Twitter sure picked the right partner in Disney-Pixar with which to debut its new “sponsored trends” advertising platform. Toy Story 3 appears to have blown away even the rosiest of forecasts, pulling in an estimated $158 million global box office take this weekend, Variety reports, a record for Disney-Pixar. This figure will no doubt add to the debate of whether Twitter’s new ad platform has the power to build instant buzz (and sales) for a brand, or whetherit’s just a nice-to-have add-on to an existing ad campaign.

Earlier this year, a survey of corporate social media strategy showed Twitter was undeniably the channel of choice among the world’s largest companies. And, as we’ve been seeing, the corporate Twitter strategy, for the most part, begins and ends with customer service/outreach. Twitter has become the front line customer service hub for companies to calm customers’ nerves, keep them informed and engaged. But, we wonder, can’t that also be achieved on Facebook and YouTube?

The verdict is still out on sponsoring the trending Tweet, that form of minimalist advertising Twitter just unleashed on the world. Here, we take a look at which companies, brands and products would be wise to splash out cash on the trending tweets, and which ought to stay well away.

Alexandra Wheeler, Digital Director for Starbucks will be speaking at the Social Media Influence conference on June 22. Here we look at how Starbucks’ new free WiFi initiative can be traced back to a fresh dedication to online customer engagement.

America’s iPhone users, already unhappy with the AT&T monopoly, are seething again today about botched pre-orders for the new iPhone 4, hobbled as it was by AT&T network failures. Customers, as they are wont to do these days, took to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs to fire hate bombs at the mobile carrier. AT&T handled many of the complaints with aplomb on Twitter, but left whole other social media channels quiet. Not surprisingly, the angry bursts are being fired again.

If you’re an avid Twitter user (wait, you’re not on Twitter yet!?), then you’ve certainly seen the dreaded “Twitter over capacity” whale a few times in the last week or so. Confronted with the fail whale many times this week ourselves we too have grumbled to the Twitter gods: WTF is going on? The Twitter gods, well, PR guy, has finally answered.

Social media channels are becoming a necessity for successful online sales performance as they are increasingly the first place shoppers turn for advice, two newly released reports by eMarketer and Nielsen show. In sum, a growing number of customers depend on Facebook and Twitter for their first impression of a brand, and many online shoppers won’t buy without a social shopping recommendation.

Procter & Gamble, facing a social media-fueled fire that is starting to burn, is now budgeting emergency marketing funds, the Wall Street Journal reports today, to extinguish the furore over its Pampers Dry Max diaper brand. A month after mommy bloggers started hounding P&G on popular social media sites, the criticism continues with moms complaining the new diapers lead to rashes and are prone to leaks. Will P&G’s new marketing moves be enough to avoid a nasty PR burn?

A career in social media may be seen as one of the trendiest new jobs to have and the importance of social media certainly is resonating through many big companies. However, as we reveal in a our new special report: The State of Social Media Jobs 2010, many of the world’s top companies still do not have dedicated social media positions in-house.

We have a serious case of World Cup fever here. Before the tournament was underway, we put together our World Cup Sponsor Social Media Guide, tipping which big brand we though had a chance to score the most points with fans. Today, we are delivering our first of many reports on how these big brands are faring. The first installment here is a league table of the 14 Fifa World Cup partners and sponsors, ranked by social media following. We’ll update this every Monday until the end of the tourney in the hopes of answering: do the hefty World Cup sponsorship investments actually pay off?