Over the past few months we’ve been working on an entirely new way for brands to mobilize consumers no matter where they are. Crowdtap is the first platform to enable brands to not only activate their influencers online, but also in the real world, with the newly launched Challenge Action.

Facebook and Twitter are great for spreading content, but what if you want to drive your influential advocates to be truly involved with your brand in the physical world? Want to drive your fans to check out a new display in store? Snap a photo of which products are currently in their fridge? Share photo memories of themselves and their friends at your latest event? Now you can with the Challenge Action and Crowdtap Mobile, our new iOS app available in the iTunes App Store.

Building mobile isn’t all that we’ve been up to. We’re proud to announce the new Crowdtap Facebook app, which can be integrated into a brand’s Timeline with just a few clicks. The Crowdtap app helps marketers more seamlessly recruit members into their brand crowd, displaying recent activity including polls, discussions, and events, and a brand VIP leader board. Now more than ever, brands can collaborate with their consumers for real-time insights, product feedback, content sharing, and more with Crowdtap.

Read more about our latest announcements on TechCrunch. To learn more about how Crowdtap can help activate your brand’s influential consumers you can request more information.

Wow, it is hard to put into words all of the memories from this year’s Crowdtap VIP Party at SXSW 2012, so we decided to show you. Our entire team had an amazing time with so many of our friends, partners, clients, and industry peers. As nearly all of you who were in attendance repeatedly told us, The Crowdtap VIP Party was once again the “Can’t Miss” event at SXSW Interactive. Even Ali Velshi name dropped our party during his CNN broadcast.

For those that couldn’t make it, have hazy memories or just want to relive the night one more time, we thought we’d bring you a recap of all the excitement. A little after 9, we opened the doors to a flood of people who lined up around the block to get in. The venue filled up shortly after and stayed packed until closing time at 2am when Haven finally left us to fend for ourselves on the streets of Austin.

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Social Media Week is wrapping up here in New York where marketers, advertisers, community managers, and more descended on an amazing lineup of keynotes, panel discussions, workshops, and parties.

Crowdtap CEO & Founder Brandon Evans was joined by internationally acclaimed DJ Funkmaster Flex, Joe Fernandez CEO of Klout, and Ben Luntz VP Client Networks at Big Fuel in a panel discussion on Global Influence. Each panelist brought their own insight on how brands and marketers should approach their online communities to activate and turn them into influential advocates.

There are several ways to define and approach influence, with scoring services like Klout focusing on identifying the top influencers like celebrities and pundits with large Twitter followings. In the nascent influencer marketing space, marketers are essentially utilizing this top-down approach as another form of media buy. Crowdtap, offers a different type of solution, focusing on the people that influence our key purchasing decisions. For example, while someone like Robert Scoble has a high Klout score and lots of followers, he is unlikely to influence most of us on what we wear or what goes into our grocery or drugstore cart.

Instead, people look towards their trusted groups of family, friends, and peers that share common interests. With the proliferation of Facebook, Twitter, and burgeoning services like Pinterest, consumers are curating and aggregating content around the products they love, influencing their tight-knit social groups of peers. Our work here at Crowdtap focuses on creating deep connections with everyday peer influencers via a scalable platform that allows brands to build an ongoing community of advocates for their brand. Key to building ongoing advocacy is a platform that not only provides advocates to promote a brand’s product but one that allows them to be involved in helping to shape the brand via their feedback and ideas over time.

Watch the full video below for more:

Research released today by the Pivot Conference and Crowdtap reveals that consumers who are active in social networks are increasingly using mobile devices to connect and share across a variety of activities including location-based check-ins, photography, games, and more.

Pivot conducted the research by polling conference attendees as well as over 500 influential consumers on Crowdtap’s influencer marketing platform. The results were revealed live in realtime during the 2011 Pivot Conference in New York City this past October.

Key findings from the report:

• The iPhone is the most common mobile platform for accessing Social apps at 44 percent, with Android at 30 percent; no other platform showed significant numbers.
• Facebook Mobile dominates mobile-Social apps, with 83 percent using it. Notably, local apps Foursquare & Gowalla have also claimed significant market share.
• Zynga is the most common games platform on mobile at 61 percent access. However, the three challengers—World of Warcraft, ngmoco and Playdom—taken together equal Zynga’s presence. Zynga’s dominance may come under pressure in 2012.
• The most commonly shared information among consumers is music and video, with location check-ins trailing just behind. Surprisingly, 31 percent of respondents indicated that they don’t share information and want most of their Social activity kept private.
• Consumers made it clear they expect something special from brands in exchange for their Social activities. They want deals, socially oriented loyalty programs, special product benefits and content and access to enhanced support.

For more information please see the press release and download the report.

The holiday season is a time to reflect on the year behind us and spend time with friends and family. It’s also a time to shop for presents, and the last few weeks for retailers to increase sales for the year. In the latest edition of our Brand Advocacy series, we polled influencers on Crowdtap to learn more about their holiday spending habits including budget, purchasing decisions, and top retailers they frequented.

