We haven’t done a social media round up, or even a social media and sport round up for a few weeks now. There is absolutely no good reason for that so, without further ado here are six posts that caught our attention recently. I’ve tried not to make it a World Cup fest but there will be a couple in there!

1. Social media usage up 159% in the UK – Nathan McDonald

We all love to hear that social media usage is on the up (seeing as we spend a good chunk of time singing that tune to clients!), and this short post and infographic from We Are Social (via Nielsen) does a good job of showing that usage is up in the UK…and up quite a bit!

2. The Social Business Manifesto – David Armano

This post from David Armano was inspired by a post five years ago called the Social Customer Manifesto, but has been altered to focus on business in general and how businesses need to operate in the era of the social web and social communications. There are ten golden rules that companies of all shapes and sizes should pin on the wall. Check it out…

3. The Gradual Demise of Social Media Marketing – Louis Gray

This isn’t Louis Gray dissing social media, rather explaining (very well) that we need to stop treating social media as a special case and start including as a component of marketing and communications and getting rid of the shroud of mystery that still hangs over it. The video is below….

4. 13 Truths About Social Media Measurement – Amber Naslund

Amber Naslund at Radian6 knows her onions when it comes to social media measurement. This post addresses some of the myths and excuses that surround social media measurement and offers up some advice on how to start doing it properly.

5. There Are No More Blind Dates – John Jantsch

Business is all about relationships. Anything that can bring you closer to your client or customer or prospect makes life easier. Most people have a profile on one of the major networks, so there is very little excuse for not doing your research on the people you are going to meet. Sure, its not as fun as going on a blind date…oh wait, they aren’t fun at all and are much harder to win business from! Top post.

6. England’s World Cup Gaffe Gets the LEGO Treatment [VIDEO]- Brenna Ehrlich

Waited until the end to give you a World Cup post, and it isn’t really a post. More of a (awesome) parody in Lego of England’s hapless goalkeeper Rob Green letting a powder puff shot from Clint Dempsey of the USA squirm under him. England play their second game of the tournament in a few hours and we are betting Mr Green won’t be between the sticks! Anyway, check the video out…its very well done indeed

Come on England!

Going for a 50/50 split this week between raw social media and social media and sport. Excited? Thought so!

1. How to Use Facebook for Business and Marketing - Tamar Weinberg

With nearly half a billion users, Facebook is now a ‘must have’ for most businesses. However, creating the perfect Facebook page is easier said than done so this post looks at some case studies and examples to show you what’s possible.

2.  Are You Slow Enough to Succeed in Social Media? – Jay Baer

A top post from Jay Baer pointing out that while the sales and customer interaction opportunites are obvious with social media, the challenge is to build relationships…and that takes time and patience to realize the full value. Remember, you are dealing with real people so treat them with the respect and time they deserve.

3. Trend: Social CRM Consolidation - Jeremiah Owyang

There have been some high profile acquisitions of social media monitoring firms by CRM companies in the last few months as the race to provide Social CRM solutions hots up. It’s a natural fit as organizations are going to need to integrate the opportunities gleaned from social data into their CRM databases. Expect this trend to continue throughout 2010 and into next year.

And now onto the Sports…

4. Cleveland Browns Draft Player From YouTube – Megan O’Neill

Thought this quite cool! Joel Reinders, an undradfted rookie landed himself a contract with the Cleveland Browns (American Football team for those that don’t know!) by posting his ‘show reel’ on YouTube. Nice work, and probably sets a precedent for more athletes getting discovered through social media.

5. Auto Racing Capsules: Drivers use social media to gain All-Star support – Pete Iacobelli

Motor sport in general, seems to have grasped social media better than most sports. This post has a look at how the likes of NASCAR and Formula 1 are bringing the fans closer to the drivers and teams using a range of social platforms.

6. Which World Cup Fans Are the Most Passionate? Facebook Knows – Jennifer Van Grove

Just under a month to go until the World Cup kicks off in South Africa and Facebook and Involver have had a quick look at which nation’s fans are the most passionate based on the number of likes each team gets on the app commissioned by Facebook. Current holders, Italy are leading the way…but we still think Brazil will win! (sorry England).

Have a good weekend.

Normal service has resumed this week with six posts that came on the radar this week from the world of social.

