Its Valentines Day, which means that todays social media headlines are bought you with all the commercialised love on offer.

Leggo’s sends personalised Valentine’s Day love songs in Facebook campaign
Leggo’s is creating personalised love songs on its Facebook page by giving away free love songs as part of its Valentines Day program.

Liking a brand has a positive purchase intent
Interesting news from eMarketer: 54% of those who like a brand on Facebook are then more likely to purchase the product.

Pinterest reaches ten million unique visitors a month
According to comScore, Pinterest is the quickest ever site to reach ten million uniques a month. Certainly a site we’re watching closely.

From social media to word of mouth
Promoting a brand on Facebook means more than just buying up thousands of fans and, right on cue, Unilever have announced that it is shifting away from using social media for getting fans and instead wants to move towards engagement to drive advocacy and word of mouth.

Hey, have you seen this new video?
Just like a study released a couple of weeks ago, new research has found that viewers who watched a video were more likely to recall the featured brand when it was recommended by a friend compared to viewers who found the video through browsing. Also, people who watched a friend-recommended clip were more likely to enjoy the video and purchase the product.

Adding Facebook Places to your map
Some Facebook users can now see an “Add to Map” button for business pages with brick-and-mortar addresses. This is meant to encourage more people to fill in their Timelines, but should also yield valuable information in recommending places to friends and letting businesses create more targeted ads.

LinkedIn reaches 150 million users
LinkedIn has reached 150 million users, after adding more than 50 million users in the last 10 months; in doing so, it has secured its place as the professional’s social network.

Could the tap-in be the next check-in?
In its latest update for Android, Foursquare has included support for near-field communication, which would allow check-ins via a wave or a tap when you reach a location. The service has changed dramatically as it gets ready to enter its fourth year, and it’s taking notes from Twitter about getting past its ‘growing pains’.

MySpace to announce one million new users
Since December, when MySpace introduced a new music player, it has added one million new users, the first increase in users in almost a year.

Path: one to watch
since its redesign two months back Path has added one million new users and is growing exponentially. Whilst it’s only available on smartphones – the ease of use of the nascent app-cum-social network, means it’s another we’re watching closely.

Domino’s return to crowd-sourcing
Domino’s has launched Think Oven, it’s new attempt to crowd-source feedback from its Facebook fans:

The Think Oven Facebook tab has two sections: Projects and Idea Box. Projects is where Domino’s solicits feedback on specific projects, with the kick-off project asking fans to brainstorm uniform ideas. Two visual submissions and two written submissions will each receive $500 rewards. Idea Box is more open-ended and accepts any ideas people want to submit (although it’s safe to assume the brand’s Facebook admins can delete any offensive/rude suggestions). After all, the pizza chain’s latest product, Parmesan Bread Bites, was created by Brian Edler, a Domino’s Store Owner in Ohio. Other ideas so far including introducing rooftop gardens, better French dressing and a pizza delivery locator light.

Control cats from your computer
A new campaign from Friskies allows users to control a series of kittens’ toys through Facebook (while real live kittens play with them). With cats, consumers and the internet combined, expect the web to go into meltdown.

Foster’s UK with Facebook Timeline app
Fosters is the first alcohol brand in the to develop a Timeline app, using it to showcase its exclusive comedy content. Rumours of the comedy being sweet, but mostly flat, are yet to be confirmed.

O2 UK surprises and dazzles with a Valentine campaign
The mobile operator O2 is rolling out plans to ‘surprise and delight’ customers with another personalised social media campaign for Valentines Day. The have created a virtual digital love nest in the clouds to deliver Twitter users messages via Youtube videos, personally recorded by non-identical twin “O2 Cupids”.

Threadless link-up with Pinterest
T-shirt makers Threadless are one of the first brands to run a campaign on Pinterest: they’ve asked users to create a Valentine’s Pinboard including five Threadless products, for the chance to win an $100 voucher as well an $100 Amazon gift card.

CMOs to agencies: adapt or die
Is it brands that are having a hard time evolving, or is it agencies? Just 9% of senior marketers believe traditional ad agencies have successfully joined the digital age, according to a new study. Lucky there’s people like us around to help…

The latest data from Socialbakers, looking at the Australia’s top Facebook pages in January by different criteria:

Shopping has always been a highly social experience, so it’s little surprise that retailers all over the world are exploring how they can best harness social media, both online and on the high street.

This is a topic I explored in the above presentation, which I gave at the Asia Pacific Retailers Convention in Singapore late last year.

It explores 3 key questions:

1. What exactly are social media?
2. Why are they relevant to (retail) marketing?
3. How can retailers in Asia harness social media?

We begin by examining the rationale for using social media, with some high-level numbers that demonstrate the scale and pervasiveness of social media in Asia and around the world. Tellingly, these numbers have changed even in the few weeks since I delivered this presentation, as we saw in our recent reports on Social, Digital and Mobile in Asia.

The second part of the presentation contains some great examples of how retailers like Uniqlo and Tesco have used social media to help with different objectives, from raising brand awareness and driving sustained loyalty to delivering one-to-one customer service.