Although social media has opened a new channel directly into consumers’ news feeds, the onslaught of sponsored placements has driven them to tune out of most new forms of advertising. Social networks are shifting towards a focus on discovery through personal recommendations as seen in Facebook’s Timeline, the redesigned Twitter interface, foursquare tips, and a plethora of other new apps including Stamped and Pinterest. With influencer marketing, it is becoming more important than ever to identify and activate the consumers who will best influence a tight-knit group of friends for brand awareness and purchasing decisions that will translate into direct sales and measurable ROI.

We polled 1,000 influencers on Crowdtap to dive deeper into their overall holiday budget, where they find trusted product recommendations, what gifts they are purchasing, where they are shopping for them. Find the highlights below:

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What an amazing year 2011 has been for all of us here at Crowdtap! It is hard to believe that we launched publicly to clients just 9 months ago at SXSW Interactive. We started the year with just 8 people and now have 20 full-time employees at the new Crowdtap HQ in Union Square. At the start of 2011, few were talking about or even thinking about Influencer Marketing but as we near the end of the year, more and more marketers have made it a focus. Crowdtap is extremely fortunate to be working with some of the best brands in the world and funded by great investors.

Given all that we have achieved in 2011, I thought it made sense to take a moment to reflect on some of the year’s Top 5 highlights as we look forward to what is sure to be an amazing 2012.

The Launch Party (March 2011)

Crowdtap overtook Austin for what was the most talked about party at SXSW. Over 3,000 people filled The Belmont and were entertained by VJ Culture, DJ Vikas and a special performance including a crowdsourced rap by Hoodie Allen. And of course we won’t forget the huge chocolate (Crowd)tap!

First 100,000 Members (April 2011)

The huge buzz at SXSW drove us to over 100,000 members or “Crowdtappers” just weeks after the launch. Now approaching a quarter million members, a million members is well in sight for 2012.

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The votes are in: Crowdtap was named “Up-and-Coming Social Media Service” in the 5th Annual Mashable Awards!

This is a huge honor for all of us here at Crowdtap, and further validation for our work in the fast growing, but still mostly nascent influencer marketing space.

To our members, clients, fans, and supporters: THANK YOU! For the past two months we’ve been blown away by the enthusiasm and constant support on Twitter, Facebook, and across the web.

This award will serve as a reminder of our incredible community and motivate us to continue innovating and building out the Crowdtap platform.

It’s on! Facebook releases the Timeline worldwide, publishers and brands get hot for Pinterest, and a look back on the state of social in 2011.

Let’s Do The Timeline Again

In September at the annual f8 conference Facebook unveiled the Timeline; a completely redesigned profile that tells the “story of your life” according to Mark Zuckerberg. The new design not only makes it easier to travel back in time to see all of the posts, photos, and moments you’ve shared, it also incorporates new Open Graph like frictionless sharing from Spotify and a slew of other web services.

Fast forward three months, and Facebook finally launched the Timeline for all of its users this week. Surprisingly, there has been seemingly little backlash from the more than 800 million Facebook user base, which notoriously has been outraged in the past with new feature releases like the News Feed, and the infamous Beacon.

With the introduction of new actions in the Timeline, brands will have even finer control over the updates their users share. For example a Crowdtap member testing a new beverage from a leading soft drink company could automatically trigger a status such as “Ben is drinking the new Diet Coke from Coca-Cola.” How do you intend on using the new Timeline actions to make sharing around your brand even more personal on Facebook? Let us know in the comments!

The Belle Of The Ball: Pinterest

Publishers and brands alike are lining up to court users of Pinterest, the hottest new startup to focus on the bookmarking, microblogging, curating space. Many aren’t quite yet sure how Pinterest differentiates itself from the slew of similar sites like Svpply, Tumblr, and Delicious, but one thing is for sure: the mostly female audience is sending oodles of traffic.

This week Advertising Age reported that various top tier brands like Time, Inc., Nordstrom, Etsy, and more are curating content on Pinterest that is sending highly qualified traffic. In the case of lifestyle publication Real Simple, Pinterest sent more traffic than Facebook in October, surely nothing to laugh at.

It’s really a no brainer for brands to get started on Pinterest right now, as the bookmarking site is completely free and takes minutes to get up and running.

Looking Back, And Beyond: Social Media Stats

As 2011 winds down, it’s time to reminisce on the year behind us and look forward to innovation in the one ahead. In Harvard Business Review, David Armano mused on the six social media trends he sees for 2012. For us here at Crowdtap it comes as no surprise that Armano predicts influencer marketing and gamification as hallmarks for brand marketing and advertising in the new year.

In this great infographic, AddThis shared the top Social Sharing Trends of 2011, highlighting Facebook holding 52% of all sharing on the web, with Twitter far behind but still a significant chunk at 13.5%. It’s also interesting to see Tumblr grew a whopping 1,299% over 2010. It will be interesting to see where Google+ stands at the end of 2012.