1. Altimeter Report: Social Marketing Analytics (Altimeter Group & Web Analytics Demystified) - Jeremiah Owyang

One of the biggest challenges of the embryonic social media industry is, how to measure the ROI of programs and activity. Here, Jeremiah Owyang introduces a framework for measurement of business objectives and KPI’s. There is also a pretty meaty slideshare doc to check out.

2. South Africa’s World Cup to drive record social media traffic - Etan Horowitz

We are only about two months away from the World’s biggest sporting event and social media activity will explode during June. Four years ago, Facebook was still finding its feet and Twitter had just been born so the activity and interaction we are going to see from fans and, hopefully, teams and players is going to be on a different level to last time out. Watch this space!

3. You’re A Marketer, Deal With It! – Jonathan Fields

Do you consider yourself a marketer? If you are someone who “earns money or attention in exchange for value” then you are! A good post demystifying the definition of marketing.

4. Brands are Bull – Doc Searls

A great post here from Doc Searls (author of the Cluetrain Manifesto) on how people aren’t brands and companies who marry their brand to celebrities can face the proverbial can of worms when the person, in variably, de-rails…taking the brand with them.

5.  Don’t Let Strategy Be An Excuse - John Jantsch

You’ve got to have a social media strategy, right? And it absolutely has to come before tactics, right? Well, maybe not. A good one here from Duct Tape Marketing having a look at how sometimes focusing too much on the strategy and planning can be prohibitive to the doing. Some companies should just get stuck in!

6. Social media war rooms (and why you need one) – Ari Newman

At some point, every company who gets into social communications will have a shocker. There is nothing you can do about that but what you can do is be prepared for when the shit hits the fan. Call it crisis management a war room…whatever you like, but this post gives you some pointers to how to set up and manage the pain.

Have a good Bank Holiday (if you are in the UK) weekend.

Taking a break from the usual social media round up, this week we are having a look at six posts on our favourite topic – social media and sport. Sport is an inherently social activity and there is now a unique opportunity for teams, organizations and the athletes themselves to connect to their fans, and we are starting to see some good examples of that.

1. Why Teams Should Get Involved With Social Media – Jason Peck

A good, concise argument for why and how sports teams should be on the social web. The opportunity is there for teams who want to hear what there fans think, what they want, how their experience can be improved and this should be the first stage for all social media entrants. Put your customers (in this case, fans) at the centre of your strategy and you will be on the right track!

2. 5 Social Media Lessons the NBA Can Teach Businesses- Jalen Rose

Some organisatons are doing social well, very well! The NBA are one of those and ex player and now ESPN analyst, Jalen Rose has a look at how the corporate world could do well to use similar strategies and tactics with their customers.

3. Professional Athletes on Twitter

OK – not a post at all, but a site which shows, by sport, which athletes are active on Twitter. (I didn’t realize there was a Lingerie Football League , and will now research it thoroughly… especially as so many players seem to be on Twitter!)

4. Interview: Why Manchester City Get Social Media – Ash Read

While many UK sports teams haven’t embraced social media as a way to bring the fans closer to the club, a few have and Manchester City are probably the ones with the most coherent strategy. This interview is a useful window into how a team should focus their activity. Check it out.

5. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) wins via Social Media – Alex Lopez

Once critisised for ‘not getting it’, the UFC, led by their President Dana White are one of the more active organizations on the social web. As the post says, they have made themselves and the fighters more accessible to fans on a personal basis than any other sport.

6. Sports teams, leagues tap SAS Analytics to boost profits – Winnie Palaran

Interesting one to end with as we are now seeing sports teams use social media monitoring effectively. This post looks at how the San Francisco 49ers are using SAS Analytics to listen to their fans who are unhappy, thinking about not renewing season tickets, have ideas on how to improve the game experience etc. By harnessing those insights, the club is putting themselves at a competitive advantage over teams not actively listening and integrating.

Have a good weekend.

The last seven days have been quite busy in social media. Twitter announced their first advertising play, the UK had its first live election debate which was covered furiously online and all aircraft have been grounded for two days over Britain thanks to Icelandic Volcanic ash. Here are six posts with only one mention of one of those stories!

1. 12 Social Media Marketing Myths – Pamela H Dyer

The ‘social media penny’ is dropping for more and more brands and while in many cases, the executive suite are getting to grips with it, there are still a multitude of naysayers and social media myths flying around. This post looks to addess some of the more popular ones such as, ‘social media is free’, ‘is a fad’ and ‘can’t be measured.

