Now, brand pages are rolling out across the globe, allegedly to partners that have already committed to spending at least $25,000 on Twitter’s ad products, including promoted tweets and trends. There are rumours afoot that brand pages are set to evolve further, with the potential addition of ecommerce functionality (already dubbed ‘T-commerce’), and analytics.

New York Times media repoter David Carr has a brilliant piece this morning about Rupert Murdoch, the embattled media baron, political kingmaker, and grumpy Twitter newby. In this age of super-controlled messaging and non-newsy corporate announcements, Murdoch’s emergence on Twitter gives us a rare glimpse into the mind of the man in charge. Is this a trailblazing moment in corporate comms or a one-man, one-act show about to get the hook?

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

Do you feel stressed, overworked, unable to manage your time and priorities amid a daily deluge of messages, tweets, updates and Inmails?
No, this isn’t some corny infomercial for a new gadget solution. Instead …

For every new product launched, 17 teams up with a hot, new-on-the-scene music artist to create a piece of music and video in keeping with the item in question. Currently, the campaign is pushing Magnetized Nail Polish, alongside Summer Camp’s retro electro tune “You might get stuck on me”. (See what they did there?)

Last month we reported on the slowdown-defying market that is social media advertising using the latest multi-billion-dollar projection to come out of the U.S. Today, there’s fresh detail on the global picture, and again the numbers paint a rosy picture. It’s particularly good news if you happen to be a member of Facebook’s ad sales team.

I’ve only twice ever turned to Twitter to clear up a vexing customer service glitch. The results were deeply gratifying: I got a helpful response in a fairly timely manner resolving my ongoing feuds problems with Groupon Italia and Bank of America. Turns out I’m not alone in thinking this is the future of attentive customer service, as new research shows.

This morning we got a note from Tabjuice, the Facebook commerce-and-marketing specialists. They put together this infographic on what brands should consider if planning to take the plunge into social commerce, that $30 billion market opportunity.

Not long ago, all the talk in digital marketing circles was the power of “Like.” Build an impressive following of people who declare they like your company, organization or product and, the thinking went, you’d have a cheap and cheerful network of brand advocates, the type who would enthusiastically follow your daily posts and tell their friends about it, too. How very naive that all seems today.