Teradata announced Wednesday a deal to acquire eCircle, a European digital messaging service provider. Based in Munich, eCircle is a privately held firm with about 1,000 customers and 400 employees, and it will be merged with Teradata's Aprimo unit, expanding that firm's geographic and services footprint.

"The idea is to build out our capabilities and extend our reach into the channels we've been trying to grow into around social, mobile, and the Web," Teradata CMO and executive VP Darryl McDonald told InformationWeek.

365 Connect, the New Orleans based, award-winning online technology platform provider for the multifamily industry, announced today the integration of Pinterest, the social media photo and organizing platform that was created to allow users to share and interact within an online community environment. The integration allows site users to share images directly onto Pinterest with links back to apartment communities using the 365 Connect Technology Platform.

Pinterest is a pinboard-style social photo sharing website that allows users to organize and share pictures with links to information they find on the web. Users "pin" images to theme-based boards, which they can use to manage their personal interests in decorating, events, recipes, hobbies, etc. Users can also browse pinboards created by other users for inspiration and allows the ability to "re-pin" other users' pins to their personalized boards. Pinterest acts as a personalized media platform, allowing pins to be shared not only on Pinterest, but also on both Twitter and Facebook; thus enabling interaction with a broad community through multiple Social Media channels. Pinterest is connecting people throughout the world with the "things" they find interesting.

Fresh Harvest Products, Inc. (www.freshharvestproducts.com) (OTCQB: FRHV) (PINKSHEETS: FRHV) announced today that it has moved to the second phase of its Digital Strategy and Social Media Marketing Plan. This second phase has a few distinct areas of focus: (1) building a social community on a variety of platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr; (2) the re-development of AC LaRocco's website www.aclarocco.com; and, (3) developing the framework of a custom mobile application.

The company has created multiple corporate accounts, including Facebook (www.facebook.com/freshharvestproducts), Twitter (www.twitter.com/frhv_products) and Tumblr (freshharvest.tumblr.com), among others, to increase its online presence and to connect with customers to build long-term brand loyalty.

Since Twitter’s inception, the general belief has been that the greater the number of tweets, the better its Google ranking will be. Thanks to a study released by Branded3, the truth has been revealed: tweets do indeed play an integral role in Google page rankings.

Using its own award-winning Twitter petition site, Twitition.com, Branded3’s study took a hard look at the effect tweets have on Google rankings. The sample size consisted of 8,528 Twititions; with each Twitition signed, a tweet was sent out on its behalf to allow for simple tracking. Twititions were divided into three groups: 1–99 tweets (5,322 Twititions); 100–499 tweets (1,382 Twititions); 500+ tweets (1,824 Twititions).

Women are much more likely than their male counterparts to engage in blogging, follow brands and celebrities online, and buy products online that they’ve seen featured on television, according to a new report from Nielsen.

Nielson's latest State of The Media (PDF) report shows that women are 8 percent more likely than men to create or update their own personal blog. They're also 18 percent more likely to become a fan or follow a brand on a social site such as Facebook or Twitter.

The number of visitors Facebook is sending to mobile apps and games has almost tripled in the past two months.

The social-networking giant announced today that it sent more than 160 million users to mobile apps in April, up from 60 million visitors in late February. In the same time frame, those mobile users were in turn generated more than 1.1 billion visits to mobile apps, up from 320 million in late February.

Facebook also reported that seven of the top 10 grossing iOS apps and six of Android's top 10 were integrated with Facebook.

The cola wars are escalating on the social-media front. With its launch [of] Pepsi Pulse, a pop culture destination on Pepsi.com, the snack-food giant aims to be a major player in conversations on Facebook, Twitter and other social sites such as Pinterest.

Rival Coca-Cola is partnering with social-music site Spotify to add fizz to its own online presence. Spotify's music-streaming player will be integrated into Coke's 41-million strong Facebook page. Also in the works: a Coke app on Spotify's service.

Vocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: VOCS), a leading provider of cloud marketing software, has released significant enhancements to its online news release distribution service, PRWeb. The update offers 200 new local distribution partners, distribution to the Internet’s top financial websites and new social sharing features.

To improve local distribution of news releases, PRWeb has partnered with leading media organizations including Hearst Media to add 200 local media sites to its distribution network. Businesses can now distribute their news to the readers of influential local sites including the San Francisco Chronicle (12m unique monthly visitors) and the Houston Chronicle (7.5m unique monthly visitors).

The Idea People have been retained by national medical supplies distributor and e-commerce website DealMed Medical Supplies, based in Brooklyn, New York, to develop and manage a national social media marketing program.

We will be developing new social media touch points, creating and distributing custom content, and managing social media content to drive new volumes of traffic to the DealMed website,” said Jay Joyce, President with The Idea People. “DealMed does business with over 7,000 physicians and more than 500 EMS agencies through providing quality medical supplies and inventory.

SEO New York company Ajax Union, which has witnessed steady growth and expansion in its portfolio of holistic small business internet marketing services since its founding in 2008, is announcing its upcoming appearance at the New York XPO for Business. Available online at http://www.AjaxUnion.com, the search engine agency will be exhibiting at the XPO on May 2-3, 2012; held at the Javitz Center in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, the 7th Annual New York XPO for Business is the largest trade show designed specifically to showcase small and mid-sized businesses.