2. TV Viewing’s Shift to the Web [STATS]- Jolie O’Dell

This one from from Jolie O’Dell at Mashable looks at a study of 1,000 US consumers and their TV viewing habits. There is a shift in motion away from the TV and towards watching the same content online. The most telling stat is that 43% had considered cancelling or had cancelled their cable service as a result of the availablilty of online TV content.

3. The Key to Social Media Success is Just 2 Letters – Jay Baer

Probably the winner this week is this one by Jay Baer, an excellent post on how social media programs should focus on being useful to the audience first and not chase the sale. As he points out, there is only two letters difference between ‘helping’ and ‘selling’ but in reality they are a world apart. Good stuff, check it out.

4. 10 Essential Rules for Brands in Social Media – Taddy Hall

We are going for numbers based posts this week! This is a nice checklist of best practices for any brands about to get stuck in to social media. Not exhaustive or necessarily right for every brand, but a useful set of rules to start the planning process.

5. How Companies Should Approach the New Twitter Advertising Model – Dallas Lawrence

Couldn’t really leave this one out, even though everyone is probably aware by now! This week Twitter moved into the paid advertising space with select brands now able to pay for their sponsored tweet to appear at the top of the Twitter search results. This post looks at how brands should approach the new opportunities…which is very different to display, paid or push marketing.

6. Don’t Make Social Media Another Silo – Daan Jansonius

Social Media is most successful when it permeates through an entire organization and isn’t lumped in the marketing, PR or communication departments as a silo. This post looks at how social media needs to be integrated into departments, employees and internal communications to provide the most value.

OK, that’s it for this week. Have a good weekend and whatever you do, do it safely!

Decided to drop the ‘Friday’ tag as I keep missing the Friday deadline, it would seem! Here are the picks for this week.

1.    Will It Blend? – iPad – Blendtec

It would have been easy to go blind with all the iPad reviews over the past week so I thought it would be nice to kick things off this week with a video of one of them getting the blendtec treatment! Happy viewing!

2.    ESPN nabs Premier League mobile highlights rights – Stuart Dredge

Not that exciting for anyone not interested in digital developments in sport, but this one could have some big implications down the line. ESPN have been buying up all kinds of sports broadcast realestate and this week nabbed the rights to show Premier League football and rugby highlights via mobile. This is potentially a big market and an area the clubs should be seriously looking at in the future as devices and connectivity get better…there will be money to be made!

3.    Social Networks are Touchpoints for Customer Acquisition and Retention – Brian Solis

Some good stats here showing how online shoppers are active on social networks and looking to connect with brands if they are going to get some value in terms of interaction and probably a few offers here and there. There is a gap between the consumer activity on the social web and the number of brands providing a meaningful connection with them.

4.  The Problem With Conversational Marketing – Jason Falls

A good one from Jason Falls looking at the challenges of marketing ‘correctly’ through social media – its tough to try and sell someone something on a community platform where the audience doesn’t like salesmen…but does like interaction and buying! As he says, “its fun to explore”.

5.    Report: Corporate Fan Pages Increase Purchase Intent More Than Banners And Widgets – Neil Vidyarthi

Similar to #3 , This one looks at a recent study which indicates that brands allowing fans or customers to connect with them on a social platform, create more purchase intent than common ad formats. Anything that can exercise your customers brains a bit more than passively consuming a banner ad is going to have a positive effect!

6.  6 Ways Brands are Using Social Media For Real-World Action- Daniel Stein

Social media is still being used, by a number of brands and organizations, as a marketing and advertising delivery mechanism. However, there are more and more examples of it being deployed as a means to mobilize a community to take action…in the real world. This post has a look at some of those who are doing it well.

Written yesterday but posted today, here are six posts from the past week that stood (and there is only one post about the ipad!). Let us know what you think of any of them in the comments or, even better, post your favourite from the last seven days.

1. 5 Ways Non-Profits Can Increase Engagement With YouTube – Geoff Livingston

Facebook is the obvious choice for non-profit organsiations, and with good reason as it is the top channel for engagement and Causes provides a contextual match. However, don’t ignore YouTube. Any non profit should consider a video strategy and this post looks what can be done.

