Do you ever wonder how much good your social media marketing activity is doing you?

A recent study by Rice University in Texas attempted to quantify the exact ROI of a Facebook page for a small business – in this case, a bakery and cafe chain in Houston. Having no previous social media presence, they were an ideal subject, since they were able to precisely measure the difference to a number of metrics.

These included new customers, customer loyalty increases, number of visits per customer, and amount spent – all compared with a ‘normal’ customer who had not signed up to the Facebook page. The result was that a Facebook presence had a positive effect on all of these aspects – but note that the bakery was diligent about frequent updates, with special offers and photo galleries.

The message is clear – it could also work for your small business, if you are willing to put the time in – or outsource to people like us.

So, last week tweets from space – this week, tweets from dogs. Is the world going completely crazy?

Mattel, the well-known toy company, have brought out Puppy Tweets. It’s basically a collar which is triggered by certain doggy events – barking, say, or chowing down – to send an automatic message to the dog’s Twitter account.

Which does rather beg the question, who (beyond its adoring owner, I suppose) is going to want to read those tweets? As some wag remarked as Twitter announced that 50 million tweets are sent per day, yes, and at least 1 million of them are actually read.

We always think its worth drawing attention to businesses who are using internet technologies and online platforms in remarkable ways. By checking them out, you can only learn – and perhaps even build on their ideas.

Recently, I visited the Your Move website on my iPod: it’s an aggregate site bringing together many estate agents’ data in one place. The site, detecting that I was on a mobile device, asked if I’d like to download the app – for free – and, out of curiosity, I did so.

Now, the building of apps is not going to suit every business, but it is perfect for those, like estate agents, where the user is likely to come back again and again before they complete a task. Your Move’s canny developers have clearly thought through exactly what it is the average housebuyer needs, and provided it on a plate.

Enter the postcode of the area you’d like to search in, and filter the results by number of bedrooms, price, etc, and you are served a list of the latest properties. If you see one you like, you can flick through an image gallery, save it, and even send a request to the estate agents to receive more details. It’s basically all the functionality you get on a main website, but compacted handily to fit onto your pocket device.

The result? Well, I may only be window shopping these days, but when the time comes to start house-hunting in earnest, I’ll turn first to the app that’s already right there on my iPod – and that is the sort of return a business wants from an investment like this.

As you may have heard, there’s a new social media platform in town – and it comes from Google. As a business owner, you may be wondering whether it’s yet another place where you have to keep up a presence – like Facebook, Twitter and your blog aren’t taking enough of your time!

Our advice? Wait a little. There’s already been quite a strong backlash in the press (and, ironically enough, on those existing social media platforms), mostly predicated on the way Google introduced its new product. As it’s integrated with GMail (Google’s email service) and switched on by default, many are complaining that it breaches privacy by scanning your contacts and setting them up as your followers with no input required.

If negative feeling reaches critical mass, we may see the service fade away into the background, at least for a while. Remember all the excitement about Google Wave? That receded, once people had gained an invitation, logged in, and found it… well, a little more visionary than they could cope with, shall we say. How about Lively, Google’s virtual world? I’d forgotten that so thoroughly that I just had to Google it to remember its name, and yet, at the time of launch, it was going to be the next great thing.

So don’t launch your Buzz presence yet – if you’ve even worked out how to yet, which would put you a step ahead of the big boys. If you feel brave, click that ‘Buzz’ link in your GMail, and watch, and wait. Then you’ll understand the interface and be ready to leap in when it starts looking like a viable way to promote your business.

How much do you love Google? Enough to display your affection across your chest?

Google teamed up with some young fashion designers, asking them to create a piece that somehow reflected the Google ethos. This t-shirt, showing the iconic Google Maps marker, is the most straightforward; you can also show your Google affection more subtly, with a scarf, or a magnifying glass necklace to signify Search. All the pieces are available to buy online – at fairly steep prices, mind you.

It’s worth noting that, of all the search engines, Google probably is the one held in the most affection, and the one you would be most likely to advertise for free. Personally, I can’t see Bing sweatshirts or even Yahoo apparel catching on that quickly. While we’ve seen plenty of negative press around Google’s apparent world domination tactics in recent years, they seem to also have the magic ability to still appear cool and friendly in most people’s eyes. Now, if only we could all apply that magic to our own businesses.

Proof, if it were needed, that Twitter really has reached every part of the known universe, comes with the news that Japanese aeronautical engineer Soichi Noguchi is tweeting from the International Space Station as it orbits. Follow his Twitterstream here and you’ll gain regular views of aerial photos as he passes over the Earth. If nothing else, it provides a fascinating glimpse at a way of life most of us will never experience directly.

Back in September we wrote about the surge in usage of the mobile web. This month, a startling survey from GSMA reveals that 25% of the UK population went online via mobile during last December.

Astonishingly, almost half the time online was spent at one site: Facebook (the next popular domain, Google, is not as much of a surprise). It seems that those with a real Facebook habit cannot bear to put down its networking and socialising capabilities, even while they are out and about.

For you, the business owner, this points to one thing: you need to keep your Facebook presence fresh, current and useful. After all, you know what they say in online marketing: don’t wait for the customers to come to you. These days, you have to go to where they already are – and that, it seems, overwhelmingly, is Facebook.

It’s not exactly rocket science, but we’ve seen research quoted in multiple places this week revealing that small businesses can suffer from poorly-chosen web addresses, or URLs. That’s something which the man in the street could probably have told you himself, but it does beg the question, what makes a good URL?

Well, something snappy, memorable, and easy to fit onto a business card or flyer. Hard-to-remember domain names include those where the business has chosen one of a variety of similar options: who can remember if your friendly local is at duke-of-york.com or dukeofyork.com? Then there are those businesses which choose a totally different URL to their trading name: ocado.com springs to mind. In some ways, it’s a double miracle that they have done so well, since their chosen name doesn’t actually mean anything!

It’s not easy choosing the right domain name, but it’s a decision you should spend as much time over as you did choosing your business’ name in the first place. If you can afford it, buy the .com and the .co.uk versions, and maybe even the .biz and – if applicable – .org. Better that you should have them than your competitors – plus, if you have them all, it won’t matter if your customers type in the wrong one. Just make sure they all redirect to the correct address.

“In the 19th century we built the railways. In the 20th century we built the motorways. In the 21st century let’s build the superfast broadband network that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for Britain.”

Stirring words from the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne this week. Earlier this week we reported on the Tories’ use of Google Moderator; it certainly seems like the internet is high on their list of Conservative priorities for the UK’s future.

Indeed, Labour also have their plans, committing to rolling out broadband to 90% of all UK homes by 2012, albeit with a less ambitious speed.

One thing’s for sure – the spread of the internet is unstoppable. Important as it is now to business, it will only become more crucial. When the internet is accessible from every home, and many public spaces beside, shopping, information retrieval, and the purchase of services are likely to happen almost entirely online. Is your business ready for the future our politicians are already planning?

Charities and small businesses might be interested to hear about the little-known (by us, anyway!) Google Moderator. This simple tool allows you to canvass your users on any issue: the Conservative Party, for example, are currently using it on their draft manifesto site, to gather a sense of which issues are of most concern to the British public (or, at least – to inject a slight note of cynicism – those who are comfortable with the online environment).

You, on the other hand, might find it useful for questions which, while they are not politically pressing, would give insight into your business. Would your customers rather you were open from 9-5 or 10-6? Do they prefer free shipping, or totally transparent postal pricing? If you’re a charity, visitors could vote on their preferred priorities. It’s certainly worth a look, in any case.