebook Credits.

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We broke it down by the numbers and put some of these FarmVille trends in perspective for you.

Go on. Harvest it.

What do you think? Does FarmVille ignite our romance with all things pastoral? Are digital crops poised to overtake real ones in terms of GDP? What does all this mean for the fate of humanity?

Share your wisdom in the comments.

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More About: facebook, farmville, games, gaming, infographic, infographics, iphone, social games, social media, stats, Zynga

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