The latest release.

Following in the footsteps of consumers, large international companies are now becoming active participants in social media. A recent Burson-Marsteller study found that 79 percent of the largest 100 companies in the Fortune Global 500 index are using at least one of the most popular social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogs. Read more…

Via Mashable.

Wondering what all this social media excitement is about? Mashable proposes a 10-minute video mashup of the 5 best books about social media: Trust Agents, The Whuffie Factor, Six Pixels of Separation, Crush It, The New Community Rules. Enjoy!

Via GlobeCorp.

This was one year ago…

The top CEOs in the country appear to be mostly absent from the social media community. That’s the result from research we conducted over the past several weeks. We looked at Fortune’s 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs to determine how many were using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, or had a blog. The results show a miserable level of engagement.

Read more at ÜberCEO…

Via Emilie Ogez News.

Part I - The Wikipedia Myth

Part II - People at the Center

Part III - Getting started

The 2009 survey shows that there is great reputational risk associated with social networking as 74 percent of those surveyed believe it is easy to damage a brand’s reputation via sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

As this medium is evolving, there are different opinions about use and access. For example, 60 percent of business executives say they have the “right to know” how employees portray themselves and their organizations online, while 53 percent of the employees contend that “social networking pages are none of an employer’s business.”

So what should business leaders do? One option is to establish policies and protocols. However, nearly half of the respondents say that such guidelines will not change how they behave in cyberspace. Therefore, organizations should emphasize culture, values, and ethics in order to mitigate reputational risk in these online communities.

Read more…

Update: on Slideshare (via Demain la veille)

Jeremiah Owyang, a leading social media thinker at Forrester Research, took some time with Stowe Boyd to share observations about the state of practice and the future of enterprise 2.0.

Via Enterprise 2.0 blog.

According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report from the Aberdeen Group, marketers have developed the tools and methodologies to drive marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and prospects.

Aberdeen found that 63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.

eMarketer estimates that social network advertising alone will rise over 17% this year to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008.

Read more at eMarketer…

The recession has put more pressure on interactive marketers to deliver measurable results. While many marketing budgets are being cinched, more than 50% of interactive marketers say they will increase their spending on social marketing. Why? These inexpensive tools can quickly get marketing messages out through interactive discussion and rapid word of mouth and, properly managed, can deliver measurable results. But in this downturn, interactive marketers must move beyond experimentation by making social applications a permanent part of marketing, measuring and demonstrating their value, and integrating them into marketing efforts.

Read more at Forrester Research…