We’ll leave you with another surprising stat published in Mediabistro. According to Harris Interactive, YouTube beat out Facebook as the most powerful social brand amongst American teens from ages 13-24.

Shameless plug: There are only a few hours left to vote Crowdtap for “Up-and-Coming Social Media Service” in the Mashable Awards. We’re extremely grateful for the support from our amazing Crowdtappers, clients, and fans. Vote Crowdtap!

Another social network might soon enter the fray, the Internet revolts against censorship, and a closer look at generating traffic and interest from a Facebook page. All in this week’s Crowdtap Recap!

Microsoft Prepping Its Own Socl Network

Just as we were starting to warm up to Google+ with their new brand pages and all, it looks like another social network is on its way. The Verge broke the news this week on Microsoft Socl with a variety of screenshots showing different features of the service. There is no doubt it will have deep ties with Microsoft’s Live network, including XBOX Live and Windows Phone.

In the coming months, it appears brands and marketers will have yet another network to keep up their social presence.

Facebook Page Updates Receive 1 Click Per Every 715 Impressions

That’s a 0.14% click through rate for Facebook Pages with 100,000 plus fans according to a study conducted by EdgeRank Checker on TechCrunch. Breaking it down further they found each fan generated 0.00093 clicks or 1 click per 1000 fans. For comparison, email campaigns can see click throughs anywhere from 5% to 15% and a year ago Google said the average CTR of an AdWords campaign was 2%.

It can be deduced that a brand might need to focus on ramping up their fan numbers to increase click throughs from this report. But there must also be a focus on quality of content, frequent posting, and engaging fans with exclusive offers or rewards. We’ve seen more and more interest in the influencer marketing space as brand’s look to identify their true influencers on Facebook and Twitter to receive insight and drive them to action.

American Censorship Day: November 16th, 2011

This week websites across the Internet put black bars with the words “Stop Censorship” over their logos to call attention to the Stop Online Piracy Act. Abbreviated SOPA, H.R.3261 is a bill that was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to expand the ability of law enforcement and copyright holders to censor and block online traffic deemed piracy by corporations. Those in favor of the law are content and rights holders looking to curb the piracy of their products and services, while opponents believe the ability to censor any part of the Internet in the U.S. is a violation of freedom of speech and will slow innovation.

Tumblr received a ton of press when they censored their entire user dashboard, blacking out content, tags, and other sections of the interface. When the content was clicked on, users were redirected to a page urging them to contact their local representative. Within 24 hours, Tumblr alone initiated 87,000 phone calls from users to the government. Here at Crowdtap, we also participated in the movement by censoring our site logo for 24 hours. You can learn more about the Stop SOPA movement on the American Censorship Day website.

Google+ officially launched brand pages, mega Twitter influencer Ashton Kutcher faces a PR snafu, and Facebook is working on a major privacy settlement with the Federal Trade Commission – all in this week’s Crowdtap Recap.

Brands Circle Consumers On Google+

Earlier this week Google+ launched the ability to create official brand pages – a sigh of relief was quickly heard around the world from in-house brand marketers and agencies alike. But with much skepticism around Google+ traffic and engagement numbers, is it the right choice to devote time and effort to building a following there? Google Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora stressed the company’s view of Google+ not as a social network, but rather as a connected platform where users go to share through all of Google’s integrated services like YouTube, Reader, search and more.

The launch was met with mixed reviews around lacking features including the ability to have multiple people administer an account. Check out Robert Scoble’s full list of complaints and missing features from Google+. We’re sure Google will get the kinks worked out – in the meantime we’d love it if you joined Crowdtap on Google+!

Ashton Kutcher Makes Mistake, Flees From Twitter For Good?

The news has been inundated with commentary about the Penn State University football program scandal this week, and it’s not uncommon for people to make assumptions without delving deeper into the details of the story. Ashton Kutcher was unfortunately one of those people, quickly tweeting about Joe Paterno after reading that the legendary coach had been fired, without knowing the full story. Immediately many of Kutcher’s eight million followers retorted in anger, disgust, and all around name calling. This drove Kutcher to delete the tweet and later issue a statement that he would be passing his Twitter account over to his handlers at Katalyst Media for editorial control over the content of his tweets.

Reporters, marketers, and other Twitter influencers weighed in on Ashton’s decision calling it a shame for him to turn his account over to ghostwriters over a simple mistake. With that many followers comes a great responsibility, and we hope to see Ashton’s voice return to Twitter soon.

Facebook Privacy Features Under Fire From the FTC

An ongoing case between Facebook and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission appears to be close to settlement. In it the FTC outlined several of Facebook’s privacy features as deceptive; making it hard for users to easily control their privacy on the behemoth social network. Facebook would make all privacy features opt-in rather than opt-out as they currently are and also agree to 20 years of audit – a similar deal to what Google settled on with the FTC in March.

Soon new Facebook accounts will be private by default, making it harder for marketers, advertisers, and others to access information unless it is explicitly made accessible.