We’ve just updated our “Social Media Screw Ups – a History” research with a series of new cringeworthy corporate gaffes from the past year that include insights into how they occurred and how they could be avoided in the future.

When protesters took to the streets earlier this year in Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi, the teetering autocrats in charge acted swiftly. They shut down the Internet and mobile connections in an effort to wipe out the opposition’s lines of communications and stop the Facebook-fueled revolution before it could rock the palace gates. The effort proved fruitless, as many of us in the West confidently predicted.

These days, you are just as likely at a trade show, conference or major event to run into “a reporter” from a major company or organization as you are a beat journalist, with the former using a combination of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to keep their growing number of followers at home up-to-date. Welcome to the new age of corporate reporting.

It’s particularly bad news these days when you find yourself at the center of a Twitter malfeasance story that’s got everyone in the Washington and tech press corps buzzing. The big question this morning facing the Newt Gingrich camp is: did he pad his Twitter following by paying for a bunch of spambots and other dubious characters?

That’s the question posed by IHS Screen Digest, analysts who’ve been covering the gaming market since the early PlayStation days. As they note, Zynga is expected to file in the coming days its required S-1 financial docs for curious investors to peruse, the final big step before its IPO. It’s a stock market event that will define whether social gaming is the next big thing.

Two weeks ago, Google told us that the most-watched-ever advert to hit YouTube is Volkswagen’s “The Force,” a spot released six months ago during the Super Bowl. In another sign of its impressive social media savvy, Greenpeace is using the popularity of that advert against VW this week with a spoof of “The Force” that calls into question the German car-maker’s green credentials and commitment to a low-carbon future.

LinkedIn’s $9 billion stock market debut last month may have stunned many on Wall Street, but it couldn’t have been much of a surprise to the denizens of Sand Hill Road. In the months prior to the LNKD IPO, venture capitalists had been placing huge bets on social networks of all shapes and sizes.

Where has all the happiness in the world gone? We’re not too sure, but one place we’d suggest you look is on the Foursquare network, which just announced it’s surpassed 10 million users. In a blog post, Foursquare provides a black-on-white infographic that reveals some of the less banal check-in events (new babies vs., say, the OMG! Starbucks Frappuccino’s) and this little tidbit: Foursquare users are a pretty damn cheery lot.

At our Social Media Influence 2011 conference earlier this week we dedicated part of the day to innovative story-telling, how an engaging editorial strategy can earn a brand or organization visibility, a loyal following and, yes, respect.

Last week we looked at the novel way in which PayPal UK has recruited over 100,000 160,000 Facebook fans and another 11,000 Twitter followers in a matter of a few weeks simply by dangling the chance to win a free iPad 2 to anyone who clicks the “Like” button. We calculated the cost-per-acquisition for PayPal UK is pennies on the pound, a huge bargain when you consider what it costs to lure in new Twitter followers by paying for a targeted “Promoted Account” buy.