2. Social Media ROI and Obliquity - Charlie Osmond

What’s ‘Obliquity’? Pursuing your goals indirectly. Organisations and people who achieve the most success seem to focus on value ahead of revenue and this is exactly the approach you need to be successful in social media. Good post – check it out.

3. University to Provide iPads for All New Students – Lauren Indvik

This was posted a few days prior to the ipad launch so isn’t one of the millions of app reviews! The iPad could have a revolutionary role to play in education in terms of knowledge transfer (and in saving students from carrying heavy books!), so it was interesting to see this University giving them out to new students.

4. Goodbye, e-commerce, hello f-commerce? – Jake Hird

Jeremiah Owyang wrote about the 5 eras of the social web last year. And it looks like we might be getting to the era of social commerce quicker than expected. You can now embed ecommerce into Facebook using the paypal API. Big possibilities for any consumer products and for Facebooks company valuation.

5. Should You Outsource Social Media? – Valeria Maltoni

Should you outsource your digital strategy? Can a social media expert help you? In this post, Valeria Maltoni reaches out to some industry experts and gets their thoughts on the questions. Interesting reading.

6. Redefining Viral Marketing – Brain Solis

Everybody loves to talk about viral marketing or how they will create viral videos etc. In this lengthy but very insightful post, Brain Solis breaks down what is needed to create content , strategy and ideas that will spread a message through the social web.

What should have been included but wasn’t? Would love to hear any thoughts below.

Back to the usual format of six posts for this week. There have been some good and really bad social media stories this week so, without further ado…

1. Nestle mess shows sticky side of Facebook pages – Caroline McCarthy

We could have picked from thousands of posts about Nestle’s Facebook shocker. Read the post for the full story but in a nutshell – Greenpeace attacked Nestle over using palm oil which is causing deforestation and created a spoof kit-kat commercial which went viral. Nestle haters went to Facebook to vent, Nestle weren’t prepared (maybe the understatement of the year!), reverted to old school PR techniques and have taken a royal kicking. Have a read and then let me know what you would do now if you were Nestle?

2. Scaling Social Media – Chris Brogan

Social Media isn’t as expensive as broadcast media…but to be effective it is labour intensive. Here, Chris Brogan gives excellent actionable insights into how an organization can scale social media, from monitoring, customer service, social marketing (nice term, I like it!) and content creation and the approaches needed to be successful. Good stuff, read it!

3. Sports teams, leagues tap SAS Analytics to boost profits – Winnie Palaran

Can social media monitoring help sports teams and leagues sell more tickets, t-shirts and popcorn? Apparently it can! The San Francisco 49ers use data and analysis from social media to improve the overall fan experience and by looking at online content, fan behavior data and demographics, the 49ers can identify season ticket holders at risk of not renewing and send them meaningful offers. Liking that, liking it a lot! Sports teams need to spend as much time understanding their fans as they do their players…something I don’t feel is happening in the UK.

4. The Social / Broadcast Matrix – Scott Gould

An interesting model here from Scott Gould (the dude behind likeminds-link), diagramming the difference between broadcast and social communications…and the bits in between.

5. Times and Sunday Times websites to charge from June – bbc.co.uk

Hardly a surprise but News International have announced they will be charging to access the Times and Sunday Times websites in the summer, £1 for the day or £2 for the week. We will have to see how it plays out but charging for news that you can get for free elsewhere isn’t the safest bet.  People will pay for niche content but not general news…what do you think?

6. A Social Media Scoreboard That Works - Jay Baer

There is a shed load of data off the back of social media programs…or there should be if you are measuring it properly…which you should be if you want to show ROI. Anyway, this tool from swix brings in all your social media metrics into one handy dashboard (except Facebook fan pages…which sucks a bit but you can’t have everything!). Very handy.

Have a great weekend and I will be at Wembley Stadium on Sunday to watch the mighty Southampton take on the world class Carlisle in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Final – Jealous?!

Written on a Friday but posted on a Saturday, here are six posts from around the blogosphere that caught our eye this week. As always, if you have any thoughts on these posts or would like to point us at some of your favourites then let us know in the comments.

1. Remarkable Stats on the State of the Internet [VIDEO] – Jennifer Van Grove

Thought we would start off with a video (made by Jesse Thomas) – mainly because we are too lazy to write the stats out plus we all prefer to watch a video than read on a Friday.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

2. The Strategy Trap: Why focusing too much on strategy could be killing your ability to execute – Olivier Blanchard

An excellent post from the Brand Builder on how there is a huge amount of focus on strategy and not enough on implementation which means that the customers never get the experience that was laid out in a strategy. Brands need to plan their social media programs from start to finish and look for additional value propositions outside of talking to customers on Facebook and Twitter in an authentic way.