We then take a quick look at some key trends that will shape the future of social media for retailers:

• The importance of mobile devices, especially when it comes to ‘in-store social’;
• The integration of social media into e-commerce, including trends like group buying and f-commerce;
• The accountability offered by end-to-end social analytics – ‘from tweet to repeat’

Having demonstrated a clear rationale for retailers to use social media, the presentation concludes by setting out 8 simple steps that retailers can follow to get started in social media:

1. Define the business objectives you hope to achieve through social media activities;
2. Monitor and interpret your audience’s conversations in social media;
3. Understand your audience’s motivations for using social media, and what that means for your brand;
4. Identify how you can add value to your audience’s world;
5. Select the most appropriate social platforms for your audience and objectives;
6. Strategise your approach to each of these platforms:
7. Start off small, using a ‘test-and-learn’ approach;
8. Identify how you’d improve based on this experience, and start the process again

It goes without saying that different retail brands will have different needs, and even the same brand will need to adopt a different approach for different audiences and cultures, but this overall framework should help retail brands everywhere to start harnessing the power of social media.

Welcome to our weekly super bowl of the top plays in social media, racking up the yards in activations, engagement and statistics from all over the web.

So get practising your end zone dance, because here comes the touchdown pass – the Top 10 stories in social media this week;

1. Companies boosting digital marketing budgets
According to Econsultancy’s Marketing Budgets 2012 Report, companies are looking to boost budgets for their 2012 digital marketing strategies. The growth is fairly significant with 68% are increasing their digital budgets in 2012 compared to compared to 45% of companies increasing overall marketing budgets.

2. Corporate blogging declines as newer tools rule
A study on the usage of social media in Inc. 500 corporations shows fewer of them are using blogging, message/bulletin boards, online video, podcasting and MySpace and more are using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Foursquare.

The platform most utilized by the Inc. 500 is Facebook, with 74% of companies using it. Virtually tied at 73% is the adoption of the professional network, LinkedIn.

The use of corporate blogs dropped to 37% from 50% in 2010, as this mature tool evolves into other forms or is replaced by communication through Facebook or Twitter.

Social media tools are seen as important for company goals. Ninety percent of responding executives report that social media tools are important for brand awareness and company reputation.

Eighty-eight percent see these tools as important for generating web traffic while 81% find them important for lead generation. Seventy-three percent say that social media tools are important for customer support programs.

3. India is Now Facebook’s No. 2 Nation Behind the U.S.
India moved from sixth to second place on the global leaderboard for total number of Facebook users in January, though the world’s second most populated country has still got a considerable way to go to overthrow the world’s largest Facebook nation; the US.

Colombia was measured as having the fastest user growth on Facebook and Brazil and Indonesia, alongside India, were marked as countries to watch.

Looking to Europe, in one month alone Germany and Poland grew a respective 500k and 300k users and they’ve got even more room to grow. Japan have also had strong growth this month.

4. Facebook Files for IPO; Reveals $1 Billion in 2011 Profit
Facebook’s IPO filing this week has revealed:

• Facebook’s total ad revenue in 2011: $3.15 billion
• Share of revenue attributed to advertising: 83%
• Share of revenue that was advertising at the beginning of 2010: 99%
• Percentage of sales in the U.S.: 56%
• Amount of revenue sourced from Zynga: 12%
• Facebook 2011 profit: $1 billion
• Revenue generated from virtual goods: $557 million
• Global monthly active users: 845 million
• Daily likes and comments: 2.7 billion
• Likely Facebook market valuation: $75 to $100 billion
• Mr. Zuckerberg’s ownership stake: 28.2%
• Mr. Zuckerberg’s voting power: 56.9%

5. Facebook ‘likely to roll out mobile ads in weeks’
Given recent IPO filing admitting it was weak on mobile advertising, its unsurprising that its plan is to bring out mobile ads within the next couple of weeks in order to generate advertising revenues.

January 2012 saw featured stories within users’ news feeds for the first time so it makes sense that mobile ads would be the next logical step forward.

In December it claimed to have 425 million monthly active users using its mobile products, which is around half of its total monthly active users, and 21% growth from September’s 300 million figure.

7. Top 20 countries on Twitter
Semiocast have relased detailed statistics on global twitter usage:

The Next Web highlighted the interesting takeaways from the report – namely, how different countries use Twitter:

In the period from September 1st to November 30th, 30% of Japanese accounts posted at least once, while in Brazil the number slipped to 25%.

For both countries, the number is surprisingly low, meaning that at least 70% of those millions of accounts were dormant for at least 3 months, if not more.

The country with the highest percentage of active accounts is the Netherlands, with 33% of the accounts posting in the 3 month period.

The most active countries on Twitter include Spain, the US and Indonesia.

8. Google+ passes 100 million users
Paul Allen has been doing his usual research into Google+ user figures, and according to him, the site has grown by more than 10% between January 19th and February 1st, passing 100 million users.

If these growth rates continues, marketers will be unable to ignore Google+.

