And, by the same measure, could McDonald’s Facebook fan page only be worth $260,000, or about 1/100th the value of Starbuck’s? That’s the lopsided assessment of Atlanta-based Vitrue, a social media marketing agency that has developed a whizzy calculator that spits out a value for a brand’s social media presence.

A recent comScore report suggests that brand loyalty declines in an economic recession. Obvious. Right? Well, looking at some interesting social media loyalty metrics, these findings might not be telling the whole story.

It was halfway through a conference presentation this week by Facebook that is dawned on me just how powerful the social network had become, just how big its own plans are and just how much it now has to lose.

Regular readers to this site will know that we’re intent on defining what makes a truly Social Company so we’re very pleased to announce two new speakers for Social Media Influence 2010 who are devoting their energies to the very same subject.

We’re curious to get your thoughts on Twitter’s new “Promoted Tweets” ad platform. What do you think? Should brands pay for preferable placement of their tweets? Or, will it just cause a backlash among the Twitter faithful? Let us know on this poll.

I’m typing this post from Rome, a city where most everyone heads to the bar multiple times a day to consume a shot of caffè, leaving the cup behind for the barista to wash and …

Kudos to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. He’s joined the Tweeting masses this week, beating the Vatican, Apple and just about every high street bank to this community of 75 million highly connected individuals. Impressively, …