Social media amateur aficionado Dr Layla McCay attends five Social Media Week events and brings back Five Social Media Lessons From the Cutting Edge for The Huffington Post.

MarketingProfs‘ Chris Chariton explains why marketers should focus on content creation, online marketing, and technology in the article Five Trends B2B Marketers Need to Understand to Succeed in 2012.

Adam Vincenzini rounds up some of the latest tools and apps that are generating some buzz online in This week’s most useful new social media tools via TheNextWeb.

Why I’m Glad I Went to SXSW (Despite My Reluctance): One Virgin’s Experience
Fresh off the heals of our own @missusP’s post about her first-time SXSW experience comes this entertaining recap from MarketingProf‘s Ann Handley. And yes, this is the second week in a row that Ms. Handley has appeared in our picks…let the rumors begin!  ;)

Three social media marketing techniques that brands should probably ditch
Econsultancy tech reporter Patricio Robles provides a short list of social marketing techniques that brands should consider avoiding when deploying new campaigns.

Why Social Media is Perfect for Small Businesses
TMCnet.com contributing editor Gary Kim shares the results of a recent American Express survey that revealed that word of mouth is still one of the primary ways small businesses gain new customers – which is also one of the benefits of a properly executed online social strategy.

Facebook Questions Goes Where Quora Can’t
Quora certainly rocked the “buzz meter” in the beginning of 2011. ReadWriteWeb‘s Mike Melanson shares highlights from Facebook‘s announcement of its newly enhanced Questions feature that will make it more valuable to users.

5 Questions (and Answers) About Social Location Marketing
MarketingProf‘s Ann Handley shares a short Q&A with “Social Location Marketing” author Simon Salt, who explains why location-based marketing will continue to be relevant and worthy of consideration as part of your overall social strategy.

How Do You Know if Social Media Marketing is Working?
Ira Kalb challenges a recent post from BNET blogger Jeff Haden, where he suggests that “social media marketing is a waste of time” and “doesn’t produce tangible results.”

Most Marketers Clueless About Social Media Conversations
This SocialMediaExaminer.com post from Amy Porterfield highlights the results of the 8th annual Alterian survey, which found marketers admitting to struggles when it comes to customer engagement across multiple social platforms.

Facebook ‘Likes’ more profitable than tweets
Mashable‘s Sarah Kessler breaks down the findings from a recent Eventbrite study that used “in-house social analytics tools to track ticket sales on the site” to determine that Facebook “Likes” drive more sales than Tweets pointing to the same event.

Photo source: AllieIsWierd.com

Go guerrilla on social media
Business Standard reprints this nice chunk of content from the book “Gorilla Social Media Marketing” by Jay Conrad Levinson and Shane Gibson that helps marketers to approach their social strategies with gorilla tactics.

70% Of SMBs Plan To Use Social Media
Informationweek‘s Kevin Casey shares the results of a recent Techaisle poll that found 7 out of 10 small businesses plan to use social media in the next year – however, a little less than half of those planning to use it aren’t actually sure how it will help their business.

5 Smart Social PR Campaigns to Learn From
Mashable‘s Leyl Master Black shares five innovative PR campaigns from big brands like Healthy Choice and KFC that have successfully integrated social components.

6 Reasons Your Social Media Sucks
James Kotecki, online content strategist for the Huffington Post lays out the reasons why your social media sucks and urges readers to experiment to find the right combo of tools to make your strategy work.

Digg Updates Design to Draw Users Back
Remember the days when part of your social strategy was to try and get your articles voted to the front page of Digg? Those days are long gone and Digg almost is as well. Mashable‘s Ben Parr highlights Digg’s recent user interface change in order to regain some of the popularity it once had.

Why Social Media Hasn’t Killed The Super Bowl For Advertisers
Seems like big brands are still willing to pay big bucks for ad spots on the one day that viewers won’t fast forward their DVRs through the commercials. Find out why, in this post from Antony Young on Forbes.com.

Digital Divide: Segregation Is Alive and Well in Social Media
Pepper Miller provides an eye-opening and very interesting look into how ethnic Internet users congregate in the online social space via this post on AdAge.com.

What to Consider When Executing Your Social Media Strategy
Fiorella Alvarado from MoreVisibility.com shares four tips to help you take advantage of opportunities and avoid pitfalls when executing your new social strategy.

Mattel Launches Digital Campaign Aiming To Reunite Barbie & Ken
Erica Swallow shares details from Mattel‘s new massive online (and offline) social campaign to reunite Ken and Barbie. This should definitely be a fun one to keep an eye on.

Mobile Users Want Branded Apps that Are Useful, Not Just for Marketing

Want to Lead Corporate Social Strategy? Read This.
Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company, shares highlights from Altimeter‘s “Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist” report. The Slideshare version of the report is also included.

Could Facebook replace your e-mail inbox?
Mashable‘s Pete Cashmore speculates on Facebook‘s rumored plunge into the email provider space. Do they have what it takes to lure people away from the likes of GMail and Yahoo Mail? Read on for one perspective.

B2B Social Media Resources
Chris Brogan shares a plethora of great B2B resources that go beyond his ongoing collection of case studies on Delicious.

Social Media’s Impact on Offline Sales
Elizabeth Glagowski explains how social media can impact the bottom line through actual sales and provides several real world examples of businesses that are doing it right.