9. Pinterest drives incredible referral traffic
According to Shareaholic, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google Plus, YouTube and LinkedIn combined, and is also showing impressive growth month-on-month:

10. Superbowl hits record for Tweets per second
Last night’s Superbowl broke a record for the most Tweets per second (TPS) for a sporting event. According to Twitter, the average TPS was 10,000, with the peak hit at 12,333 TPS.

The way records like these keep on falling, we can only speculate what, say, the 2014 World Cup final will be like.

The Week According To The Internets;

• Single-Serving Tumblr Of The Week: A Day In The Life Of George Clooney
• Twitter Bot Of The Week: (It’s always been) Horse ebooks
• YouTube Video Of The Week: Ok Go ‘Needing/Getting’

Some useful research from InSites Consulting, who conducted a survey of 400 senior marketing managers in the US and the UK. Most importantly, it found a positive correlation between the extent of social media integration and the company’s financial results. The results are summarised nicely in this infographic:

The research also showed that technology, telecom and media companies are way ahead of the others where social media integration is concerned, with a quarter having integrated social media in their company processes. On the other end of the scale there are the financial and pharmaceutical sectors, with one in three only just starting their social media adventures.

Here’s their research in full:

‘The back’ is back for P&G’s Oral-B
P&G has revived their TV 80′s ad character ‘Rob the dentist’ in a new Facebook campaign. Fans on Facebook can upload backgrounds pics and share where they think Rob the dentist has been since the 80′s. Best entry wins $10k.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Air China’s Facebook check-in campaign
To raise awareness of their services from Sweden, Air China partnered up with a number of popular Asian restaurants in Sweden and encouraged guests to check in on Facebook as they sat down to eat. Those with highest number of check ins (and calories, we assume) at the end of the week won a pair of free tickets to Asia. Although it may seem simple, this was a highly successful campaign, reaching over a million people.

When it comes to Facebook brand pages: Local is better than Global
Socialbakers have done a bit of social media sleuthing and determined, once and for all, that local pages consistently result in higher levels of engagement than global pages. Citing both Xbox and BMW as examples, they show that the top local pages result in far higher (10 times higher in Xbox’s case!) levels of engagement than a centralised global page. The benefits of ‘going local’ include content and conversation being more relevant, fans sharing a common language and fans having more in common.

Teens opting for Twitter as older generations ruin Facebook
Since the days of yore parents have been warning their kids about privacy and not sharing too much information online. And kids, characteristically, have not listened and have shared whatever they please with their friends and the friends of their friends. But now a funny thing has begun to happen. As parents begin to disregard their own advice and tentatively setup Facebook profiles of their own, the kids start to fear for their privacy, not from ‘pirates’ or fraudsters, but from their parents. As a result, a lot of teens are now migrating to Twitter in an effort to escape the prying eyes of the older generations. Of course, what is happening here is nothing new, as Alice Marwick, a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research points out, “They just want someplace they can express themselves and talk with their friends without everyone watching”.

Triumph sports bra brand helps women ‘Buddy Up’ for fitness
The Facebook page serves as a match-making service for women looking for a fitness buddy in their area.

Timeline and Open Graph are coming to brand pages
Social marketers are readying themselves for the changes that are to come to Facebook brand pages in 2012, most notably, the introduction of Timeline and Open Graph. Carolyn Everson, VP of global marketing solutions at Facebook:

There’s a lot of speculation [about Timeline]. The goal has always been to have your personal experience on Facebook not be so different than the brand or page experience. And right now, it is different. You have Timeline and you have a page-brand profile. So we are absolutely moving in the direction to sync those up. We believe that brands want to be able to curate how they’re represented in a more visually pleasing way, and we’re in the midst of trying to figure out how best to do that.

and on Open Graph:

We don’t want a mad rush to have every brand suddenly think that the next thing we have to do is an Open Graph implementation. Because then you put stuff out there that people don’t care about, and that they don’t really share, and they turn it off. We’re working brand by brand, and frankly, industry by industry.

Timeline supported by just one in ten Facebook users
When it comes to users rather than brands, a survey of 4,000 of them has found that just 8% of users endorse Facebook’s Timeline feature. The survey also found that 51% of those asked were worried by the changes and just 8% said they would get used to them. Of course time will tell whether the changes are accepted in the long run. It tends to be the case that redesigns of this sort are met with uproar at first, then quiet consternation and finally accepted as the status quo and the whole cycle repeats itself ad infinitum. Unless, of course, you happen to be Digg.

Facebook beta new social plugin, ‘The Recommendation Bar
Facebook have debuted a new social plugin that incorporates some of Facebook’s Open Graph features. Essentially, it boils down to a ‘Recommendation Bar’ that gives readers ‘Social Recommendations’ on similar content they are likely to enjoy or that their friends enjoyed, an ‘Omnipresent Like’ button to ensure that user’s ability to Like a page isn’t hampered by poor site design and the ability to switch on ‘Frictionless Sharing’.

Over 5 billion songs have been shared on Facebook since the f8 conference
Since September, over 5 billion songs have been shared as a result of Facebook’s ‘frictionless sharing’ feature, although the jury’s still out on whether or not frictionless sharing is a hit with users. Some critics say that it has reduced the sharing of content to a passive activity, others say it is intrusive. Even so, it is hard to argue with the numbers.

