Is Facebook Headed For Trouble?
Informationweek contributing writer Michele Pepe-Warren shares the results of the 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business report that reveals Facebook might be the most used, but its definitely not the most loved.

Study: Social Media Marketing Reduces Reputation Crisis Costs by 33%
The past year has shown numerous brands making the wrong decision when it comes to the use social media for crisis management. This post from Andy Beal shares data from a new Forrester report that shows properly structured social marketing initiatives can save money in addition to reputation.

3 Simple Strategies For Your Social Tactics
This post from Samir Soriano on B2C Marketing Insider shares three tips to help provide more value to your customers when executing your finely crafted social strategy.

Old Spice guy and his viral media coup are social media game-changers
This week’s picks couldn’t end without a nod to the ever popular Old Spice Social Media Campaign. There are numerous posts covering their efforts, but this one from Rob Dickens on Memeburn.com does a really nice job of chronicling the brand’s efforts stemming back to the 70’s.

6 marketing opportunities on Foursquare

Facebook Marketing Tips: Make the Most of Your Fan Page
Online Marketing Blog Copywriter, Michelle Bowles shares a few great tips on making the most of your Facebook Fan Page and provides examples of real pages that are inline with her advice.

Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl Ad Plans Include Social Media
Stuart Elliot from the WSJ’s Media Decoder blog provides a run-down of Coca-Cola’s Super Bowl campaign that includes a combination of traditional tv ads and online focused social media efforts

50% of Marketers Shifting Funds From Traditional to Online; Social “Top Priority”
Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal shares the results from a recent report from the Society of Digital Agencies that indicates marketers are continuing to put more time and effort in the online social space.

Social Media As Customer Service
Lauren Fischer from SimplyZesty explores the trend of businesses adding social media platforms to their customer service workflows. A link to a Forrester presentation is also provided.

The 10 Rock Solid Elements of Effective Online Marketing
Snag this free PDF written by Copyblogger founder Brian Clark, and find out more about the importance of building online authority.

Social Media Marketing Spend to Hit $3.1 Billion by 2014
Forrester’s new Interactive Marketing Forecast for the next five years shows healthy growth that will out-pace email and mobile, but naturally, still won’t top traditional ad spends.

Time to Replace your Online News Room with Facebook!
The term “online newsroom” was all the buzz a year or two ago. Paul Dunay argues in favor of ditching a home-grown news room to go with Facebook pages, as a free alternative with better exposure. Read his post on MPDailyFix.com

Community Netiquette: How to Avoid Stepping on Virtual Toes
Community Guy Jake McKee shares some of the basics for proper conduct in online communities – especially when representing your company.

The Forgotten Social Media Tool
With so many social networks and platforms to utilize these days, it’s easy to forget the countless bulletin board systems out there that still have incredibly active communities covering limitless niche topics. Robert Quigley brings bulletin boards back into perspective with this post on MediaBullsEye.

How to Use Social Media: An Interview with Lee Aase of Mayo Clinic
Guy Kawasaki shares this interesting interview (via Amex’s Open Forum blog) with Lee Aase of the Mayo Clinic on how they have been utilizing social media.

My Top 10 Sources of Content Inspiration
Being able to generate a continuous stream of content for blog posts comes naturally for some. For others, it can be a torturous process. Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch shares 10 places where he finds inspiration for writing a plethora of great content.

Report: Companies Should Organize For Social Media in a “Hub and Spoke” model
Many companies diving into the social media space are still trying to figure out what department actually “owns” social media. Should it be part of an existing internal group or is a re-organization in order? Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang shares three different models of company organization that can be found in his latest report.

Turning your feed reader into a powerful monitoring dashboard
I’m a big fan of using Google Reader to aid in some of my social media/brand monitoring efforts. Mack Collier from the Viral Garden blog shares some tips and techniques on how he uses it in conjunction with Bloglines.

5 Ways To Find & Acquire Customers On Twitter
These days, the economy forces businesses to get creative when trying to finding new clients. Brian Norgard writes this guest post on the ShoeMoney blog to share five ways you can use Twitter for finding new business.

Twitterville Notebook: Jeremiah Owyang
Shel Israel continues his Twitterville series of posts by interviewing Jeremiah Owyang on the topic of personal brand.

Do You Have the ‘Four As’ To Be a Thought Leader?
Dana Vanden Heuvel writes this guest post on Marketing Prof’s Daily Fix to share the four “A’s” you might need to be a thought leader in your industry.

