Are your social media metrics diagnostic or objective?
Christopher S. Penn provides an entertaining and informative explanation of the difference between diagnostic and objective social media metrics. His post clearly shows the importance of knowing the difference.

How social media has changed executive roles
SFGate staff writer Benny Evangelista shares this brief interview with Charlene Li about the new wave of Open Leadership that is changing the way executives manage their leadership roles.

Sorry Guys: When It Comes to Your Audience, Size DOES Matter
Justin Kownacki hits the nail on the head with this fantastic post about the long winded debate between quantity versus quality when it comes to follower numbers on social networks. Read on for the secret to success.

Social media used to market Mother’s Day
USA Today’s Bruce Horovitz provides numerous examples of how brands are leveraging social media with targeted campaigns to attract your dollars when it comes to paying homage to Mom this Mother’s Day.

Photo Credit: Nerd Merit Badges

Making the real-time Web relevant
The future of online search includes getting information in “real-time.” This CNET post from Tom Krazit gives a great overview on the new direction in search and the struggles that search engines like Google and Microsoft Bing are working through to provide information as it happens.

7 B2B Social Media Tools you haven’t heard of
This SocialMediaB2B.com post from Adam Holden-Bache provides seven new tools that are worth checking out. I’m impressed to finally come a across a list of tools that are all new to me!

10 Tricks For Getting Inspired to Write
Have you officially launched your blog, but have found it difficult to continually come up with fresh ideas for creating content? This Copyblogger post by Jonathan Morrow provides great tips and techniques for writing inspiration.

Will It Blend? – iPad
The long-lasting popularity of BlendTec’s “Will it blend” videos continues with the demise of a shiny new Apple iPad.

Hackers turn to social media to attack companies
This SFGate article provides food for thought for companies who have employees engaging in the social media space, and the vulnerabilities that come with the territory, as hackers find new ways to exploit internet users.

How the enterprise is going social
This CNET.com post by Dave Rosenberg recaps Gartner’s recent predictions of both success and failure for the social side of enterprise.

Social media: Listen less and sell more
Spring Creek Group principal, Clay McDaniel, suggests that 2010 is the year to leverage social communities to produce real sales – and provides some useful tips on how to move in that direction.

Tips for Promoting New Blogs
Enterprise companies and small business alike are starting blogs as part of their social strategies, and all of them run up against the same challenges. Thomas McMahon from the TopRank Online Marketing Blog shares 12 tips for getting your new blog noticed.

Coming Soon (tonight!): Facebook Usernames Coming soon really means coming this weekend. Prepare for the mad dash as like-named people around the world vie for their own Facebook “vanity URLs.”

10 steps to stop identity hijackers
Theft of brand identity on social networks is nothing new. There have been numerous accounts of it on Facebook and Twitter alone. In this post on Ragan.com, David Berkowitz shares 10 steps you can take that will help reduce the chance it might happen to your company’s brand(s).

Twitter to roll out ‘Verified Accounts’ this summer
Twitter will be rolling out a new identity verification process to help combat the aforementioned brand hijacking. This post from Leslie Katz, senior editor of CNET’s Crave, gives the lowdown.

Content Marketing Strategy with a Side of Social
As a PR agency that’s been entrenched in social media over the last few years – from training, to messaging and strategy, to digital content production and other tactics – we constantly refer back to the “basics” of how it all fits into our clients’ (and our) overall online marketing strategy. This post on TopRank’s Online Marketing blog falls nicely into that level of thinking.

Five Levels Of Social Media Responses
Continuing on the theme of social media basics, Dave Fleet shares “five levels of approach to online listening and responding” to help gauge how effective you are at true and active online engagement.

Best Social Media Advice From This Site
Chris Brogan compiles some of the best and most informative posts on his site and breaks them up into categories for mass consumption. Enjoy filling your brain with this Social Media feast!

Answers to all of your Groundswell questions
From one information packed pick to another! Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li provide answers to the many Groundswell related questions that came to them from the 700+ people who joined their recent webinar.

SEO Quick Tips
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is generally an area of expertise that can take a good portion of mental bandwidth to master. However, most readers will find value in getting some exposure to the basics. Steve Spalding from the “How to Spilt an Atom” blog posted these SEO Quick Tips that were shared with him by Mark Hager of Knoxville, TN Web Design.

CBS to Acquire CNET for $1.8 Billion
Definitely the most highly “tweeted” acquisition story this week. It should be interesting to see how CNET’s content changes and what plans CBS really has in-store post merger.

Top Time-wasters for Web Workers (And How to Cure Them)
Valuable advice for those (like you) who utilize the web on a daily basis. Just be sure to practice the cures AFTER you finish being distracted by this week’s Persuasive Picks!!

Embrace unsatisfied customers to bolster your brand?
Stephen Shankland posted this great article on the CNET News Blog that was based on discussions during a panel at the Ad:Tech conference earlier this week. Do the people who handle customer complaints and the social network-savvy folks in your company reside in different departments? Check this post out for good examples of why merging these groups together can be a positive change for your company.

“Podcasting 101″ on KCBS with Tim Coyne & Lance Anderson
If “Podcasting” is still a foreign word to you, then take a look at this short clip of LA-based podcasters Tim Coyne and Lance Anderson as they help explain the basics during a CBS news TV segment.

BlogPulse: Metrics Based on Conversation
As the search for the “silver bullet” of Social Media/Blog metrics continues, take a peek at this surface level view of BlogPulse as an alternative tool to using Technorati or Google Blog Search.

Groundswell Discussion Forum Now Open
Following the release of his and Charlene Li’s highly anticipated book, “Groundswell,” co-author Josh Bernoff announced the launch of the official discussion forum site in support of the book. Everyone is invited to participate and join in the conversations starting there now.

What I’ve Learned About Viral Marketing in Three Weeks
Diana Huff continues to deliver up useful content for the B2B marketer with this post on the reality of viral marketing and includes links to some useful resources on the topic.