Oh look. What do we have here? In exploring Facebook's redesign, I spied a new tab under "Account," called "Credits Balance." When you click on it, it opens this:

So here we can guess that soon you'll be paying for all of that virtual clutter people are sending (That's YOU, farmers) and those endless games of free Bejeweled could be coming to an end. But bigger news, if my theory is true, is that Facebook has finally found themselves a micro-purchasing revenue model (which includes buying social ads and likely more to come) and quietly rolled it out buried in a redesign.

Congratulations, Facebook. You just may be all growz up. Your parents, also known as investors, will be so proud. And rich.

Great little story on rainy Monday morning to share with you. This one is about the real power of social media: connecting with an expanded social graph or social network to make good things happen.

One of our Creative Directors here at Red Tettemer has been collecting clothes to send with his sister and brother-in-law as they go to Haiti with Partners in Health to help in a few weeks. They are partnering with the organization Angel Flights with to transport the donations to Haiti and last week, found out that Angel Flights would only be able to transport the goods to The Dominican - this couple would have to find a way to move the donations from there to Haiti.

Over the weekend, my colleague's wife said, "I'm going to post on Facebook and see if anyone has any ideas of how to get these donations to Haiti." They figured it was a long shot, but why not try?

A short time later they had a Facebook message from a an old classmate in California, A. She has a good friend, D. (also in California), who has family in Port-au-Prince. His brother has a friend named R., who has his own plane in Ft. Lauderdale. R. is commissioned to take people and supplies on a regular basis to and from Haiti. Once hearing their story, he said if they could get the donations down to Ft. Lauderdale, he'd load them on his next flight and fly them to Haiti, gratis.

So Angel Flights is transporting the supplies to Ft. Lauderdale, and then R. will fly all of the supplies ( well over $100,000 worth ) to Haiti. Sometime next week, some of those strangers we watch on the news may be wearing some familiar looking clean clothes.

That's social good.

RUMOR!

AOL just bought social media industry blog Mashable.

Anyone have confirmation on this? What are the terms of the deal? Do tell.

If you follow me on twitter, you know a lot about me. You know I have a sense of humor, you know I love the Phillies, you know I love my job, you see campaigns I am working on for clients, and you know my dad's been battling cancer.

There are things I don't share on twitter and keep to myself, but for the most part, I like to keep my social media...social. I try to only follow people who do the same. We don't do business with a company, we do business with people who work for the company, don't we? I buy from and tune in to people I know and like. I think many people do that. Isn't that what word-of-mouth is all about?

Social media isn't the cure for the cancer that is killing big pieces of traditional media. It also isn't the enigma that so many people may think it is. Social media, is just another media channel. A few years ago, my colleagues and I at Red Tettemer illustrated what that channel looks like:



And yes, this channel works a little differently, so did TV when it was introduced.

It's going to be ok.

More than 3 years ago, my friend Chris Heuer shared something the CEO of iProspect said, which I've never forgotten: "The Brand with the best storytellers wins." I love that. That, is the secret to social media - not much of a secret; it's something that advertising and PR have known for years.

The opportunity with social media, for creative advertising agencies, is enormous. No longer is creative chained to :15 or :30 or :60. We aren't limited by 1/4 page or 1/2 page or double trucks. We can create content and tell our stories to massive global audiences and immediately hear back from them, what they think. It's like being in everyone's living room when a tv spot airs - exciting and scary, isn't it? We can launch unfinished content, and let the customer tell us how they want it to end. We can engage our audience and give them option to buy DIRECTLY FROM OUR CREATIVE WITHOUT EVER LEAVING THEIR COUCH. That may make some advertising execs shiver, it gives me goosebumps from excitement.

I see a shift happening within the social media channel. Initially, PR seemed to dominate integration of this channel in their work, naturally, because it connected them quickly and widely with global audiences - press and consumers alike. The channel didn't have that many features and that was ok for PR because they just wanted to tell their stories.

Today and in the future, the channel has bells and whistles. And while PR will continue to work in the channel, telling stories, advertising creatives have the opportunity to stretch the functionality of the channel, create new features with their partners in interactive, and tell the stories with mind blowing creative showcasing new products and services like we've never experienced before.

You want the secret to making social media work for a brand? It's all about integration. A holistic approach to social media in your overall marketing plan, great storytellers and oh...creative that gives you goosebumps.

It must be an exciting time to be in college or working in secondary education, because the interactive and social web is just exploding. Here's something cool from MIT.

I put my name in it and here's what my online persona looked like.



Simple. Novel. Entertaining. Clean design. B+

Let's talk about Blogher '09.

First, congratulations and thank you to Lisa, Elisa, Jory and their dedicated team for creating and hosting an event that means a great deal to a growing community of people. From location to sessions to ticketing to sponsors, producing a multi-day event for 1500+ people is an enormous task and I thank them for doing it.

By now, many bloggers have posted their opinions on the swag (yeah, it was pretty crazy), event-related dramas (nikon as the new motrin), and the black hole called wifi at the venue. I'll skip all that.

I'd rather share my observations of the community/event from the business side of the blogosphere.

As you probably know if you're reading this, I lead the social media and PR practices for creative ad agency Red Tettemer. I started specializing in social media in 2005, when I worked for a consumer PR agency in NYC and transitioned from my previous career focus on traditional media. Prior to that, I blogged privately from 1998 on (unrelated to my job as a PR person at the same time).

I frequently work with a wide variety of bloggers on behalf of clients, although that's just a small part of what I do.

