5 Must-Read Reports on Social Media & Public Relations

StumbleUpon starts 2011 as the #1 source of Social Media traffic
Is StumbleUpon part of your content promotion strategy? This post from Christina Doland shares results from StatCounter that just might persuade you to move some of your eggs to another basket.

Social Media: Next Dot-Com Bubble?
Is there a growing “Social Media Bubble” that will eventually burst and potentially ruin companies in the same fashion that the bursting of the “Dot-Com Bubble” did years ago? Contributing editor, Lauren Bloom shares her thoughts on the subject via this post on TheStreet.com.

All set for Social Media in 2011? Not so fast!
For many brands, the new year marks an opportunity to make new headway into the social space. Be sure to check out this CustomerThink.com post from Leader Networks‘ CEO, Vanessa DiMauro before you get your feet wet.

4 skills brands *should* be seeking in their social media talent
Execution of an in-depth social strategy sometime means bringing on some full-time talent to handle the new workload. This post from Arik Hanson provides several tips to help ensure you avoid the so-called “social media expert,” and hire someone with the appropriate skill set to get the job done.

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.

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.