As we write, the world is playing countdown to the biggest tech IPO in a decade. In a matter of hours, we’ll know how many billions (north of $100 billion) will add up to the value of Facebook. As we ponder all those zeros, here’s an interesting infographic on the 901 million-pound gorilla’s globe-spanning growth.

Under the wing of its ‘More Fanta. Less Serious’ strap, the ‘Chase the Taste’ campaign features a TV ad (with a soundtrack provided by Parisian house DJ Martin Solveig), Facebook activity and at its core, a Facebook app which houses Fanta City, an animated world with games, missions and a range of prizes to be won, including cinema tickets and trips to Alton Towers.

Time and time again, that traditional marketer and PR mentality — dominated by the desire to create an impressive, big bang of a campaign without really thinking how it’s going to play out in real time and in an online world where everyone talks back — lets brands and agencies down.

We started the week with a big Facebook #Fail from Coca-Cola Down Under and things didn’t get much better as we all tuned in for the big tech news of the week – the details of the new iPad. To recap, Coca-Cola Australia figured it would be a fun idea to ask its 736,000 Facebook fans to participate in a type of word-association game that quickly spiraled into a fan-on-fan insult-fest. It was yet another lesson (as if we needed reminding) that in social media, brands have little to no control over what fans will ultimately say.

That’s the good, albeit brutal, news. The bad news though is that as recently as 2010, half of all large organizations were still blocking employee access to social media sites in the name of security, a new Gartner study says. The number of social-censoring enterprises is falling, but those who hang on in lock-down mode are actually creating a different type of security risk

Coca-Cola has set down a marker for CSR and sustainability communications through its Arctic Home collaboration with WWF. The centrepiece, up until last weekend, was an interactive online site where fans of Coke who made a donation to Arctic Home were able to enter a virtual Arctic environment and track polar bear sightings while corresponding with field scientists.

This year’s Super Bowl saw five times as much social activity as last year, figures from Trendrr suggest, which is not surprising given research by Coco-Cola showing that at least 60 percent of viewers were expected to have a smart phone, tablet or computer within arm’s reach and that an average of 10,000 Tweets per minute were fired off in game’s final three minutes.

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.

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.

Millward Brown released its yearly BrandZ report today ranking the world’s most valued brands, down to the penny. While Millward Brown is the trusted source for overall brand valuation, one thing its don’t seem to take into account is a brand’s social valuation. So we did it for them. Yes, what follows is a rejigging of the league table.