Sometimes it is important to take a step back from the commotion of our daily schedules and refocus on what is truly important in life.

This is a great story of how one guy went out of his way to make a nine year-old boy’s cardboard arcade come to life. You have to love it when people use the power of social media for good, not evil.

This is an inspiring video to pay it forward and sure to put a smile on your face.

Enjoy,

-Nick

I know, I know…it’s a love /hate relationship with this social site. Personally, I HATE the FB posts that someone just pinned the latest Kate Spade cupcake foil to their board but LOVE the inspiration that can be reaped from a well-edited collection.  No matter what your opinion, this has been the week of Pinterest from a news coverage standpoint, every time I turned around I was blasted with some new article or blog post on Pinterest – its growth, its viability, its brand building/product selling benefits, even its legal standing.

The folks at Pinterest (a rather small team of 12-15 people depending on your source) either turned on the PR fire hose or this is a great example of Malcom Gladwell’s The Tipping Point because there are seemingly a whole lot more eyes on this company this week than there were last month.  Here are a few of the most recent news pieces:

Even The Army Has A Pinterest - MediaJobsDaily <http://www.mediabistro.com/mediajobsdaily/even-the-army-has-a-pinterest_b10006>
‎
Pinterest, One Of The Fastest-Growing Startups In History, Might Be Enabling Massive Copyright Theft

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/pinterest-illegal-faq-2012-2#ixzz1mflKW6Bv

           
Pinterest dos and don’ts for brands
http://www.nbr.co.nz/node/110244

Learning how to use Pinterest for business? Watch these 6 companies   

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/startups/2012/02/6-businesses-to-learn-pinterest-from.html              

-Sara

Three and a half years ago when I enrolled at TCU I “thought” I knew exactly what I wanted in life: to find my passion, graduate in four years, start my own business, become a top professional in my field, retire early and enjoy my time vacationing with family and friends.

Sounds like the dream life, right? Well, that’s exactly what it was…a dream.

Fortunately for me, I can at least check off the first two. This May, I will officially be a graduate from Texas Christian University with a B.S in Strategic Communication (a fancy way of saying advertising and public relations). After that, your guess is just as good as mine.

Although I am confident in my career choice, I have no idea what path will lead me there. And I’m okay with that because just like social media trends, life is expected to change. For now, I am happily interning in Account Services at Schaefer Advertising Co.

In the past, I believed that as long as I had a plan and executed it with hardwork I would be okay in life, but with every day in the office I’m discovering it’s an empty achievement if there is no passion behind it.

I absolutely love the amount of passion Schaefer Advertising shows among fellow employees, passion for clients and passion for producing quality work. In less than four weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to actively participate in projects, observe client meetings and help meet deadlines.

Most importantly, I appreciate the hands-on approach the staff has taken to mentor me.

I’m sure, in time the next step of my path will reveal itself, but until then I’m spending it having fun and loving what I do best.

To keep the conversation going, connect with me, Olivia Stribling, on LinkedIn and follow my professional blog A Woman Who Thinks She Can.

Dunkin’ Donuts is taking an interesting social approach to get their customers engaged via Facebook Places and Four Square this holiday.  It will be interesting to see what the final outcome reveals and how much participation they can generate.

-Erin Naterman

The debate continues.  Does Facebook really facilitate fan conversion? This article in today’s Ad Age shows some firm conversion rates for brands, and costs associated with reaching fans. Obviously, this data is based on a formula which was created to measure as closely as possible how fan conversion might be measured.  Everyone has their opinion and theory on the reality of conversion when it comes to social media. One thing is certain, brands can’t afford to not engage with fans through social media, which is on the rise and doesn’t seem to be declining anytime in the very near future.

-Erin Naterman

Whether you like it or not, you are being judged and the outcome is public.  Companies are already using Klout to make employment and promotion decisions as seen in the interview with chief executive and co-founder of Klout, Joe Fernandez. 

Your Klout score is an assigned number that measures your overall online influence.  It not only measures how many followers you have online, but it is also a measure of how influential you are in eliciting a response to your posts.  If you have a Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin account, Klout could have already measured you up. 

How exactly does Klout come up with the scores, you ask?  Klout realizes that its scoring system is not perfect, but they are trying to use various variables to calculate scores.  Currently, the factors used to determine your score are: mutual follows, number of friends, total retweets, unique commenters, unique likers, follower to follow ratio, follow back percentage, @ mention count, list count, and list followers count.

An article in the New York Times suggests that it could eventually serve as a “social media caste system” while others believe it is a democratization of influence.

“For the first time, we’re all on an even playing field…It’s not just how much money you have or what you look like.  It’s what you say and how you say it.” -Joe Fernandez

Klout scores range from 1 to 100 with the average score being in the high teens.  I could not help but look up my own Klout score out of curiosity.  Do you have Klout?

-Sterling Smith, Intern

Great article on TechCrunch about the actual value of businesses responding to customer tweets.  Business that deal directly with customers tweets via twitter get a huge benefit - 64% of those that tweeted say they are MORE likely to purchase from a business that answers their questions on Twitter.

Speaks volumes about the role social can play in the business end of business. That often times seems to get lost in the discussion.   Businesses - FIRST - are you listening? Your customers are talking - guaranteed.  Just type in #AmericanAirlines and see all the opportunities that AA has to engage with their customers.  SECOND - Are you prepared to utilize Twitter to solve customer problems?  That means you have to equip and empower the people that represent your brand to actually engage in the customer dialogue and help solve their problem.  

Who says Twitter works?  Your customers. 

- Ken Schaefer

The world of marketing and advertising has changed significantly over the recent years due to the booming social media revolution that has caught on and spread to nearly every facet of consumers’ lives.  Some folks question whether social media is a fad that will go as quickly as it came.  I challenge you to watch this video before answering that question.  For those clients that are dragging their feet, this might this might just light the fire.

– Erin

(Source: youtube.com)

laughingsquid:

The World Is Obsessed With Facebook

I have a thing for motion infographics, what can I say. Doesn’t really matter if you’re a hater or not, Zuckerberg created probably created one of the most influential websites on the interwebs today. A few stats from the video:

• As of 2011, there are 500,000,000 active facebook users (1 in every 13 people on the friggin’ planet Earth)
• 48% of Young Americans discover their news through facebook
• The 35+ demographic now represents more the 30% of the entire userbase (trust me, if my grandma is on it, then this is confirmed.)
• 750 million photos were uploaded to facebook over New Year’s weekend

-Alex

thedailywhat:

End Of An Era of the Day: MySpace announced today that it will henceforth be allowing users to access accounts with their Facebook IDs in lieu of having to create MySpace accounts from scratch. In addition, Facebook “like” buttons will be added to MySpace content. The move, which some are calling a “full surrender,” is, at the very least, a concession.

One Mashable commenter reaction to the news sums it up quite well: “Now if only I actually wanted to login to MySpace.”

[allfacebook.]

“And that’s all folks!”. *Does Porky Pig jig of some sort.

In all seriousness though, this event does concern me in that MySpace not only is defeated, but facebook becomes even bigger. They’re just taking on everyone here. Sheesh. First foursquare, then trying to tackle gmail, now this? Wait, I’m sorry, the previous statement assumes MySpace has been a big deal for the last 3 or 4 years.

-Alex

(Source: thedailywhat)