A report from Edelman suggests that the word-of-mouth generated from Facebook, Twitter and the like may not be as strong as marketers assume. I can’t tell you how many companies I’ve talked to that honestly believe they can grow sales by simply pushing their info out to Facebook and Twitter. Trust must be earned.

Build permission…build sales.

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• Social Media is NOT Scary. Read the Stats. (kylelacy.com)

The White House issued a press release yesterday documenting that 1.3 million people watched President Barack Obama deliver the annual State of the Union address via a live stream on Whitehouse.gov.

Many GOP and press websites were doing live blogging during the event and engaging users to participate in the discussion, in real-time.

Congressman Joe Wilson used Facebook to issue a video rebuttal minutes after the conclusion of the event.

Quite a contrast to the same event just 20 years ago.

State of the Union – 2010

State of the Union – 1990

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• Obama’s state of the union: live blog (guardian.co.uk)
• Whitehouse.gov Streamed The State Of The Union Live To 1.3 Million People (techcrunch.com)
• State of the Union 2.0 (one.org)
• State of the Union: Ds and Rs Polish Their Web Strategies (blogs.wsj.com)
• SOTU Live-blogging (washingtonmonthly.com)

Five journalists will embark on a Real World like journey for five days in an old farmhouse in France. They will report the news to their respective agencies using only Facebook and Twitter as sources. No web surfing, tv, radio, phone or print information is allowed. They can only click on Facebook and Twitter links directing them to online sources.

“This experiment will enable us to take a hard look at all the myths that exist about Facebook and Twitter,” said Helene Jouan, a senior editor at France Inter.

Because of the viral nature of the social networks, Twitter and Facebook have proven to be catalysts to spread news quickly and effectively. They have also been known to spread rumors and falsehoods. I think it will be interesting to watch the continued shift away from mainstream media to social media for news. I stopped reading the newspaper and watching the nightly news about 5 years ago. DrudgeReport, Google News and local/industry specific websites are all I use.

What do you think?

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Ross Douthat writes in the New York Times (Jan, 18), “For decades, they had watched their Republican rivals exploit alternative media to raise money, organize voters and whip up outrage. But the Internet was going to be different,” it was “for the young, the hip, the multicultural, the liberal. Let the G.O.P. be the party of Fox News. The Democrats would be the party of Google, YouTube and Facebook,” and “during the 2008 campaign, that’s exactly what they were.” Adds Douhat, “A year later, some of the Democrats’ advantage is still there. But it’s been crumbling ever since Obama took office.”

Read the entire article at NYTimes.com

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Posterous.com lets you create a website simply by sending an email. Type and send to post@posterous.com and you will get an automated response message with a link to your new automatically created website. The website will include all information that you provided in your email (text, pictures, movies, music, documents, etc). You can then share the URL with friends and family or use it to solicit feedback from a work or school colleague.

Point blank there is no simpler way to post your files online. You don’t need to know HTML or understand how to get around a Content Management System (CMS). You don’t need to download any software or subscribe to any monthly payment plans. In fact, you don’t even to need to register for an account.

You can create a website by simply sending an email.

That said, you won’t fully appreciate the coolness of Posterous until you create an account and register your email address. You’ll then be able to aggregate your emails together in one website that you can brand. You can also attach your social media sites to your Posterous account to automatically post to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube every time you add relevant content to Posterous via email.

Check it out. Super cool. And super simple.