Could Facebook be bluffing on search-engine plans?
Mashable‘s Pete Cashmore shares his perspective on this week’s Facebook/Microsoft Bing partnership via his regular column on CNN.com.

What Social Media Can Teach Us About SEO
There are plenty of ways to “game” social platforms in order to give off a perception of greater influence, but when it comes to search rankings, only original and engaging content will get you where you need to be in the world of SEO. Vizion Interactive CEO Mark Jackson shares his views on the the topic, via this post on Clickz.com.

Social Media Now More Popular Than E-mail on Mobile Devices
Lauren Indvik highlights the results of a recent TNS report that found “mobile users spend 1.4 times as many hours using social networking sites than reading and responding to e-mail” via this post on Mashable. Is mobile part of your social strategy yet?

How to drive Facebook likes
This post from Drew McLellan provides a brief overview of Corona’s recent Facebook campaign to drive more “Likes.” Don’t have a Corona-sized budget? Drew also provides some good tips on executing your own successful campaign.

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.

The key to catching a reporter’s eye? Pitch like one
Ragan.com’s Jessica Levco shares five useful tips to keep in mind when pitching reporters gathered from Danielle Cass, communications manager for Kaiser Permanente

Social media war rooms (and why you need one)
This iMediaConnection post by Ari Newman provides valuable advice on being prepared to act when a media crisis strikes.

What to Do When a PR Disaster Strikes Your Startup
This ReadWriteWeb post by Audrey Watters continues the theme of online crisis management and highlights the highs and lows of Blippy’s response to their recent media woes.

Why Small Businesses Fail on the Web
Abe Mezrich from Didit shares this episode of Marketing Obsessions on MPDailyFix.com featuring Jason Teichman from Register.com who discusses where small businesses fail with their online digital presence.

Facebook overtakes Google, Twitterers prefer social to news

Twitter’s @anywhere could prove risky for users
Computerworld’s Sharon Gaudin provides a rundown of Twitter’s new @anywhere functionality and explains why this offering could prove risky to brands.

How SEO Can Build Brand
This post from SEOConsult begins the exploration of the relationship between Search Engine Optimization and the profitability of your business.

Is Google Wave getting Buzzed?
Google Wave and Google Buzz are two new apps that many web-workers are still struggling to figure out. Both were launched in radically different ways. While users are still trying to figure out how these products fit into their workflow, it seems that Google itself is also still trying to determine what’s next for these new offerings. To be continued…

It’s the Social Media Strategy Struggle
WebWorkDaily’s Aliza Sherman shares a list of helpful social media strategies that she learned from her experience at this year’s SXSW Interactive Conference.

Are you a social media addict?
Following along with a similar topic to my first pick, Scott Kleinberg from the ChicagoNow’s Redeye blog shares five fun signs that you might be a social media addict.

A Framework for Branding Through Social Media
Jordan Julien suggests five methods of communicating with your online communities to better map out your social media strategies.

7 Reasons Social Media Is A No-Brainer For Passionate B2C Brands
B2C brands that are still hesitant to make the plunge into social media might benefit from Adam Singer’s seven reasons to jump in sooner rather than later.

Using Classic PR Techniques To Support Brands In Social Networks
Marty Weintraub shares seven existing PR channels that can be leveraged to help feed information into a social media presence on a regular basis.

Nike Censors LeBron James Dunk Incident; Creates Needless PR Fiasco
Nike takes the heat as they learn a lesson about transparency – the hard way.

Blogging Truth: No One Likes Your CEO
Lisa Barone from Outspoken Media serves up this fun and entertaining post about why your company’s CEO might not be the best person to write the corporate blog.

Since When Are Blogs Not Social Media?
Brian Clark from Copyblogger reminds us that the blogs were the original form of social media and still hold tremendous value in your social media strategy.

Life after 80, or what World of Warcraft can teach you about marketing mastery
Christoper S. Penn channels your “inner-gamer” with this fun look at how World of Warcraft compares to marketing strategy.

How P.F. Chang’s Uses Twitter to Be Awesome
Word of Mouth Marketer, Andy Sernovitz shares this inspiring interview that she shot with Kelly Morehead of the restaurant chain P.F. Changs. Their innovative use of Twitter is a story that B2Cs’ can learn from.

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.

Are You Spreading Yourself Too Thin?
Jacob Morgan provides some food for thought around the idea of creating multiple accounts for your business on each of the platforms that you are adopting as part of your overall social strategy. The topic definitely deserves consideration to avoid diluting your efforts.

16 Boring but Important Ways to Make Your Business More Social
It’s all too easy to get caught up in the “cool-factor” of the shiny new social web-apps that get released each week. Trying to figure out how to fit all these tools into your company’s social strategy can often distract you from many of the basic things you can do that will often make a bigger (social) impact. Shannon Paul shares 16 “boring” strategies for making your business more social.

Lessons Learned from 3 Years of Blogging
Are you still struggling with the idea of starting a blog and the what content you should create for it that will contribute to its success? Rebecca from the SEOMoz blog shares a plethora of lessons learned from the last three years of her blogging experience.

Are Newspapers & Big Media Dead? Think Again… My Contrarian Take
The continuing speculation over the fate of print media is far from over and there are certainly a lot of interesting takes on the topic. Chris Treadaway shares six interesting reasons why hyperlocal on-line media won’t win out over big print media.