As the TNS survey demonstrates, knowing your market is vital. UK users are more likely to use brand pages for praise and to offer advice than for moaning (17 percent vs. 11 percent), whereas the Spanish and Argentinians are more likely to use a brand’s online presence to complain. Having the resources in place to capitalize on these behaviors, then, will lead to more positive brand awareness.

Of course, crowd-sourcing in this manner will bring to Walmart’s attention any number of worthy cases that might otherwise go unnoticed – after all, users have to do very little in order to nominate their cause. It is interesting to note, however, that in the promotional video the individuals approached for their take on the spirit of giving are not necessarily a likely target demographic for an online campaign

For every new product launched, 17 teams up with a hot, new-on-the-scene music artist to create a piece of music and video in keeping with the item in question. Currently, the campaign is pushing Magnetized Nail Polish, alongside Summer Camp’s retro electro tune “You might get stuck on me”. (See what they did there?)

That’s right. The banking industry just may be one of the most anti-social of all consumer-facing sectors, a new piece of research shows.

That’s the finding of a new piece of research from digital marketing specialists at Web Liquid who calculate that posts with photos consistently generate the biggest response from the online public. And the worst? The plain old link.

Financial protection company Unum has realized that its pedalling its wares to a largely disengaged audience, and has launched a Facebook app with the view to making the process of protecting income a bit more inspiring. Any takers?

If you are not yet familiar with the story of 22-year-old Molly Katchpole, you’d better listen up. Peeved about a new $5 monthly bank fee imposed by Bank of America, Katchpole logged on to Change.org a few weeks ago to start an online petition urging the bank to back off. That’s when things got interesting.

The numbers are trending nicely for social media. A new piece of research out this week estimates the global social network ad spend will top $8 billion next year and approach $10 billion the year after. There’s another social media figure on the rise too: despite the increased investment in social, companies are getting blindsided by the social media-fueled PR crisis, as our recent research into this shows. Here then are a few important tips to consider for integrating social media into your crisis communications plan.

What goes through the human mind when a crisis strikes? Panic? Meltdown? You’d be surprised. During moments of extreme adversity, well-prepared teams can do extraordinary things – identify the heart of the problem, devise a plan of attack and return the operation to “business as usual.” Veteran crisis communications trainer Neil Chapman offers us some key insights, starting with some lessons from a must-read book.

Matt McAlister, Director of Digital Strategy at Guardian Media Group, spoke at the SMI11 conference about the future of social, mobile and local targeting – or “SoMoLo” for short – and its impact on communities a few months back. We caught up with McAlister again this week to discuss the beta launch of n0tice