Social media monitoring tools are quickly becoming a lot less of an option and more of an essential tool for both individuals and companies. Conversations are being held in the vast world of media web with little regulation of what is being said, and no longer can we choose to be ignorant of these conversations. On the contrary, we must join them.

We’ve provided a couple links to help you catch up on all the news and ideas shared at the program’s various presentations, panel discussions, interactive workshops, seminars and more.

While 2009 was the year to get your feet wet with social networking sites, 2010 is the year to perfect your social media campaigns so that they yield the best results possible. So for everyone out there who is already participating, contributing and is part of the community, here are a few items to help plan out your social media campaigns for twenty ten.

It is a new year, and it seems that everyone is embracing change and boarding the social media train (that is, if they haven’t already). As one of the most commonly used social media networks worldwide and one of Wicked’s personal favorite communication tools, Twitter is already a daily part of our lives and can, at times, be difficult to manage without the help of some business friendly twitter clients.

Still don’t completely understand Google Wave and the zillions of things you can do with it? Check out these sites to help gain some clarity:

For the most comprehensive overview, you could check out the infamous 80-min video made by Google detailing every inch of the application: [Youtube]
Or, if you don’t quite have an [...]

No doubt, Twitter is here to stay. The social media site is fast becoming as necessary as having a Web page in helping to promote products, people and brands online. As the site expands, many easy-to-use features, apps and tools are popping up to help you stay connected to clients, competitors and the like. One [...]

And now a quick look at what experts think the future will bring to social media:

Harvard pulls out its crystal ball and predicts six social media trends of 2010. [Harvard Business]
Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur goes ultra lo-fi and introduces 30 ideas likely to be on Twitter’s forecast. [Mashable]
The powers that be believe social network [...]

Our friend Jason Calacanis (@jason) had the always entertaining and passionate Gary Vaynerchuck (@garyvee) on his “This Week in Startups” show last Friday. Gary was there to talk about his new book Crush It and took calls and answered tweets from TWIST viewers looking for his insight on entrepreneurship.
If you’re not familiar with Gary, he’s [...]

New users continue to flock to Twitter every day, including a number of major brands, but many businesses still seem to be avoiding the popular social media service.

While everyone from Martha Stewart (@Marthastewart) to Neil Diamond (@NeilDiamond) may have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, several industry reports have pointed out that one surprising demographic in particular isn’t busy tweeting the day away: Teens.
The news that teens aren’t hip to Twitter has been circulating for months now, with studies showing that only 16 [...]