When I started working with bloggers, I mostly represented tech clients and the bloggers I worked with were primarily, ex-journalists who left traditional media to blog. Working with them wasn't much different from working with traditional media. The same level of professionalism applied, and they understood common industry things like NDA's (non-disclosure agreements), product loans/review units (common practices to garner coverage), embargoes (agreed upon future date that the journalist will publish confidential information, usually in exchange for exclusivity on the announcement), advances (confidential pre-launch information provided to a journalist to prepare to publish a story on an agreed upon date, which is not necessarily exclusive but shared with limited non-competitive media outlets at the same time), press events, deskside briefings, etc.

What was a wake up call for me at Blogher, is the enormous number of attending citizen journalists who had no knowledge of journalism fundamentals. I wasn't the only one surprised at this observation, a journalist assigned to cover the event ended up standing up and commenting during Geekmommy's session, schooling the much of the audience on these fundamentals (sharing basics like: review units are a common practice, you have to receive them to review the product, don't feel badly about "accepting" free product).

Now, one could argue that the attendees weren't citizen journalists but rather hobbyists. In my opinion, in this economy, if you're paying $200 for a conference pass, plus airfare, and $200 a night for a hotel room for 3 nights, this probably is more than a hobby. For that kind of spend, if it's not a business now, you want it to be.

So here's my advice for the new and inexperienced:

• Take a journalism course. Seriously. At your local community college, attend a lecture, read some books. There are best practices, ethics and guidelines. See how they can adapt to your blog if you are reporting on things/people. There are also legal guidelines to be aware of in reporting.
• Present yourself as a professional. If you're seeking to generate revenue from your blog, then it's your business. You are your own product. Speak like an adult and with confidence, so that I can believe in your product and walk away feeling I NEED to work with you.
  
• Don't make noise, make a good impression. I can't tell you how many bloggers wasted money on print materials (postcards, flyers, etc) promoting their blog, that they scattered around the venue on tables and chairs like a college band playing a local bar. They generated meaningless leave behinds that just added waste. The real winners were the people who participated, contributed to conversation and connected with the rest of the attendees.
  

My last observation is for both marketers and bloggers. There were many attending bloggers who were "sponsored" by a brand (meaning the brand covered their travel and/or expenses) or acting as brand ambassadors for a brand. Unfortunately, in many cases, neither the brand nor the blogger were experienced in this tactic, leaving many of us bewildered by friends or new acquaintances shoving brochures or products into our overloaded bags with little to no explanation on what they were, what we were supposed to do with them and why.

I've been fortunate enough to work mainly with Fortune 500 brands throughout my almost 15-year career in marketing, so this next observation completely baffled me. I've always briefed/educated a brand ambassador on our brand or product in advance of an event and had a laid out plan that provided meaning as well as metric for measurement, which was agreed upon by the brand and the ambassador. At the end of the event we both analyzed results and benefit to the brand.

I have no idea how a brand ambassador shoving a postcard or soap sample into my laptop bag intended to deliver a measured ROI (return on investment).

If I were a brand manager that would be the first or second thing I'd be thinking about when fleshing out a sponsored blogger approach.

Additionally, if I were a blogger interested in a long-term partnership with a brand or company, I'd be asking myself what value I could bring to the brand as an ambassador, and how that could be measured as a success to secure an ongoing business relationship/revenue stream with them. Being able to track, measure and prove success is not only the way to advance your own brand, but also something critical for bloggers to do & own during a time of corporate america layoffs and revolving executives. In short, if your marketing contact moves, you need to be able to show the new executive how you moved the needle for the brand in the past, so that you can continue to do so in the future.

Questions? Hit up my comments.

And Good luck!

It's important to know what you dislike and why.

Today My friend Cecily pointed me to a heated blogosphere discussion about a proposed week-long PR Blackout among mom bloggers.

Initially I guessed this proposed boycott was less of a "PR industry" boycott and more of a stand against consumerism. I can relate to desire to step away from consumerism. I'm not some pitchwoman who thinks everyone should buy, buy, buy.

However, after reading momdot's post, I see that's not the case. She feels that moms have many demands and blogging, initially adopted as a relief outlet, has become another demand in her life because PR people want to connect with her and get her feedback via blog posts/reviews.

Momdot also seems to want to read content by other bloggers that is solely passion driven and not influenced by any brands or paid partnerships.

I can relate to that. Heck, sometimes I even feel the same way.

What I disagree with, is the approach. Boycott, is a strong word and action. I tend to reserve a boycott for someone or something who has committed a heinous grievance against me or my moral code. I don't think a boycott is the answer to the problem of feeling overwhelmed or the way to shape content to be styled the way one person or group wants it styled. In fact, a boycott like this, is very close to a PR campaign of momdot's very own design. Touche, lady! ;)

Here are some alternative suggestions for momdot and the likeminded to find peace of mind:

• Create a badge or graphic and place it in your blog sidebar clearly stating "No PR Pitches"
• If you chose to accept PR pitches at another time, set up an email account just to receive those pitches. Clearly publish that email as "For PR contacts" in your "Contact" and "About" sections. This way, you can choose when to connect with PR people and when not to.
• Find new blogs to read that are solely "passion" blogs. There are plenty out there. For more "journal" type blogs, try LiveJournal.
  
• Take a break from blogging. Step back. Don't let the pressures of writing and having an audience overwhelm you. It's ok to take a break. This is your thing.
  You should enjoy it.

Should be interesting to follow this topic at Blogher next week!