That’s what we’re wondering today after carmaker Toyota started running a promoted Tweets campaign for its luxury brand, Lexus. On Wednesday, it announced the recall of 245,000 cars sold in the United States, the same day it started running a #Lexus hashtag campaign. The results? There’s not all that much chatter about the campaign, but there’s even less hubbub about the recall.

That’s the big conclusion drawn from the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer, the details of which were revealed yesterday at the WEF forum in Davos. And where do our friends and peers rank? They are losing ground. Fast.

So how to make sense of this new front in social media crisis communications? We’ve been documenting social media reputation issues for nearly five years now. In our recent Social Media Sustainability Index we highlight a list of Dos and Don’ts that can help companies prepare better for a brewing social storm.

Our first workshop is “Think Like an Editor” on February 16 in London. It’s is specially tailored to help companies and agencies understand the editorial skills and thinking that will help them successfully publish on Facebook, Twitter and brand blogs and social media magazines.

We’ve chronicled here many times the impressive success Greenpeace has had in using the most public of social media forums to denounce environmentally destructive corporate practices by brands ranging from Nestle to Burger King and force them into a public about-face. Fast Company this week looks back at one of Greenpeace’s first major social media pressure campaigns – the Kimberly-Clark “Kleercut” initiative – in a tale that all companies would be wise to heed.

Ladies, looking for a paying gig in San Francisco where you get to try on lots of new fashions and then Tweet how “awesome” they look on you? You only have two minutes to convince Levi’s you’re their gal. YouTube skills a must.

The news that both Facebook and LinkedIn are preparing to take their shares public has created a froth of both investor and media excitement. Facebook’s projected $50 billion valuation would be more than Starbucks and Dell. Combined! And the head-scratching headlines don’t end there.

That’s what we’re wondering today as we analyze the end-of-year numbers for 2010 as it pertains to our favorite online creative/socializing activities. Roughly 26 million new blogs were started last year. Not bad, but nothing compared with the growth happening in other areas of social media. Take a look.

What is the plural of Prius?, Toyota asks. It’s not meant to be rhetorical. In fact, the beleaguered carmaker is turning the question into a type of public vote being promoted these days throughout the social web.

Twitter has posted to its blog this time-lapsed video of the world celebrating the arrival of the New Year last weekend. The occasion marked a new record in Tweets-per-second, set yet again by the Japanese, the new Twitter-mad nation, with 6,939 TPS wishing friends and followers a fond “Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu” (“Happy New Year!”).