Twitter to roll out more of their fan-dangled brand pages to big spenders
The roll out of Twitter brand pages will continue from February 1st onwards, although only to brands that have already committed to spending at least $25,000 on its ad products. Twitter declined to comment on the ongoing roll out of the new brand pages or the advertising spend required to qualify for one, although they did say they are partnering with some individuals and charities for the roll out of its brand pages, one of which will be the American Red Cross.

Twitter analytics to be introduced in the coming months
Erica Anderson, Twitter’s manager for news and journalism, also announced that one of the new features that will be released in the coming months is an analytics service to help content creators track how their content is spreading across the Twitterverse.

Can the caged bird still tweet? Nope, apparently not
Twitter has also announced that it is now able to censoring tweets in certain countries, in order to comply with local laws. The announcement was met with some scepticism from commentators, not least because of the role Twitter played in many of the uprisings that took place last Spring, although Twitter have deflected some of the criticism by opting for full transparency when censoring tweets. In order to qualify for censorship, an ‘authorised entity’ would have to report the tweet or account, which would then be censored in that country, and in its place would be left a notice informing users that the tweet or account in question had been censored for legal reasons. The Thai government have been one of the first to welcome the decision. Hmm…

Facebook, Twitter and Myspace engineers fix Google’s social search results
“Don’t be Evil” was Google’s first unofficial motto. It referred to, among other things, objectivity and parity in the results it returned to users. But since the launch of Google’s social search features, a number of their competitors claim Google has been hoisted on its own petard, with Google’s new results seemingly favouring Google+ results over other networks, such as Twitter. As a result, a group of engineers fromFacebook, Twitter and Myspace have launched the “Don’t be Evil” bookmarklet, which let’s users view the new social search results without this bias. The results are quite impressive.

Google launch new ‘Ask a Friend’ feature
While we’re on the subject of social search, Google have also launched their ‘Ask a Friend’ feature, that essentially sits at the bottom of the search results and when clicked gives users the option to address their search query to their Google+ contacts instead of Google’s many search algorithms. Opening up this feature to include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook might go some way placating those critics that believe Google is tipping the scales in its own favour.

The G+ name saga continues
It seems like people have been whining about Google+’s policy on nicknames and pseudonyms since before the platform was even launched, and last week they offered a tiny, if impractical concession. You can now add a nickname to appear between your existing names ie. George “The Destroyer” Terry, or to have your name appear in another script, ie., to use their examnple, “सौरभ शर्मा (Saurabh Sharma)”.

Youtube hits 4 billion video views a day
Take a moment to think about that. 4 billion views a day. That’s 4,000,000,000 views every 24 hours. Pretty incredible. Youtube also announced that 60 hours of video is now uploaded to Youtube every minute. This staggering statistic is made even more impressive by the fact that it has increased 25% since May last year.

Lego launch social media platform for fan 
Called ReBrick, the Lego platform is essentially a content platform that allows fans to bookmark content elsewhere on the web and aggregate it on the site, creating a hub for all Lego-related user generated content on the web. A bookmark widget can be installed for easy bookmarking and links can be shared through social platforms.

Brands test virtual currency loyalty scheme
Taco Bell, 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donuts and Quiznos are among the brands currently trialling a loyalty scheme that rewards consumer’s purchases with Facebook credits that can be spent while playing games like FarmVille and The Sims.

Kermit the Frog takes to Twitter to promote upcoming film
Disney made their way into the trending topics on Thursday when Kermit took over the @DisneyMoviesUK account and fielded questions from his fans as part of Disney’s marketing efforts around the premiere of the new Muppet movie.

House of Fraser targets students

This time, some work from We Are Social UK  – House of Fraser is embarking on a major marketing push to target students. It has partnered with the National Union of Students’ (NUS) Extra Card, to launch a vouchering app on the House of Fraser Facebook page. The app enables students who “like” the brand on Facebook to receive a 10% discount when shopping on its site. It is also offering “flash discounts” via the social network to students.

Twitter users deported for joking about ‘destroying’ America
In a shocking but amusing story, two British tourists were deported from America before even getting out of the airport, after one tweeted that he planned to ‘destroy’ America. The police refused to believe that it was slang, and he didn’t actually plan to destroy either the nation, its people or its government. A story that seems funny now, but one that could become a common occurrence if the FBI’s plans to monitor social media come to fruition.

US online ad spend to grow to almost $40 billion

Online spending on ads in America will grow 23.3% to $39.5 billion in 2012 as the internet proves its worth to advertisers in a tough economic climate.

Fast growth has seen online pull ahead of some traditional media and this year US online ad spending will exceed the total spent on print magazines and newspapers for the first time, at $39.5 billion vs $33.8 billion. This is the sort of thing that a faux-savant would described as ‘a seminal moment’.

31% of ad impressions are never even seen

Online will still need to continue to prove its worth, as comScore last week produced research that claimed over a third of ad impressions on the web are never even seen.

