Good tidings, ladies and gentlemen! We’ve rounded up some of the top stories in the social media world to help you stay up to speed with trends and developments that will enhance your online marketing strategy and experience.

This week we bring you Community Connections and Monitoring and Measurement. The former will talk about the invisible lines that draw us together in the world, what’s going on with them, and what do with them to drive you business forward and enhance the experience of everyone involved in your social media sphere. For the latter section, we throw you an article that explains the key differences in monitoring and measurement, then two more articles, one dedicated to monitoring strategy, the other to measuring efficacy. Plus, a video presentation for those who liked their social media movie-style. We’re pretty self-satisfied with the line-up, and we think you’ll find it helpful too. And let us know as much, leave us some love and suggestions.

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

Community Connections

Connectedness and Customer Service. An experience with a lost wallet at Starbucks gets Carol Dangson thinking about customer service and social media, primarily the importance, at the end of the day, of not the social media tools, but the person behind the computer using them.

How To Manage A Sustainable Online Community. Mashable offers a visual, cyclical theory of online community behavior and suggests familiarization with it in order to avoid the “Three cardinal sins” of online community management. This one’s got some great visuals and ideas on value formation in social media.

Geolocation Grows Despite Privacy Concerns. Last week we posted an article on FourSquare and its dubious effectiveness for marketers. But this week we hear that nearly 40% of individuals using mobile services use services that are aware of where the individual is located. Learn how particular demographics are behaving with geolocation with this Webroot and Forrester study.

Monitoring and Measurement

Why You Need To Monitor and Measure Your Brand On Social Media. Our headlining article for this section. What’s the difference between monitoring and measuring your social media, and why is each important?

10 Tips for Successful Social Media Monitoring. Now that we know what monitoring is, we need to know how to do it well. Foremost the article emphasizes strategy and a plan (like us!). From there we’re offered a series of smart ideas on really evaluating what’s going on in your social media world.

How To Measure Social Media Return On Investment for the Complex Sale. We’re big on ROI here. That’s why it’s a pleasure for us to recommend this article by Nichole Kelly, who thinks that businesses can build an effective measurement strategy by taking a holistic view of lead generation. Enclosed are four tips on making sure that you’re effectively measuring social media’s effect on your bottom line.

Starbucks Video Case Study: Powering Product Launches, presented by Alexandra Wheeler. A nice, thorough presentation looking at Starbucks and powering product launches. We know–Starbucks again?! What can we say. We’re coffee people (and not the only ones, it seems–take note). Alexandra’s big idea is that social media can change behavior and drive purchase decisions. Let’s hear what she has to say.

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