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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• Study: In the battle for trust online, Facebook trumps Twitter (econsultancy.com)
• “When Brands Act More Like Humans in Social Media, Results Improve” and related posts (chasnote.com)
• Social Media is NOT Scary. Read the Stats. (kylelacy.com)

Great video of the snowfall in Washington DC on Feb 6-8. The federal government has been shut down for three consecutive days and both sides of the political aisle are throwing jabs about how this relates to Global Warming.

Senator Jim DeMint (R – SC) via Twitter – It’s going to keep snowing in DC until Al Gore cries “uncle”

Time Magazine – How Global Warming Makes Blizzards Worse

snOMG from Andrew Cutraro on Vimeo.

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• Sen. DeMint: DC Snow Is Revenge on Gore (treehugger.com)
• Will Washington D.C. get a new 12″ snow event prior to Al Gore Jr’s 62nd birthday? (hubdub.com)
• Snowmageddon! (endoftheworld-signtopia.blogspot.com)
• Hannity: Snow Storms ‘Seem To Contradict Al Gore’s Hysterical Global Warming Theories’ (thinkprogress.org)
• US Set For More Snow After ‘Historic’ Storm (news.sky.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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• Press Gazette: French journalists’ five day social media experiment (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
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I stumbled across the Twitter profile for pastor Mark Driscoll from The Resurgence (@pastormark) and his Twitter bio struck a chord.

He describes himself simply as “A nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody.”

I wish I could say the same thing about myself. Too often I take credit for my successes and find excuse for my failures. I don’t share the good news of Jesus Christ often enough.

If I could just let the power of the Holy Spirit guide me, I could use my gifts to share the power of God with those that don’t know him.

What about you? What does your walk look like? Want to talk about it?

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.

I’m working on a couple of ‘unofficial’ tools for the RNC. My friend, Larry Ward, and his team at Political Media have built a branded URL shortener at GOP.am. This is a cool tool that let’s you “Make Long URLs…Conservative.” Larry and I are working together to build some add-on tools to this service.

Also, I created a Twitter overlay image at Twibbon.com that adds a red background and a Listen To Me badge over the top of your Twitter profile picture. You simply go here and click the ‘Show my support now!’ button to give Twibbon your permission to overwrite your profile picture. It takes 2 seconds and you don’t have to do any photo manipulation at all.