Credit card company American Express has launched its first social-media specific campaign, which sees it donate money to UK charity The Prince’s Trust for every ‘inspiration’ users share on Facebook or Twitter. However, revelations point to a decidedly uninspiring reality.

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.

Portuguese-food maestro Nando’s is so confident of the tastiness of its chicken that it’s based an entire campaign around its ability to make customers audibly exclaim with joy.

British footwear brand Dr Martens has launched a new cross-platform campaign encouraging users to share their first experiences of the brand’s iconic boots.

Online betting site Betfair has launched a new campaign in support of its new ‘betting ambassadors’; four of the sporting world’s biggest names, who will be working with the brand to give customers informative and insightful tipping content, monthly podcasts and opinion on breaking sports news.

Social media is radically reshaping how companies and organisations handle their crisis communications. At our recent #SMI11 conference, crisis communications experts Neil Chapman and Chris Reed offered a fascinating insight into the ways BP and Eurostar, among other companies, have learned from social media fallout.

If a tree falls in the forest and there’s no-one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Indeed, does it make any tangible difference to the way we lead our lives? Not really. What about the announcement of hugely ambitious environmental targets by a multi-billion dollar corporation? If there’s no-one around to hear that, does it make any difference to, well… anything?

With more social media screw ups than points scored, it’s no surprise many coaches and managers ban their players from Twitter and Facebook. Oklahoma State University, however, is using these online platforms in a ground-breaking way.

America’s Deep South is no stranger to typecasting, and fast food sandwich chain Subway has capitalized on this beer-swilling, ho-down, redneck stereotype to promote its new Smokin’ BBQ Chicken Temptation Sub. And it’s taking the message to its social media channels.

Hot on the heels of Facebook Places, foursquare and Groupon Now, telecoms giant O2 has launched its own location-based cloud voucher scheme in the UK, and despite some sloppy promotion, has stormed the download charts.