Ongoing List of Social Media Examples in the Auto and Car Industy
Jeremiah Owyang provides an excellent list of social media case studied revolving around the automobile industry.

Blog Topics for Business to Business Customers
Coming up with a steady stream of topics for your corporate blog is sometimes not an easy task. This can be especially challenging in the B2B space where topics can be rather, well…dull. Chris Brogan help ease the process with several good suggestions.

H&R Block Social Media Programs Success
Jennifer Jones from PodTech interviews Paula Drum, VP of Marketing for H&R Block on their use of social media tools and the success that they’ve had. Be sure to check out all of Jennifer’s other excellent interview podcasts as well.

Must-Read Books for the Social Media Marketing Newcomer
This post on the Ignite Social Media blog touches on 9 “must read” books for those diving into the social media space.

We changed the subject matter to something more our in line with our expertise, of course. At PerkettPR, we’re enthusiastic about social media and the opportunities – and challenges – that it presents to the PR profession. Our session was titled, “Join the Conversation: More Effective PR Through Social Media.”

For some, this may seem to be an oxy moron. Many constituents are shouting from the rooftops that PR is dead – due to social media. I completely disagree. I think it’s forcing us to evolve – but that’s a good thing. Social media presents amazing opportunities for communications professionals to engage with their publics in ways never before possible. For me, it’s thrilling. I am so enthusiastic about social media that I liken it to wanting to jump on the couch like Tom Cruise to emphatically express my love for it.

Yesterday, as we started speaking on this topic, the majority of faces in the room looked at us like we were crazy. Facebook for business? Linkedin Answers? Link love on blogs? Twitter-what??? Although, their eyes did light up when Heather explained Twitter like this: It’s like entering a noisy, crowded stadium and saying, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’… The entire stadium quiets to silence and everyone sits down except for four people that raise their hand and say ‘I can help!’…It’s that powerful and can provide a whole new lifeline of resources to draw from.

We had expected that the majority of the room would not yet be embracing social media (luckily, we were right or we could have been really boring). We knew we weren’t going to be in a room full of technology PR professionals. However, I’m also surprised at how many communicators haven’t embraced what is arguably the biggest evolution of our industry in decades…and their reasoning has nothing to do with technology.

Here are some of the questions and objections to social media participation that really stood out for me:

1) How do you find the time
2) What do you do if someone says something negative about you in the blogosphere?
3) How do you get corporate management to let you participate in social media?

I could go on and on about these topics but I’ll try to keep my recommendations simple.

1) If you don’t find the time I believe you will be out of a job. This is the way communications is going. Participate or be left behind. It’s that simple. Seriously.

Okay, okay, I did provide real tips such as: start slowly; join Twitter and observe for a while. Try to go on a few times a day to begin – post a question in the morning. Come back at noon and check for responses in DMs or aggregators like Tweet Scan. Post thank yous/follow up and another question. Come back before the end of your day and repeat. This can take ½ hour total.

2) It depends. Was it a customer? Was it a competitor? Was there any truth to the complaint or comment? There is no one right answer but there are guidelines to keep in mind – transparency and common sense being two of them.

We provided a few examples from experiences with our own clients. Two different crisis and two different recommendations: one, a posted apology and two, a personal phone call to the blogger. Different situations that called for different actions. In the end, both were turned around by … participating.

3) My answer for this today is simple – hand them a copy of the new book Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research. (Really, it should be required reading for all marketers, communicators and C-level executives.)

Better yet, read it first, highlight the parts that apply to you and the company (and trust me, no matter what industry you are in, there are examples that will apply to you) and put it on every corporate executive’s desk. Include a sticky note with this great quote – one of many – from the book:

“…While you can’t stop it, you can understand it.”

And just for good measure – maybe include another of my favorite quotes from Charlene Li: “While you cannot control word of mouth, you can influence it.” Then explain to them that you cannot do either of these things if you are not allowed to participate.

I hope we helped some communicators at the conference to begin to understand “it.” Forrester calls it the groundswell. Others call it Web 2.0 and still others the new social landscape. Whatever you call it, it’s here to stay…so jump in!

I’d love to hear comments from you, Dear Community, as well. Can you chime in with your ideas and help these professionals learn? After all, isn’t that the spirit of what this new social movement is all about? (Thank you, in advance!)

