4 Ways Video Can Help Your Social Media Marketing Success
This Clickz.com post from Liana Evans provides some practical advice for creating useful video for your business rather than shooting for the that virtually unobtainable “viral” brass ring.

How Southwest Airlines Is Connecting With Customers Via Social Media
Last week’s picks featured a look at how JetBlue has been finding success with their social media efforts. This week you can also take a peek at how they’re doing it over at Southwest – via this video post over on SocialMediaExaminer.com.

56% Of Content Shared Online Occurs Via Facebook
Not using Facebook as part of your social marketing strategy yet? You might want to reconsider it. Get a quick rundown of some pretty impressive stats when it comes to sharing content online – via this AllFacebook.com post from Jennifer Moire.

Facebook And Twitter: What If The Real World Was Like Social Media?
This week’s round of picks wraps up with this very funny video from the English National Opera that shows what things would be like if you applied your online life to the real world. Enjoy!

Photo Credit: Salim Virji

Quora might be the shiny new social tool of the month, but the jury is still out as to whether there’s value contained within or even if the site will last. Chris Brogan provides his view via this post that continues on with a great comment thread from the community. What’s your take?

How Small Businesses Can Use Quora
The topic of Quora continues with this next pick. Still not sure how it might be used with your business? ReadWriteWeb‘s John Paul Titlow shares several ways you might integrate the tool into your social strategy.

In Social Media Marketing, Influence Trumps Popularity
Need a better understanding of why “influence” is such an important part of the social web? This post from Mila D’Antonio explains why influence is not the same as popularity and provides a real world example of how Rayovac has leveraged the power of influencers in their recent social campaigns.

5 Tips for Optimizing and Integrating Your Social Media Content
So, you’ve got an editorial calendar chock full of great content ideas ready to roll out, but are you making the most of your content creation efforts? Liana Evans provides several good tips to keep you going in the right direction via this guest post on Clickz.com

Firms are overcoming their fear of social media: report
Graham Charlton from eConsultancy shares the results of their recent “2011 Customer Engagement Report” that revealed an increase in companies use of social tools for customer engagement and support. Read on for details.

Social Media: In-House or Outsourced

3 Social Media Measurement Tips From #TechChat With Andrew Spoeth
This MPDailyFix post from Megan Leap offers up three great social measurement tips from last week’s #TechChat – a weekly Twitter chat sponsored by @MarketingProfs – for those who happened to miss it.

95% of Companies Have Tried Social Media; 40% Didn’t Inhale!
Marketing Pilgrim‘s Andy Beal highlights three of the many interesting findings from the recent Social Media and Online PR Report from Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia.

Understanding That Viral Isn’t Really Social Media
This Clickz.com post from Liana Evans suggests that “going viral is more akin to “word-of-mouth than social media” and takes a look at some key differences between viral marketing and social media marketing.

How to stay focused and not go app crazy
Shashi Bellamkonda from Network Solutions shares Jason Falls‘ insight on social media and business via this Q&A guest post on the Washington Business Journal.

Image Credit: Matt Hamm

Forrester Recommends Caution with LBS
Mike Schneider challenges Forrester‘s stance on Location Based Services they published in a recent report, and he provides an alternate point of view that should definitely be considered.

B-Schools All A-Twitter Over Social Media
Brace youself for a new wave of Social Media experts. This Bloomberg Business post from Sommer Saadi explores the new trend where business schools are starting to offer MBA courses on Internet Marketing and Social Media Strategy.

Altimeter Report Provides Facebook Page Guidelines, Benchmarks
Dave Fleet provides a brief overview and commentary on the Altimeter Group’s free report entitled The 8 Success Criteria for Facebook Page Marketing.

To Block or Not to Block Facebook and Social Media in the Workplace
Klint Finley shares highlights from Cisco’s Mid-Year Security Report that recommends “better security education and social media policies in the work place instead of technical restrictions” based on its findings on end-users accessing social media tools at work.

Study: Social Media, Mobile Set to Impact Holidays in Big Way
Retailers might get a little extra business from social media communities this holiday season. Christopher Heine from Clickz.com cites some interesting facts from a recent study by Deloitte.

Your Social Media Content Must Be Valuable
Content might be king, but SearchEngineWatch.com’s Liana Evans reminds readers that quality outweighs quantity when it comes to maintaining your high search engine rank.

Companies Identify Major Business Benefits in Listening to Online Conversation
More great facts, stats and examples of the importance of paying attention to online conversations about your brand, courtesy of Aberdeen and CNN Money.

How Ford does Social Media
JD Lasica shares this great video interview featuring Scott Monty who heads up Social Media at Ford.