3. Ten of the World’s Strangest Social Networks – Kristin Burnham

This slideshow of some of the most niche social networks you can think of is, A – fun to look at and B – a good example of how like minds are finding eachother online and defining their own communities. Expect this to continue and for brands to seek them out more and more as a more efficient alternative to the major networks.

4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Social Media Marketing - John Jantsch

Read the quote in the post by Douglas Adams, it’s a good philosophical thought on the perception of new technologies depending how old you are. A sweeping generalization, yes…but nice none the less!

5. Do websites even matter any more? – MARK W. SCHAEFER

Of course they do. A good post highlighting the need to make use of your ‘homebase’. It is probably possible, for the first time to be engaged with your customers online and not have a website. But the website is still the best place for registrations, transactions and ‘official contact’.

6. 3 Crisis Survival Lessons for the Social Media Age - Dallas Lawrence

There has been a number of high profile brand social media implosions in the last couple of years and this post looks at the new rules for crisis management and response. Walls of silence, advertising your way out of a crisis or being slow to respond are not viable tactics brand protection tactics anymore. Social media loves spreading bad news and people have got each other to get the ‘truth’ from.

Right, we are coming to the end of February (2010 is going quickly) and there was plenty in the social media blogosphere this week for us to draw from. There were enough posts bookmarked this week to increase the top six to the top ten…but we are trying to keep the same format for a few more weeks. Please feel free to add any of your favourite stories from this week, or any other week for that matter, in the comments.

1. The New App Store Rules: No Swimsuits, No Skin, And No Innuendo – Jason Kincaid

Apple are going on an anti sexual content crusade in the app store. According to Apple, anything with overtly sexual content will be removed…unless its Playboy, which apparently isn’t sexual at all. Admittedly, its been a while since I read a Playboy, but unless they have done a serious re brand, this seems like a slight case of double standards. Jason Kincaid goes into the details.

2. Video, Customer Interactions, and Getting Seen – Valeria Maltoni

“Of all the amazing new technologies that are opening up possibilities to communicate and connect in the digital space, video is the one that holds the most promise”. I couldn’t agree more. Humans are visual beings and while we have been used to text based communications online, the next few years should see us using video more and more. The technology is there, connectivity is getting better and I believe the content is already there for brands…they just need to dig inside their company to find it. Valeria Maltoni takes us through some video strategy, from Technology, content and getting seen.

3. The Dalai Lama Officially Joins Twitter – Ben Parr

Not too much to say about this other than if you are a fan of his Holiest The Dalai Lama, then you can now follow his  musings on twitter. I doubt it is actually him on the keyboard but its pretty cool none the less! Follow him at @DalaiLama

4. Human Brands – Katy Lindemann

At Spearfish Labs, we are all about helping companies be more human.  In this post, Katy Lindemann talks about how some of the biggest and best brands (Virgin,  Apple, Ben & Jerry’s etc) reflect the personalities of their founders. Social media lets brands reflect a persona to their customers and this can be an extremely powerful branding strategy…if your founders are good!

5. Social Media Trends at Fortune 100 Companies [STATS] – Samuel Axon

We thought we would throw in some stats for all the bean counters out there. Burson Marstellar have released a study of the 100 largest companies in the Fortune 500, and found that nearly 80% are using social media to communicate with customers and stakeholders. What is better, is that they show some proof that customers actually like these methods of interaction. There is a good presentation embedded in the post so go and check it out.

6. Social media ‘teams’ needed to cut business confusion- IAB

An interesting one from the IAB. They are calling for specific social media teams to be set up in organisations to avoid the confusion that is currently being experienced when defining who ‘owns’ social media. The different disciplines and measurement metrics mean it shouldn’t rest solely with marketing or PR or Research. I get the point but believe that creating a social media department would merely be another silo when it needs to be integrated into every department and used internally as well as a customer communication channel. Guy Phillipson (IAB CEO) spells it out “If leveraged correctly, social media has the potential to sit at the very heart of an organisation,” We agree with that, so maybe the title is misleading. Worth a look.

OK, thats all for this week, folks. Have a good weekend.