Working with 12 “national premium brands” in the US, including Chrysler, Ford and Kellogg’s, the report found that in many cases, ads are delivered but not in-view or on target and therefore never have a chance to make an impact.

Where users go, marketers will follow…

Nonetheless, with social media sites beyond Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn seeing significant boosts in usage, both in the US and elsewhere in the world, it is only natural that marketers plan to capitalise on this in 2012:

Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks

New research from Facebook appears to validate the use of social networks in understanding the spread of information first popularised by economic sociologist Mark Granovetter, as well as discrediting popular notions of the web as an ‘echo chamber’ where web personalisation algorithms like Facebook’s News Feed force us to consume an ever more dangerously narrow range of news.

In his seminal 1973 paper, The Strength of Weak Ties, Granovetter found that, surprisingly, people are more likely to acquire jobs that they learned about through individuals they interact with infrequently rather than their close personal contacts.

In a scale unheard of in academic sociological studies the Facebook study observed nearly 1.2 billion instances in which someone was or was not presented with a certain link. The results confirmed the power of weak ties and highlighted how weak ties “are indispensible” to your network as they have access to different websites that you’re not necessarily visiting.

Facebook becomes the premier social network in Brazil

Earlier this week comScore released results showing Facebook surpassed Google’s Orkut in December, becoming the largest social networking destination in Brazil for the first time. In the past year Facebook tripled its audience in the region, but even more impressively increased user engagement, from an average of 37 minutes spent on the site to 5 hours. It remains to be seen whether Facebook can replicate this success and capture the lead in other markets where it doesn’t lead such as Japan, Russia and South Korea.

Some Facebook Pages only reach 17% of fans

Since all the changes in late 2011 it’s clear Facebook has made it tougher for community managers. Teaming up with EdgeRank Checker to examine what was going on, AllFacebook found that (in a review of 4,000 Facebook pages) the average page post is only reaching 17 percent of the Page’s fans.

The advent of the ticker and various apps’ inclusion – like The Guardian and Spotify’s – has clearly had an impact, but it’s worth emphasising that this is the number for an average Page; put simply, effective community management, based on statistical insights and a thorough understanding of how EdgeRank works, can overcome this.

Introducing new apps for Timeline

60 new apps were launched for Timeline last week, with sites such as Foodily, Ticketmaster and Pinterest teaming up with Facebook to encourage users to “enhance your timeline with apps that help you tell your story”. The idea behind it is to share ‘your favourite activities’ with your friends.

Twitter seeing 3 to 5 percent engagement on Promoted Tweets and Trends

Defining engagement as a “click, retweet, reply, or favorite” Twitter have declared their Promoted Products — including Promoted Tweets, Accounts and Trends — a success, with advertisers seeing 3-5% engagement rates on campaigns. Twitter Chairman Jack Dorsey suggested that “advertisers are coming back… [the market] is proving that this is something people want to see more of”. Or so he thinks.

McDonald’s lose control of a hashtag

However, McDonalds show that buying a promoted trend is not necessarily a good thing, as their McStories campaign spun rapidly out of control amid a McFlurry of negative tweets. A big McFail.

Google+ hits 90M users

Google+ is racking up its numbers with Larry Page unveiling a host of impressive stats:

Now when users start typing a hashtag, auto-complete suggestions will appear:

Users can now record and share videos straight from their webcams. Been posting nothing but photos of your cat? Meme-ify them instantly on Google+. We can’t even imagine the number of animal photos that are going to live on the Internet after this.

But the biggest new feature lets users post directly from Google search results to Google+. Searching for your favourite team might leads to news about, say, Thierry Henry, and then you can share this directly to your Circles.

What’s cooking at Foursquare?

Foodies rejoice: mobile check-in app Foursquare has added restaurant menus with prices. So far, they are only available for big chain restaurants in the US, including Dunkin’ Donuts, Panera Bread, Starbucks and Applebee’s, and only on certain platforms (not on iPhone). This comes on the heels of the improved “Explore” tab, which lets users find the hidden gems near them based on tips from other users and begs the question: will Foursquare take over Yelp as the top grub finder for foodophiles?

Tumblr soars past 15 billion pageviews a month

Micro-blogging site Tumblr continues to produce impressive numbers, with it now accounting for over 15 billion pageviews a month. The half-blog, half-Twitter hybrid owes its continuing success to making sharing effortlessly easy. Just 10% of the content on Tumblr is original, but the average post will be reblogged about 9 times.

Sina Weibo’s incredible record over Chinese New Year

Sina Weibo recorded some incredible statistics in the first minute of Chinese New Year, with an average of 32,212 messages per second. It’s a number even larger than Twitter’s tweets per second record, and goes to show just how powerful some of China’s social networks are.

Obama to host a live interview on Google+
American President Barack Obama will give his first ever completely virtual interview from the White House – answering questions on YouTube and hosting a Google+ hangout – after his State of the Union address. Nice idea.

Ticketmaster + Spotify = concert-goers paradise

Welcome to the world of social music through Facebook Timeline. A new app from Ticketmaster will recommend gigs based on your listening habits and history. Yet another reason to delete those tunes you’re a bit embarrassed about, lest you tell all of Facebook that you’re going to (another) Justin Bieber concert.

