You might remember this scene from the 2010 Oscar-award winning film “The Social Network.” Four young coders tap away at their laptops, face-off style. Every few seconds, or so it seems, one of the combatants downs a potent shot of cheap booze then resumes tapping away. Around them the cheering hits a fever pitch until… breakthrough! Code cracked. “Welcome to Facebook,” the Mark Zuckerberg character greets the victor.

Google raised the stakes this week with its biggest ever tweak of its search algorithm, this time giving additional weight to content created/vetted/linked/+1′d from our network of friends, family in our search query results. It’s a move that could determine the success or failure of your social media strategy.

The big news in this announcement, though, is really what’s going on with brand pages. A bit late to the party (Google+ has recently announced brand pages and Facebook, well…), Twitter now promises new features to marketers that will offer the potential to interact and engage with followers even more so than previously

Last week I was asked to deliver a presentation on social SEO and what Google’s search formula tweaks now mean for brands and organizations looking to boost their visibility. This is a rapidly evolving issue, but there are some enduring points here that all organizations (and journalists too!) should keep in mind. Hopefully this guide will help you.

That’s the finding of a new piece of research from digital marketing specialists at Web Liquid who calculate that posts with photos consistently generate the biggest response from the online public. And the worst? The plain old link.

So says Publicis Modem UK in a forward-looking Slideshare presentation that covers what the new social network is about and what impact it will have on digital business. The more interesting question might be: will Google+ become a lynchpin of your business strategy?

Despite the recent sale of Myspace for a relatively meager $35 million and LinkedIn’s rocky ride so far on the stock market, search engine giant Google has decided it wants a piece of the lucrative social networking pie, and last week launched Google+. Oh, it’s also made a big green announcement that’s gotten lost in all the geeky plus-buzz.

Two weeks ago, Google told us that the most-watched-ever advert to hit YouTube is Volkswagen’s “The Force,” a spot released six months ago during the Super Bowl. In another sign of its impressive social media savvy, Greenpeace is using the popularity of that advert against VW this week with a spoof of “The Force” that calls into question the German car-maker’s green credentials and commitment to a low-carbon future.

Our SEO expert Andrew Shotland spends a lot of time pondering the algorithmic guts of Google Maps. Could it be all that user-generated data it’s incorporating into Maps is making locations actually harder to see? Let’s find out.

We’ve just put the wrap on Social Media Influence 2011, our annual conference in which we bring together the top brands, thinkers and practitioners in the world of social business to discuss the big issues impacting the market today and what to expect tomorrow. The event drew speakers from Google, Dell, Unilever, LivingSocial, Orange, O2, Infosys, Viadeo and many more. Here’s some of the highlights and the first batch of photos too.