5 For Friday — Links, Stories & Posts For Your Weekend
August 19th, 2011 by
12 Incredible Internet Activists Changing the World Through Social Media — Mashable 
In honor of World Humanitarian Day, Mashable has assembled a collection of 12 movers and shakers in the human rights world who are using social media to pitch campaigns and raise awareness about issues from illiteracy to world hunger to clean water rights.
How Small Business Can Build Links And Likes With Facebook — Link Spiel
Facebook is free, easy to use and, for good or for ill, overwhelmingly dominant in the social media realm. So why are so few small businesses utilizing it to its full potential? Link Spiel’s Debra Mastaler gives this nuanced and thorough approach to the basics — along with sharing the astounding example of a small ice cream shop in a town of 216 that boasts 453 likes and a boom in consumer awareness at zero cost to them.
HOW TO: Properly Use Badges To Engage Customers — Mashable
Gamification of social media has been on the up and up since FourSquare poked its head into the scene in 2009. Instantly attention-grabbing, colorful and fun to collect, badges are a shareable media piece that everyone loves to show off. However, Foursquare has taken the focus off its badging system and as a result the approach has been derided as outmoded, gimmicky and just plain lame. However, a well-designed badge system offers a wide array of appeal to the savvy marketer. Click through to find out how to optimize your badge campaign!
Statistics: Don’t Make These Mistakes – Whiteboard Friday — SEOmoz
Everybody loses when skewed facts make its way into news sources, and the way you conduct your business shouldn’t be any different. SEOmoz’s Whiteboard Friday tackles the process of converting raw data to actionable numbers, using valid statistics to effectively make a point without compromising data integrity.
Separate Social Media or Do You Live Your Brand? — Marketing Pilgrim
Only 13% of small business owners maintain a separation between their work and personal social media presences, with only 5% not working weekends and nearly none at all banning cell phones from private spaces such as the dinner table or bedroom. While we all struggle with being constantly tuned in and tapped on to a frenetic data-intensive world, small business owners often don’t have the luxury of putting “my views are my own and not those of my company or employer” disclaimers on their online movements. Do you live your brand both online and off? How do you balance the two?