What you want from Auto Trader

A new app on Facebook Timeline from Auto Trader gives users the option to show friends cars they would like to own. Interestingly, rather than the traditional ‘like’ button, it will include a ‘want’ button instead.

Just like The Dude

Lionsgate is the latest studio to rent films through Facebook and has made its latest film ‘Abduction’ more interactive. Pop-up boxes appear on screen with quotes or a 20-second grab and give viewers the option to post it on Facebook. If one of your friends watches the film later, he can see the comment you left at that point in the film. You can also ‘Like’ the products that your favourite characters are using. Watching ‘The Big Lebowski’? Then perhaps you’d like some Kahlua.

Brewing in the hive mind

Crowdsourcing is bubbling up in the beer world. Untappd (a beer check-in and recommendation service) now lets breweries claim their pages, allowing them to see which of their beers is the most popular and be in contact with their biggest fans. They’ve already picked up 150 breweries thus far, including Dogfish Head, Kona, Boston Beer and Tenth & Blake.

In the same vein, Sam Adams has developed a Facebook app so that fans can create a custom beer, which will be brewed next month. Fans can comment on categories such as colour, body and sweetness. Will the result be delicious or taste like a bad batch of home brew?

You’re in Stephen King’s story

Could your mug be on Stephen King’s next book? To celebrate his next book, the publisher has invited fans to upload their photo onto a Facebook app and revel in their few ‘pixels of fame’.

MINI fans the Facebook flames

Pyromaniacs will get a kick out of this: at the Brussels motor show, MINI launched a new competition so that when Facebook users like their page, it lights a Bunsen burner under a rope attached to a MINI Countryman which one lucky fan won. MINI are on fire at the moment.

Discover Berlin with Hugo Boss

For Berlin Fashion Week, Hugo Boss sponsored Foursquare specials on drinks and starter deals at trendy bars and restaurants around the city. The best boss around.

Cadbury says a big thanks — bar none

To celebrate reaching 1 million Facebook fans, Cadbury built a giant thumbs up out of 1 million chocolate bars. Two days and three tones of chocolate later, fans were rewarded with the sight of the massive treat.

Magical mystery tour with Burton

A new competition from Burton Snowboards lets Facebook fans pack a ‘bag’ with three items of Burton kit, and then pick two friends to join them on their trip (destinations have not been disclosed), should they win one of the three grand prizes.

One Like, One Balloon

Heineken Brazil launched a simple yet effective campaign to get more ‘Likes’ on Facebook: turn a ‘Like’ into a balloon. Soon an empty office was filled with thousands of them, and fans could see updates of the disappearing office.

Secret menu for tavern’s Twitter followers

Way better than In-and-Out’s famous “secret” menu, The Opera Tavern in London is announcing a special burger and the password to order it to only its followers. Just ask for Pierre the manager and tell him, “I’ve got the horn”.

Bald Barbie coming?

After a popular social media campaign, Mattel are still unsure about producing a bald Barbie because of the possible ramifications. Two women whose daughters lost their hair after cancer treatment are adamant that ‘bald is beautiful’.

Hirsute We Are Social MD Robin Grant is uniquely qualified to give his opinion on the issue:

The obvious thing to do would be to release a limited edition bald Barbie with a percentage of the proceeds going to charity. Some companies have a fear of being seen to bow to consumer pressure – but corporate marketing teams must guard against being unchanging and monolithic.

A recent McKinsey Global Survey revealed that marketers see clear value in social media when it comes to driving customer engagement, but they feel they are ill-equipped to transform insights into action because they do not have sufficient familiarity with skills such as data analytics.

How companies are using digital tools

In the past 2 years, 56% of marketers surveyed felt they were better able to use digital channels to deliver mutual value to customers and their own brands.

For example, marketers are increasingly using Facebook as an online commerce platform, where customers can seek opinions from the brand or their peers before purchasing products from within Facebook itself. Many companies are also harnessing Twitter for customer service – Best Buy’s Twelpforce being a great example.

However, less than a quarter of those surveyed are using analytical tools to refine their decision-making processes, even though 39% have increased access to data and insights.

This reflects an important imbalance: while companies believe that social media are valuable to their brands, their ability to use analytics to better understand their ‘digital customers’ is hindering their ability to use online channels as effectively as they’d like.

The shift towards social

Reassuringly, McKinsey found that there would be a clear shift in focus towards digital tools over the next few years. Interestingly, there will be a diminishing focus on company websites and email as brands invest more in social media.

47% of the marketers McKinsey surveyed plan to use social media sites in future, compared to the 39% that currently do. Their greatest interest currently lies in mobile applications, with 48% of marketers planning to engage customers via mobile apps, compared to the 11% who are already doing so.

Challenges marketers face

32% of marketers agree that being able to generate and leverage deep customer insights is central to effective marketing, but they also say that this poses the greatest challenge to them.

Interestingly, 11% of marketers stated that they face difficulty in assessing the effectiveness of their digital marketing because of the difference between traditional and online metrics.

