The Wall Street Journal shows two contrasting views on this debate by profiling two small business owners.

Read the full article.

Report showing that use of social media on average is equal to 22.5% of the total amount of time people spend online, begs the question of the utility of Social Media.  As Social Media becomes more mainstream and more and more people sign up for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & GooglePlus, are these places increasingly becoming the White Pages and Billboards of the offline world?

Disturbed by that brutish, nasty & long account number that Google Plus has assigned you as an account name?  Personalize it!

Is Facebook reaching “middle age”?  “Sharing” on Facebook takes a more measured turn

If reading about Google Plus isn’t enough, there’s now a helpful song

Will Google Plus really live up to the hype?

As Social Media permeates society and informs the news cycle, don’t let your brand get tripped up.  Learn from others mistakes.  And Jub Jub can help you.

Facebook rolls out privacy changes to Groups and adds a “Send” button to allow you to email to certain “groups” of people

New Updates to Facebook Pages make it easier to interact with clients, potential clients, and partners in same way regular individual Facebook pages work, making it easier to get your business name out there.

The New York Times checks in with the latest update on what’s going on with Tumblr, a growing link sharing community that is attracting some old-world media as well.  John Mayer’s highly publicized “defection” from Twitter back in April 2010, garnered Tumblr some initial big splash, famously saying that “Twitter isn’t over, I’m over it.”  It’s not quite reached the growth of Twitter, where its crashing servers left and right, but the format is mighty appealing, as it allows contributors to write as much, or as little as they like, and include pictures as well.  Breaking free from a simply 140 character limit can be quite liberating, and users like Mayer hope that it generates more thoughtful discourse.  Such stalwart media outlets like the New Yorker, the Economist seem to agree.  Some more established restaurants, like In-N-Out Burger, have also mined the depths of their fan bases, letting fans post pictures and stories.  Probably not long before Tumblr starts creating real waves.

Looking for numbers to back up the “idea” of a return on your “social media” investment?  AdAge highlights some research done by start-up Eventbrite, about where they see the most useful placement of a clients message.  Or the value of “transactions that are driven through sharing on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and through email sharing via the Eventbrite “email friends” application.”  Probably worth a look for your next Social Media Campaign.

Perhaps because at this time, Facebook just has more users, and not because Facebook has the better strategy for information dissemination, here is another independent source citing that Facebook referrals have been more numerous than Twitter referrals.  In this case, it’s a college newspaper, dealing with traffic spikes as a result of a breaking story.

I actually caught this post via Bob Wan-Qi Kim’s Twitter feed, but he argues in a post to his “Sparkah” blog that he gets more marketing value out of his Facebook page.  Care to compare?

The town of Darlington in the United Kingdom is fully entering the 21st century by harnessing the power of social media.  It wanted to more easily interact with the populace, and get the word out on events happening in Darlington, so they have employed a full time “Tweeter” to tweet information to followers regarding Darlington events and local news.

The New York Times has more real world examples of how Facebook has helped small businesses, and encourages small business owners looking for inexpensive ways to market themselves, to take a look at the power of Facebook.