Coca-Cola has ranked at or near the top in just about every measure of social engagement for some time now. It is the Lady Gaga of brands. How does it manage to keep its 34 million-plus fans sated on a daily basis? An interesting new piece of research offers some insights.

This morning we got a note from Tabjuice, the Facebook commerce-and-marketing specialists. They put together this infographic on what brands should consider if planning to take the plunge into social commerce, that $30 billion market opportunity.

For the past year or so, all the buzz was about growing your follower numbers. But today there are doubts about whether that’s such a good investment. Why? Marketers are finding that their swelling Facebook fan communities and Twitter followings are increasingly not “target-specific” and too damn fickle.

Not long ago, all the talk in digital marketing circles was the power of “Like.” Build an impressive following of people who declare they like your company, organization or product and, the thinking went, you’d have a cheap and cheerful network of brand advocates, the type who would enthusiastically follow your daily posts and tell their friends about it, too. How very naive that all seems today.

Ah, the road trip. Is there an activity more symbolic of fun and freedom than piling into a car with your favorite people and taking off to an unknown destination, listening to great tunes along the way? Hardly, and so Nissan has tapped into the psyche of road trip adventurers for a social media campaign promoting its new 2012 Versa sedan.

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.