Didn’t make it to WordCamp in Kilkenny last weekend to learn about the business of blogging? Missed out on a nomination for the Irish blog awards in Galway at the end of March? Don’t worry, here’s another way to boost your blogging power.

Bloggertone, a business blogging community, has teamed up with BizSugar, a social media site, to hold the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest, which is free to enter and has USD$6,921 worth of prizes.

Those interested in getting a bit of free exposure for their business or in the hope of being headhunted will have to get creative though. Blog posts will be evaluated by their titles. However, if you’re not into blogging but nevertheless are full of opinions, there is also a prize category for people who leave comments on blog posts.

The winners of the Top 10 Titles will be decided on by the Sugartone team and will take into account the total number of votes and comments.

The Sugartone team will also decide the winners of the Top 10 Commenters and will take into account the total number of votes and comments as well as an appreciation of the value the commenters bring to the community.

Sugartone is a combined effort from Bloggertone, which began in Ireland and now serves as a blogging outlet to Irish professionals across a variety of industries to an international audience, and BizSugar, a social media site where people can share small business news and tips.

Although they can be written at any stage blogposts must be posted to Bloggertone.com between Monday March 15th at 4pm GMT and Wednesday March 17th 4pm. Bloggertone then submits these to the BizSugar site where they can be voted on within the same timeframe. However, there is no chance to use previously published blog posts – articles must be original content. Articles that have been previously published elsewhere are not eligible to be submitted for this Sugartone contest.

For full details of the contest see: http://bloggertone.com/announcements/2010/03/08/sugartone-sweet-business-blogging-contest/

What may be one of the last free events to attend on the digital calendar is taking place in Dublin next week.

Tuesday March 2nd at 6pm is the date for the next Digital Misfitz event: Building Communities for your Brand. Digital Misfitz is the brainchild of Suzanne FitzGerald of Moo Pictures. Digital Misfitz, FitzGerald explains, is an exclusive forum bringing together advertising industry and PR professionals and specialists working in the digital media sector by organising various events on topics surrounding digital technology and media.

It is FitzGerald’s sixth event in two years and already numbers are filling up to hear words of wisdom from former RTE reporter turned digital media entrepreneur Mark Little who has more than 4,600 Twitter followers.

The event will also feature Declan Kennedy from Betapond on assisting clients in Facebook strategy analysis and implementation to help companies make new friends.

FitzGerald, a producer, set up Digital MizFitz two years ago when she set up Moo Pictures. She explains that she was aware that a lot of education was needed for agencies and that she set up the forum to provided people with free events to attend, which they could learn from. To date the costs of running events has been kept down by having speakers from Ireland and has been covered by sponsorship.

“It’s more out of interest I do it,” says FitzGerald. Also of importance, in addition to the learning aspect, is industry networking. The quarterly events, which take place in the evening time, are ideal for networking. The theme of the upcoming event she says, was chosen, because “it’s really relevant”. “Facebook has really taken off, there is an audience of people are really interested and engage with brands.”

The Digital Misfitz event will be held on the 2nd March 2010 in the space@Rothco

If you are interested in coming along please join the Digital Mistfitz page on Facebook.

Whether social media is part of your official job description, something that’s landed on your desk in the office because everybody else is too nervous about it, or it’s something you’d like to do professionally, there’s nothing like some proper guidance.
Online PR and social media company, Simply Zesty had served up just that in the form of a free e-book to help people understand social media.

The e-book is a culmination of content produced regularly on the Simply Zesty blog. The e-book was built using the best bits of the blog and covers the basics of social media and blogging, some advanced tips and tutorials too. The 179-page tome also explains how to use video online; how to grow your blog and build community; 10 video tips on how to get more out of Tweetdeck; a complete guide to Twitter; and 50 resources that will help improve your blogging.
If reading isn’t your thing, the WordCamp conference in Kilkenny could be for you. Taking place on the weekend of March 6 and 7, WordCamp is a two-day camp on blogging and CMS software WordPress. However, it has three different types of sessions for different users of WordPress: those interested in blogging, people already using WordPress and designers and coders. At the early bird rate of €40 for the weekend it is as close to free as you can get for the range of speakers and advice available.

The growing role social media is playing in the hiring and firing process has been in the limelight in a number of ways.
One online status update that raised eyebrows was from a CEO who broadcast his resignation publicly via Twitter.
Jonathan Schwartz had been the chief executive of Sun Microsystems before it was taken over by Oracle at the end of January in a USD$7.4 billion deal. When the Oracle deal was finalised its CEO was reported in the New York Times as saying that he expected Schwartz to resign.
Schwartz did resign, in quite a nouveau and public fashion, with a haiku-styled tweet: “Financial crisis/Stalled too many customers/CEO no more.” His action made headlines and has paved the way for others to follow suit.

However, inappropriate tweeting on a work social media account saw one employee in very hot water. In the UK, Vodafone was left embarrassed and an employee suspended after a homophobic tweet was sent out.
According to a report on Guardian.co.uk, a customer service employee spotted an unattended keyboard and posted the obscene remark on the Vodafone UK Twitter account.
Though the original tweet has been deleted, Vodafone’s response to customers, once the issue had been flagged, can be seen here.
However, having a social media presence can also help one get a job. Facebook is currently hiring for staff in Dublin, where it has its EMEA headquarters.
It’s unclear whether candidates’ Facebook accounts will be pored over for details of their personal lives by the Facebook recruitment team. However, would-be applicants shouldn’t delete their profiles just yet. As a key criteria for hiring at Facebook is to seek people with a passion for the internet and Facebook, having a Facebook page and good knowledge of the Facebook platform is an advantage.

Separating work colleagues from other associates and friends can be difficult for most social network website users.

After signing up to almost every social networking website he was invited to, Conor Devine found that he was receiving information he did not need, sometimes even from his friends.

Now Devine uses social networking site Whispurr.com which encourages members to create a network of friends that have a common interest e.g. workmates or perhaps customers and provides targeted information based on a person’s interests whilst protecting people’s privacy.

Devine, who is director of the company, says that Whispurr isn’t the next Twitter. “Despite sharing a similar interface to Twitter, Whispurr is a different concept. We intend our users to share specific information and to create realistic relations based on both similar interests and offline activities,” he told the Prosperity Digital Ezine.

Members communicate with ‘Whisps’ which are 300 character micro-messages and it will soon be possible to send a Whisp via SMS. This feature will allow people who work in teams to communicate efficiently and quickly regardless of location. The RSS integration system will enable teams to incorporate important live feeds into their networks which will add value to their communication in real time, explains Devine.
One of the advantages of Whispurr is selective privacy and the fact that networks will contain very specific information.

“You can create a different network for the different groups you are active with and users will be able to protect the privacy of each network by choosing to hide networks from each other. In this way your soccer team do not need to see your quarterly sales and your workmates do not need to know who is washing the soccer jerseys this week.”

The Whispurr team plans to expand its own work network of six in Q3, 2010. “We will be looking to employ two more programmers as we intend to increase the languages available on the interface. We would also like to have a sales team of two people who work actively creating accounts by demonstrating the power of Whispurr to Irish companies.”

Sign up at www.whispurr.com