25 Social Media Buzzwords Explained (Part 1 & Part 2)
Jim Tobin from IgniteSocialMedia.com shares this great two-part post listing 25 common Social Media buzzwords and brief explanations of each. This is a good primer for folks who are new to the Social Media space and want to get a jump-start on the lingo.

Bucking the System
Forrester’s Josh Bernoff shares insight on strategies for pioneering change towards Social Media within your company. The advise is taken straight from Bernoff and Charlene Li’s upcoming book, Groundswell.

15 Free Social Media White Papers and Ebooks
Even if you’re a seasoned Social Media maven, there are sure to be some interesting nuggets and different perspectives found in this compilation of 15 white papers and ebooks posted on Mashable.

How I tamed my inbox
Chris Brogan shares his process for keeping his email inbox clean and projects organized. Both are chores that haunt web-workers on a daily basis! Chris also provides a link to Merlin Mann’s excellent “Inbox Zero” talk that he presented at the Google offices last year.

Organizing Our Digital Lives
Scott Monty fom Crayon appears on MarketingProf’s Daily Fix this week and shares a number of web-based aggregators that can help you get a handle on the fire hose of information that can drown the typical web-worker. I’ve played with a few of them, and they can definitely help get the flow under control.

Starbucks Transformational Agenda
Brand Autopsy’s John Moore takes a look at the initiatives that Starbucks announced after their 2008 Shareholders Meeting and offers an interesting perspective. All eyes are on their announcement of the MyStarbucksIdea.com website that is being launched as part of their new Social Media strategy. Its success (or failure) could be the next most popular case-study!

Thats all for this week. Feel free to leave a comment and start a discussion on any of the topics. Let us know what you think of the format, and stay tuned for more “Persuasive Picks” next week!

I couldn’t agree with Tom any more. From my own personal experiences, I have found Twitter to be a much more valuable networking tool than Facebook. For the most part, I think it comes down to the nature of the two beasts.

Facebook is Passive

When it comes to reaching our to your social graph for help or answers to questions, Facebook leans towards a very “traditional marketing” approach in the way that it lets you communicate. You can either directly contact someone with your message or post something in your status or profile. When you go down that path, your only hope is that someone is paying attention and sees it in between games Scrabulous games and warding off Vampire bites.

As echoed many times throughout the course of 2007, business professionals are adopting the use of Facebook at a rapid pace. That still doesn’t change the mostly passive way it operates as a communications tool. For the business professional, Facebook is a fun, great less formal alternative to LinkedIn. It allows you to build an online calling card of sorts and it provides the ability to keep your contacts up to date on the latest happenings in your life through photos and video. True conversation can be found through discussion threads within Facebook groups. Finding groups that both match your interests – and that are consistently active – can be a hit or miss situation.

Twitter is Active

On the other hand, Twitter does one thing and it does it well. It’s all about the conversation and there is always someone there to who will see your message. From the outside looking in, it’s often hard for people to understand the value that Twitter brings to the table. Its value is directly related to the quality of the people that you choose to follow. My Twitter network has grown substantially faster than my friends on Facebook. In fact, a good portion of my friends on Facebook are folks who I originally connected with on Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter are also fairly different when it comes to demographics. In October of 2007, Forrester’s Charlene Li presented that 34% of Facebook’s user base is comprised of business professionals. Twitter didn’t start as a student targeted platform and, from personal observation, I would bet that professional use dominates the platform by 90% or more. Younger generations are already deeply engrained in SMS messaging and standard instant messaging. This difference keeps the conversation on a generally more “mature” and honest level. Experienced Twitter users are always ready and willing to lend a helping hand, no matter if it’s with raising money for a friend in need, or voting on the best commercials during the Superbowl.

Who wins the battle?

In the end, I don’t think either Facebook or Twitter can be deemed better than the other. They both server different purposes and provide different mechanisms for communicating with your peers or target audiences. Facebook is feature-rich and offers passive and indirect communication tools. Twitter focuses specifically on the conversation and enables more immediate and direct communication with your all of your “Followers.”

Based on these reasons, it definitely pays off to put some thought into the tools you use when communicating with your social graph. Choosing the correct tool based on the your specific needs will give you the most “bang for your buck” – even when the tools are free!

What do you think? If you have a Twitter or Facebook success story, we’d love to hear about it!