A new report from Roost, the first of what they say will be quarterly releases, reaffirms what we've been telling you... businesses are seeing results from social media. Over 71% of small businesses surveyed said that social media is their most effective means of marketing. (Compare that to a total of 26.4% for print and display advertising combined.) read more

We love to be right... and we especially love when new data backs up what we've been telling you all along. Namely, your customers are on social media. And they're talking about brands, whether those brands have joined the conversation or not. A recent survey by e-Rewards found that an amazing 22% of people asked have knowingly posted about a brand on social media. read more

We thought medicine wagons and snake oil salesmen were only historical things, a quaint memory of less sophisticated times... certainly not the stuff of nightmares. But it seems some social media expert experts are seeing snake oil salesmen hiding under the bed and lurking in the closet. And they want to warn the world. read more

We admit to being a little amused... The controversy over social media "experts" continues. We wrote about it when Business Insider offered conflicting pieces called "Why I Will Never Hire a Social Media Expert" and "Why Some Social Media Experts Are Good". To make the discussion as confusing as possible (we guess), AdAge has an article up today that explains "Why You Should Replace Your Social Media Experts With Wild Animals". read more

There's a lot of buzz about lately about Klout and Klout scores. One thing that folks struggle with in social media is trying to determine who they're actually reaching. (We've written about this as it applies to businesses and ROI here, here and here.)  Klout is a site which promises “measurement for your overall online influence”. We've looked into it because... well, that's what we do. And to be honest, we remain unconvinced. read more