As part of a comprehensive global survey of forward-looking business leadership, IBM spoke to 1,700 CEOs from 60 countries, in 18 industry sectors, and found two somewhat surprisingly impactful conclusions about the future of social. The first is that social media engagement with customers will soon be more important than face-to-face interaction. The second, as a result, CEOs aim to significantly escalate their level of social media engagement with customers over the next five years.

How confusing can the advertising picture on Facebook get? You know all about General Motor’s $10 million pull-out last week. That move, and the dud underwhelming Facebook IPO, prompted WPP chief Martin Sorrell to declare on Friday that Facebook is “one of the most powerful branding mechanisms in the world, but it’s not an advertising mechanism.” Fast-forward to this week and WPP’s Group M ad-buying unit has struck an extensive licensing deal with Buddy Media to “make it easier for clients to spend money there.” Confused?

Forget spending hours in front of reality TV shows, car insurance price comparison site Confused.com is on a mission to compile the UK’s best talents in bite-size five second clips with its new social media campaign.

The traffic-driving impact of The Big 3 social networks – today, let’s rank them as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest – is being constantly measured, calibrated, then re-measured and re-calibrated, it seems. This is important as marketers want to know on which networks it would be wisest to maintain a vibrant presence. The answer: all three. But it’s clear that one of these Big 3 is not just driving traffic, but big-ticket sales. Hint: it ends with “interest.”

As we write, the world is playing countdown to the biggest tech IPO in a decade. In a matter of hours, we’ll know how many billions (north of $100 billion) will add up to the value of Facebook. As we ponder all those zeros, here’s an interesting infographic on the 901 million-pound gorilla’s globe-spanning growth.

The two biggest stories in digital right now are Facebook… and Facebook. On the eve of an IPO that could value Facebook at $100 billion we get word that automotive giant General Motors is pulling its $10 million Facebook ad budget on account of diminished returns. Is GM telling us something, that Facebook is a waste of money as a marketing opportunity? The answer: not so fast.

Over the past 12 months, social media has gone from an “add-on” to “business critical” for marketers in the UK. Social has opened up a huge opportunity for brands to engage directly with customers, and every marketer understands now that there are clear benefits to using social media for marketing. But, as online engagement platform provider EPiServer noted in a recent study, the vast majority of UK businesses still struggle to effectively measure their return on social media investment. Here then are five keys to increasing your social media ROI.

We’ve seen Nissan launch a comprehensive crowdsourced car-building campaign, American beer brand Sam Adams crowdsource a new draft beer via Facebook, and makeup maestros Bobbi Brown bring back old lipstick shade favorites based on crowdsourced feedback. Now, the universally-recognised McDonald’s is tapping into social crowdsourcing success, with its Germany-centric ‘Mein Burger’ (My Burger) campaign.

We’re on the tools beat again this morning. Last week we looked at a McKinsey survey of business executives who showed their growing fondness for social networking and, in particular, video sharing. Today, we look a bit deeper into the latter phenomenon to show just how companies are deploying video to position themselves.

The report examines social shopper needs, ultimately developing six shopper archetypes. By breaking down traits associated with indulgent needs, impulsive needs, utilitarian needs and informational needs, the researchers identified the following (from light social shoppers to heavy users):