However, given the vast array of available data about online marketing, and the opportunities to customise tools to report the metrics that matter most to individual marketers, our sense is that this may be more an issue of awareness and comfort levels with the tools than it is one of actual potential.

Widely available tools like Google Analytics provide an incredible wealth of data, and can also include enlightening social tracking, but many marketers are yet to get actively involved in the set-up and analysis of the tracking these tools offer.

Similarly, Facebook’s free Insights offering provides valuable details of the demographics and location of a Facebook Page’s ‘fans’ – data which marketers can use to identify key cultural trends within their audience, or identify areas for growth that can inspire highly targeted communications activity.

The good news is that, although only 14% of respondents have implemented concrete plans to address ‘the data challenge’, almost half are developing, or are in the process of implementing, steps to generate customer insights from online data.

Transparency and fear

Understandably, 22% of those surveyed find managing brand reputation online a challenge, largely because of the open nature of social media. Besides the 19% who already have social media policies in place, a further 38% of marketers surveyed are developing or implementing social media guidelines.

The struggle with online metrics and analysis

Marketers are struggling to assess the impact of digital marketing because of their inability to translate analytic results into insight, or identify the right metrics in the first place.

31% of marketers feel that online metrics do not adequately quantify the financial impact digital marketing has generated for their companies. Alarmingly, 24% can’t even understand what these metrics actually measure.

27% of respondents said they feel that they lack internal leadership on analytics. Meanwhile, one-quarter face difficulty in finding internal talent, and one in ten thinks that their HR department is ill-equipped to identify candidates with analytic skills. The greatest challenge, unsurprisingly, lies in funding.

As a result of all these issues, only 4% of McKinsey’s respondents believe that they possess the necessary capabilities to effectively manage their business.

Our interpretation of these findings is that there is a degree of the tail wagging the dog though; digital and social media provide a variety of tools that can help to deliver greater value to a business, and are not merely obstacles that marketers need to try to ‘get around’.

Metrics should be at the service of the marketer, helping to measure return on investment, and identifying ways to improve the business approach. Our assessment is that, too often, measurement is an after-thought, and too few companies are setting clear objectives for their digital or social media activities before they get involved in execution.

Planning for a digital and social future

Just as the Industrial Revolution turned into an Industrial Evolution that lasted hundreds of years, so will it take time for present-day companies to adapt to and master this ‘Digital Revolution’. This is an on-going process, and it will take time to effectively fuse digital approaches and technologies into all business functions.

In their analysis of the findings, McKinsey reassures marketers that “there’s no single solution” for companies struggling to define their online business model, but they highlight the importance of making use of data rather than merely collecting it.

They also suggest that many marketers may be expecting too much of themselves, and too soon. The world of digital and social media is changing rapidly, and it’s unrealistic for any one person or team to understand everything.

Consequently, marketers should not be afraid to reach out to third-party partners who can help with data analysis, insight, and subsequent strategic interpretation.

Murdoch: We screwed up MySpace ‘in every way possible’

After joining twitter at the start of this year, it seems that Rupert Murdoch has been inundated with questions about failing social network MySpace. Murdoch responded curtly:

At Ford, social media is bigger than advertising

Matt VanDyke, director-U.S. marketing communications for Ford has told Ad Age:

At Ford, social media is bigger than advertising

How long will it be before we hear other major brands say the same?

Bad reviews may be good for business

In a report by social commerce company Reevoo, it’s been suggested that bad reviews may actually be good for business. The company found that 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores, and if consumers fear tampering if there are no negative reviews.

Facebook places ads alongside social updates in the feed

Facebook rolls out a new way of advertising to friends of fans. Comparable to Sponsored stories, which currently sit on the right hand side of the page, the new Featured stories will actually appear in the news feed. A small difference perhaps, but giving the ad an appearance of being a story rather than a paid for piece.

Although the addition of adverts within the news feed may irritate some users, the adverts displayed will only appear from brands yourself or a friend has already liked. To further reduce a chance of backlash, Facebook have also declared that there will only be one of these ads per day in the feed.

Facebook have also been trialing a new type of coupon promotion. The promotion, which allow pages to post coupons, then promote them with sponsored stories is being used by sandwich chain Which Wich giving fans a little extra for their like. Studies have found, users come to Facebook for exclusive offers and discounts suggesting these vouchers could be a big success if used correctly.

Listen to music with your friends on Facebook

Listening to music with friends has always been seen as a social pastime. Facebook are now taking it that one step further by allowing friends to listen to music on Spotify at the exact same time as each other.

A new button will be rolling out on the ticker and a simple click will have you listening along. The feature will also open up a chat with all of the friends listening in, so when that riff you all love comes in, you can share the moment together.

Google+ added to search, at what cost?

The big news last week was Google’s introduction of what it catchily called ‘search plus your world’ – basically a way of promoting Google+ in its search results. Adam has the full low-down in this dedicated post about the issue.

David Beckham is going Google+

David Beckham is joining the ranks of celebrities already using YouTube to connect with their fans. To ask Beckham a question, fans just have to head over to Google+ and post it including the hashtag #GoogleBeckham.

