A few years ago, a colleague of mine was given a tremendous responsibility to oversee the social media department at a prestigious well known NYC-based public relations firm. Less than a year later, she was sent packing up her desk, a casualty of a company that jumped into that shiny toy syndrome that people call social media. As more companies jump into social media, they, too, hear that “social media departments don’t execute” which results in the failure of a social media department that was never meant to be. I’ll be exploring some of those reasons below. MORE >>

First, apologies to anyone suffering Klout burnout here – but sometimes a topic has more than just a simple viewpoint. Especially when that topic is something like online privacy. And that privacy has (potentially) been broken by Klout. was on Facebook today, and my friend Tonia Ries  asked about Klout’s ability to make profiles, when users haven’t connected their details with the service. pointed her to the response from Megan Berry , Klout’s marketing manager, where she says if we don’t want to be tracked, then to make our social feeds private. MORE >>

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.” – ” – General Eric Shinseki, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff. The media landscape has evolved tremendously over the last quarter century. Consumers have evolved even faster with the advent of high-speed Internet-enabled mobile devices and social media. Have your marketing efforts evolved with them? Marketing at the peak of the television era was relatively simple. There were broadcast shows that could give brands tremendous reach. The answer: You don’t. Sound daunting? It shouldn’t. MORE >>

Today’s post is written by Jennifer Roberts. was riding up one of the canyon roads in Boulder, Colorado a few weekends ago. wanted to use the ride to work out how to write an article linking my online social behavior with the concept of a social consumer. But my high-end Sella Italia Lady saddle was distracting me; it was uncomfortable. refocused and thought about my online behavior and how narrowing perspective to include only my social media behavior provided an incomplete view of me as a social consumer. Demographics. Interests. What the Social Media Signal Leaves Out. Offline. Email. MORE >>

A great infographic from Craig Newmark and Rad Campaign. Read more about it here. The data is based on the top 50 nonprofits by income as per the Nonprofit Times. Click to enlarge MORE >>