SFGate shows it’s readers How Social Media Can Help Consumers Save Money in this informative post by Lewis Humphires

Duke Chung, co-founder of Parature,  provides Mashable with 5 Ways to Turn Social Customers Into Brand Ambassadors

WebProNews interviews actor/producer Joel Bryant at the BlogWorld Expo in L.A. in this video that asks Is Social Media the Future of Entertainment? [VIDEO]

CBS Money Watch‘s Kimberly Weisul reports that’s big employers’ reactions to social media can be downright schizophrenic in Companies flip-flop on social media.

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

SmartWater hit a home run with spokeswoman Jennifer Aniston’s cleverly-titled “sex tape” spoof, a nearly three-minute ad that showcases the key elements that make viral videos spread like wildfire. The premise goes something like this: Aniston, coached by a team of “three lovely Internet boys” attempts to make an advertisement for the bottled water go viral – or, as she says, “apparently, um, turns into a virus.”

Dancing babies seem like a good option, until they start grinding on one another, prompting Aniston to ask, “Where’s the mommy?” She then apologizes to one fan, an unsuspecting victim of her crotch kick, explaining, “Apparently, that’s worth about 100,000 hits.” The former Friends star even pokes fun at herself with a parrot, which instead of saying “I love SmartWater” squawks, “Rachel, I love your hair.”

The video ends with Aniston asking, “Is it hot in here?” and shocking her Internet gurus by tossing her hair in slow motion before sexily sipping SmartWater, even letting a few droplets fall onto her chest. When asked what she thinks of the “sex tape” title, she says, “I love it!”

And apparently we all do, as the explosive number of views indicates, bringing the video to official viral video distinction.

But beyond gimmicks and clichés, what really makes a video become an Internet sensation? Here’s why we think SmartWater struck (liquid) gold with this one:

• They took a chance: As we all know, you can’t make something go viral. If it’s good enough it just happens. But you never know until you try.
• They thought outside the “bottle:” Ever thought there would be a viral video about water? The folks at SmartWater knew they’d have to step it up and think creatively to get people talking.
• They lightened up: By teaming up with current viral stars and even poking some fun at herself and her own brand, both Aniston and SmartWater come across as refreshing (pun intended) in the video.
• They kept a few key things in mind: It’s what every ad should be – simple, fun, memorable and appealing to the eyes. And the call to action? After watching Aniton’s slow-motion hair-tossing sequence, I’m betting more than a few folks will be reaching for that water to cool off.

What do you think – do you like the video? Is it worthy of its viral video status?

Bringing together Internet executives, senior marketers, entrepreneurs and investors, this years speakers represented companies like Google, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, Yahoo!, Go Daddy, AutoTrader.com, and more. Speakers presented on topics ranging from Social Media, to Mobile, Online Video, Cloud Computing, Real-time, Analytics, Online Advertising, and E-commerce.

The TIMA Summit Party was also a huge success! Hosted by TIMA and co-sponsored by DesignBox – who provided the awesome venue – and MediaTwo Interactive, some have said this year’s party was one of the best events tied to the Tech/Social Media community of Raleigh.

The following video offers a small taste of how great the event was and features a few of the party attendees sharing their predictions for 2011. What do you think will be the hot trends for 2011? What do you think about some of the predictions shared in this video? Share your response in the comments section below – and thanks for watching!

During this interview, Wayne shares great insight on the location based services market landscape, how it works and what it means for consumers. And, most importantly, what retailers and brands need to think about when considering a location-based campaign as part of their marketing strategy.

Marketers – considering geolocation or location-based services as part of your future marketing campaigns? Which services are you reviewing and why? How will location tie into your online and offline initiatives? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!

For those that may not know Wayne, he holds nearly 10 years of experience in technology and social media. He is the Business Development/Marketing Strategist for TriOut, a location-based services application developed to help individuals explore the Triangle area and discover its cultural treasures. Wayne is also a consultant, helping start-ups and established businesses succeed in understanding how to best communicate their brand strategy through social media, as well as location-based services.

In this first of a two-part series, Wayne shares three tips for new entrepreneurs thinking about launching in today’s market:

• Hire good people you can trust
• Build a revenue model that adds value and solves a problem
• Try not to spend or take money if you don’t need it

He also gives his take on the Raleigh tech/social media scene.

I hope you enjoy the interview  – our Part II interview will feature Wayne talking about the impact of location-based services on corporate marketing strategies. What should marketers be thinking about as they plan their 2011 Marketing budgets? We’d love to get your thoughts/advice.

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.

“Social media is still media – it’s not anything new.” Watch the video to learn more, and be sure to check out Part 1 of the interview if you haven’t seen it yet.

Thanks again to Ilena for sharing her time and insights with us – and you!

NOTE: We continue our interview series of influencers, media and entrepreneurs across industries such as tech, fashion and healthcare. If you have an interesting subject for us to consider, please email blog [at] perkettpr [dot] com!

Ilina is a firecracker. That is the word that most use to describe her. She is the definition of a straight-shooter and that is what I love about her. Your classic Type-A, she is a self-proclaimed ‘neat freak’, die-hard Democrat and mother of two boys. In her ‘spare’ time Illina runs her own marketing company, iFactor, and also finds time to write for multiple blogs including Foodie Mamma and Deep South Moms and is a regular contributor to WRAL’s GoAsk Mom column. Talk about an effective multitasker!

In this first of a two-part series, Ilina sat down to talk to PerkettPR about her gritty – and sometimes controversial – blog Dirt and Noise.  In this interview, she shares background on what inspires the content for her blog, what postings garner the most attention – both positive and negative – and offers sound advice for others who are thinking about dipping their toe into the blogging pool.

NOTE: We’re reviving our interview series of influencers, media and entrepreneurs across industries such as tech, fashion and healthcare. If you have an interesting subject for us to consider, please email blog [at] perkettpr [dot] com!

While Robert now has a corporate job as a video blogger for Rackspace – where he is building a community for people fanatical about the Internet called building43, he has long been a technical evangelist. Also a published author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, with Shel Israel, Scoble is probably best known for his blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft and is now unarguably one of the top tech blogs around. Scoble also used to work for Fast Company as a video blogger, where he learned his fair share of dealing with PR people.

PerkettPR sat down with Scoble recently and asked his opinion on everything from how kids influence his perspective to what his favorite sites are (hint: tweet, tweet) and how he uses them, to what he wanted to be when he grew up. Here, in Part I of our two-part series, you get to know a little bit about how he got started (there were only about 200 blogs around when he did!).

In the spirit of learning from each other, he wanted to share a negative experience he had recently encountered with a PR firm. David’s frustration echoed what we often hear from journalists and bloggers when it comes to PR – that PR executives don’t take the time to read and understand who they are pitching. David said, “In this case, the blatant desire to take advantage of me and my status with absolutely zero interest in me was offensive.” This stemmed from the PR agency “pitching” David to write a blog post on their client – before building any type of relationship with him or even acknowledging that they read, followed and understood what David does on a daily basis and why this story might be of particular interest to him and his audience.

We appreciated David’s openness and effort to help educate PR executives on how to work better with bloggers – and we thought it would make for an interesting guest post in our “Journalists Are People Too” interview series. So we met with David, captured his thoughts on camera and have posted them here for you. We hope you find his insights helpful – and if you have experiences with PR (good or bad) that you’d like to share in the spirit of harmonious working, please let us know. We’d love to include you in our interview series.

And FYI – Fred may be a geek, but that’s how we like ‘em here at PerkettPR!