Of course, Google aren’t going to miss out an opportunity to show of its social network’s functionality, so users of Google+ will be able to hang out with Beckham immediately after the live interview.

Explore the world with Foursquare

The guys over at Foursquare are busy rolling out their new web app, Foursquare Explore. The premise is a bit like Google maps, in that tips and information about local retailers, restaurants and anything interesting are layered over.

Not only does it allow you to search for general recommendations, but also it learns where you and your friends check in to give tailored and accurate results.

TV gets a bit more social

Boxee allows users to find and play video directly from the Internet on their television sets, and now thanks to a partnership with Facebook, TV is to become a little bit more social. The new Boxee live and Facebook intergration allows users to post what they are watching to Facebook for the world to see. Friends can then click the links and ‘check in’ to the shows and find more information about them. Don’t worry just yet; this functionality is optional so your viewing habits won’t be broadcasted to friends without you knowing about it.

Social television seems to be going from strength to strength with TV check in app, GetGlue raising $12M in financing. Not only has the company been successful in raising this amount of money, but they have also announced that over 2M users are checking into their TV Shows.

Latest to hop on the social television bandwagon is MySpace with the announcement that they’re launching a social television experience with Panasonic. MySpace’s service aims to connect viewers with content and each other utilising Panasonic Viera connect TV sets. The package will include Smartphone and Tablet apps so users can access Myspace TV even if they are away from their televisions.

Tebow-mania hits Twitter

Last week during the NFL playoff game between the Denver Broncos and AFC champions Pittsburgh Steelers saw the highest rates of tweets per second (TPS) in Twitter history. As Tebow threw his 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime and secured a win for the Broncos Twitter erupted at a rate of 9,420 TPS – a new record for sports events.

To put this rate into perspective the previous record was 7,196 at the end of the FIFA womans world cup last summer, and it’s even more than Osama Bin Laden’s death (5,106 TPS), Steve jobs’ resignation (7,064 TPS) and Death (6,049 TPS). It’s a large number, but still far from the all-time record of 25,088 when Hayao Miyazaki’s castle in the sky was aired in Japan.

Facebook gives politico deep access to users’ political sentiments

Simple analysis by volume of tweets or user posts rarely reveals the sentiment behind social media feeling. In a bid to understand the sentiment of voting-age users, a study by Politico and Facebook is set to delve deep into posts to discover the true attitudes towards candidates.

The most notable characteristic is that user data will include Facebook users’ private status messages and comments, a statement that may alarm some, however the mentions will be fed through a computerised analysis tool and never seen by Facebook employees.

#SmokedByWindowsPhone

In this short, but sweet campaign by Microsoft, they offered users a chance to win $100 if they could complete certain tasks on their existing phone before the Windows phone could complete the same task. The penalty for losing was to bite the bullet and admit on camera that you got #SmokedByWindowsPhone, a bold but confidant move by Microsoft, however after winning in 88% of the challenges, it seems to have paid off.

Klout to Crown the First-Ever ‘T-Mobile Social King of CES’

A challenge by set out by Klout and T-Mobile, saw users try to aquire the most +Ks during CES 2012. The user who managed to use their Klout in order to gain the most +K during the event was crowned T-Mobile Social King and given a host of techie prizes.

Tiffany & Co. team up with the Sartorialist to showcase true love

Tiffany and Co. have joined forces with fashion bloggers the Sartorialist & Garance Doré in an effort to discover true love from real couples around Paris and New York.

The venture, True Love in Pictures is the latest venture from Tiffany & Co. as part of their Whatmakeslovetrue.com project. The project has see an Instagram gallery created by the couple and now seeks out to find user generated moments of romance, all captured using the Tiffany & Co. downloadable Instagram filter.

Audi partners with Foursquare for a new badge for Skiers

If you’re hitting the slopes this winter and can’t get enough Foursquare badges, the new Audi Winter Ride badge is sure to be up your street. User can unlock the badge by following Audi and checking in at any ski area, unlocking the badge and rewarding the user with a 20% discount on the Audi collection.

Kit Kat to decide new flavour through Facebook

A new campaign by Nestle, asks consumers to vote for their favourite of four new Kit Kat Chunky flavours with the winner being sold permanently.

Fans will be able to vote on their favourite of the four flavours (double choc, peanut butter, orange or white choc) on Facebook until 24^th February. To add a little incentive to the campaign fans have the chance to win £100 each day for their entry.

While Cadbury UK turns to Google+ to launch Bubbly Bar

Continuing on with chocolate-based news, this week has seen Cadbury launch their new Bubbly bar exclusively on Google+ to their followers. The post (below) was released to fans and then quickly followed by posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Diet Coke launches fashion and beauty Facebook app

Diet Coke have launched a fashion and beauty Facebook app dubbed the Get Glam app. The app is said to be the ‘perfect accompaniment for getting ready with the girls’ and includes fashion and beauty tips alongside a video chat tool. Launched as part of a three-year initiative across brands to link their activity to fashion, the idea is set to appeal to ‘young, fun loving woman’.