Is Your Social Media Strategy Stalling Because You’re Not Doing This One Thing?
HubSpot’s Dan Zarrella shares some interesting stats and advice on boosting engagement of your content through clear and concise calls to action, in this guest post on CopyBlogger.com.

Can Social Media Improve Your Workers’ Productivity?
Contrary to the opinions of many corporate execs, social media can be leveraged to make employee time more productive and less of a time waster. Find out how via this Business Insider post from Ramon Ray & the Smallbiztechnology.com Team.

Take the Grunt Work Out of Monitoring Social Media with mBlast
Take a peek at Diana Huff‘s review of a pretty cool looking tool for taking care of your social media monitoring tasks. I’m definitely looking forward to kicking the tires on this one.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR
Personal Branding Expert Dan Schawbel interviews author David Meerman Scott about the release of the third edition of his best selling book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR.

Down the rabbit hole into the land of social media
Mvelase Peppetta shares an entertaining comparison between the various personalities you’ll engage with in the social space and the classic characters from the Wizard of Oz, via this post on Memeburn.com.

The Reports of B2B Marketing’s Demise are Greatly Exaggerated
Dianna Huff continues to wave the flag in support of B2B marketing – providing some great links to proof points that it truly is NOT dead.

Which Social Media Sites Are Most Beneficial?
Lisa Barone share the results of a recent Adology survey (via eMarketer) that shows which social sites were seen as most beneficial to small businesses. Make the jump to see the results.

Many Brands Don’t Track Social Media Conversations
The fun with “stats” continues with this post on MarketingProfs that shares the results of a survey from Alterian that revealed nearly one-third of marketers surveyed have little or no understanding about social conversations around their brand(s).

Ten Useful Hacks to Make Things Happen
Valeria Maltoni updates her popular “Ten Useful Hacks” post from last March, with this post that will help “make your distractions disappear so you can meet your goals.” It’s a highly informative post that I definitely recommend. Click it now…before you get distracted!

Peter Himler recaps the opinion that traditional Search Engine Optimization is dying – as proclaimed by Gary Vaynerchuk during his speaking session at last week’s Internet Week in NYC. The post also provides opposing points of view from Jeff Jarvis and Lee Odden.

You Have To Have Thin Skin
It’s common to hear that putting yourself (or your brand) out there in the social media space requires a thick skin. Comments and opinions won’t always be in-line with your beliefs or mission, and your response to those needs to be timely, yet thoughtful. This post from Mitch Joel explores the idea of wearing a “thin skin” instead. I like his angle.

Five Ways to Keep Current in Public Relations News & Trends
This post from Barbara B. Nixon on her Public Relations Matters blog provides PR students and practitioners with five simple ways to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to keeping up with the fast pace of the PR world.

Intuit Fails Big Time to Communicate During Service Outage
B2B Marcom Writer, Diana Huff recaps Intuit’s bad decision to stay silent during their recent service outage this week, only to post an apology and an explanation for the downtime on their site after systems came back up about 24 hours later.

Robert Scoble on Being a Spokesperson and a Reporter
Andy Plesser from Beet.TV shares this candid interview with Robert Scoble that explores the “issues facing companies who are seeking to use Web video to enhance their image.” Stay tuned for PerkettPR’s own multi-part video interview with Robert hitting our blog next week.

Image Credit: Heather Hoesly

Blogging Is Dying; Twitter Is to Blame
Crayonista, Joseph Jaffe shares an interesting perspective via MPDailyFix.com (cross-posted from JaffeJuice.com) on how Twitter might be causing blogs to fade away.

Search Engine Tools, useful resources
As I’ve mentioned in previous Picks posts, we need to continue to always teach the basics. Barry Hurd does just that by sharing a short list of useful (and free) search engine tools to use when doing keyword research.

15 Things Social Media Can Do for You Today
David Finch believes “We often get so engrossed in the ROI, measurements, and tools of social media that we forget real life examples of how social media can work.” To support that notion he shares 15 ways social media can help change the way you interact online.

Google Asks Common Man “What is a Browser?” Common Man Has No Clue [Video]
Adam Ostrow shares this entertaining “man on the street” video that demonstrates how little the general public knows about basic technology. It teaches a valuable lesson on how difficult it is to get people to adopt new technologies into their lives – something Google is currently facing with trying to get people to adopt the new Chrome browser.

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.