In 2010, video game accessory, hardware and software sales reached a staggering $18.58 billion. Despite the dismal condition of the U.S. economy and an employment rate that reached nearly 10% in 2011, American households seemed more than happy to spend considerable amounts of cash on electronic games and entertainment.

Social media is not the end-all, be-all of your business. It's not the magic bullet that will allow you to take a struggling business to the height of success simply by claiming your Twitter account. But what social media can do is make you a better company by allowing you to listen, react and build faster and more efficiently than ever before.

When people are getting into Twitter and Facebook , they usually want to know: How do you talk to people? This might sound like a beginner question, but it really isn't. Whether you are a business or an individual, this is an issue you will struggle with throughout the entirety of your social media life.

Jan 24, 2007 at 12:46pm ET by Danny Sullivan I've never encouraged a "Google First" or "Google Only" mentality for search marketers to follow. This is where you focus only on Google, figuring the other major search engines don't matter. Instead, I've said that all the search engines are important traffic channels to pursue.

This short slideshow is a basic overview of Groundswell ideas, but I thought that the last slide was very interesting. According to Bernoff sales falls into the strategy of Energizing. Looks like they didn't leave it out after all.