It’s all in this week’s top five most-clicked links in SmartBrief on Social Media:

• Are you guilty of these Facebook errors?
• Social media rules the Web, report says
• 10 ways to get a geo-social campaign off the ground
• Facebook adds tool for sorting friends
• Are you falling prey to social media time-sucks?

Image credit: narvikk, via iStockphoto

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In his Word of Mouth Supergenius case-study presentation, Adam Brown shared how Coca-Cola is finding the relevant conversations, identifying influencers, and creating content fans love to share. A few of his big ideas:

• Fans love the fun stuff. During his presentation, Adam shared the most liked, commented on, and retweeted message they have ever posted: “When you open a Coke, 12,607 bubbles are born. Happy birthday bubbles!” It’s not a sales pitch, it’s not a coupon offering, it’s a story — and a fun one at that.
• Pick your tools and make them great. There are thousands and thousands of mentions of Coke and their brands every day around the Internet, but their focus is on  key social platforms, including Facebook and Twitter. For you, it may just be a couple of networks — but having a few great social media presences is a lot better than having a lot of mediocre ones.
• Identify and create relationships with your key influencers. Last summer, Adam and his team at Coke launched the 10x6x10 Initiative. They identified the 10 most influential bloggers on six key topics in 10 different parts of the world. The result was a database of about 600 of the most influential people that they could then begin reaching out to to create relationships with.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you like this presentation, check out our upcoming Word of Mouth Supergenius event in New York on July 20.

Disclosure: Coca-Cola is a Social Media Business Council member (of which I am the CEO). Learn more about it and our members: http://www.socialmedia.org

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Reason #1 – Advertising on social nets is still new
Users are not used to advertising as part of the experience. Clicking around Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, etc…users are still getting familiar with the mere existence of ad units. On the flip side, advertisers are still new to this “social” environment. While there has been fascination with the targeting available, the “32 and still single?” approach has turned off more users than turned on.

Case in point: Here’s a recent Facebook update from a friend of a friend: “Dear Facebook: I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you, but please stop placing ads about celebrity diets on my page. I don’t care that Kelly Ripa weighs about 11 lbs.”

Reason #2 – Users are engaged not passive
Another interesting find from the IDC study was that consumers actually enjoyed advertising in more “passive” mediums, such as television, magazines and radio. Think, “Have you seen that new Geico commercial” or “I buy Vogue magazine for the ads.” Due to the level of interaction in social networks, advertisements often come across as noise — interrupting the overall experience of sharing and connecting with friends.

Reason #3 – The platforms haven’t figured it out either
Like reason #1, the “newness” of advertising in social networks is also obvious in the platforms themselves. Facebook’s new design experiments with the placement, visibility and frequency of advertising. MySpace has a history of using rich media and skins for advertisers. Neither of which appear to have moved the needle just yet. However, as data is collected and analyzed, they will undoubtedly adjust and revise to deliver the conversions, leads or impressions that advertisers (and consequently, the users) are looking for.

Reason #4 – Just what IS an ad?
One of the primary questions I have about the IDC study is “How do we know that end-users are correctly identifying an ad as an ad?” Sure, the “get whiter teeth” promo is annoying and obvious, but what about the cool applications and games that connect and engage you and your network? Given the blend of content and advertising that has recently sprouted up across networks, this question becomes more relevant than ever.

The good news? The IDC study shows that 73% of U.S. online consumers prefer free content supported by advertising rather than paid content. Consumers understand the necessity of advertising, but they are still trying to figure out where it fits into their experience. Achieving that “fit” is what advertisers and the networks themselves need to figure out.

According to the IDC study, consumers were turned off by ads that disrupted their experience — and in the case of our examples, users taking the platforms themselves to task. Users of Facebook, MySpace, Bebo or LinkedIn are not putting their feet up and watching social networking occur. It’s an interactive environment at its core. This isn’t about making noise with flashy ads, crude calls for attention or disturbing usage of targeting. It’s about playing along and enhancing the “social” experience. Only time will tell– but the opportunity to stand out is staring us in the face.

Are there any good examples of advertising in social networks out there now? Sponsored apps or offers that enhance user experience? Please share – we’re all ears!

Photo credit, miliquin

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Facebook’s move to start charging developers $375 to certify applications struck Michael Arrington of TechCrunch as a bid to shore up lagging revenue. It’s not clear how much money we’re talking about — there are currently about 48,000 apps available to Facebook members. Facebook itself estimates that 10% of applications will wind up being certified — meaning Facebook would collect about $1.8 million in fees.

Even if half of the applications submit for certification (Arrington’s optimistic estimate), that would mean $9 million — minus, of course, the cost of the time it takes Facebook developers to QA the apps to make sure they are up to network standards. This is not a huge sum for a company that expects to make $50 million to $60 million selling imaginary shoes, phantom martinis, pixilated birthday cakes and other virtual gifts this year.

So if they’re not in it for the cash, what’s the point of Facebook’s “Verified Apps” scheme?

It’s widely reported that Facebook is more interested right now in member acquisition than in advertising revenue. But for a company where electricity and server space are huge cost centers, unmonetized traffic can be seen as a liability.

It’s also widely reported that News Corp-owned MySpace is cleaning Facebook’s clock in terms of ad revenue — it’s expected to pull in $1 billion in ad revenue in 2008, despite boasting about 40 million fewer members.

But much of the activity on MySpace is driven by its focus on music. Check out Britney Spears MySpace page — her pre-release “leak” of songs from the upcoming album “Circus” have garnered upwards of 90 million plays.

When I visited today, I found a standard 468 banner ad for Wawa’s “Hot Turkey Shorti” dwarfed underneath an oversized publicity shot of scantily-clad Britney. Whether or not this is a good place for Wawa to be, it’s worth remembering that Britney can take her diaphanous negligee and her tracks and post them to her own site — leaving Myspace and Wawa in the lurch. The same is true of Beyonce and her 164 million plays, Kanye West (100 million) and Coldplay (41 million).

These artists are both beneficiaries and drivers of MySpace’s enormous user population — but it’s worth wondering what the network would be like without them. To paraphrase the cliche: 100 million page views here, 100 million page views there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real traffic.

Facebook doesn’t share MySpace’s celebrity obsession. Nor does it let users doll up their pages with frame-breaking graphics and blaring sound files. The strict adherence to the Facebook template makes the site a bit punctilious as compared to the freewheeling MySpace. It also doesn’t leave much room for splashy ads — perhaps a drawback for media buyers looking to capture the attention of users.

But that’s not the plan, apparently. Facebook’s chief monetization officer Tim Kendall told The New York Times, “The classic interruptive model is a pretty uninspired way to really get to a consumer. If we build ad products that really take advantage of how users interact on Facebook with each other, it will be much more effective over time.”

This brings us back to verification. What if, instead of trying to wring out a few dollars from Ramen-eating developers, Facebook is creating a new category of advertising inventory? Let’s say Facebook can isolate about 5,000 applications that reach a substantial subset of the network’s estimated 160 million user population, guarantee that those applications are stable, safe for work and in keeping with the network’s privacy standards and paste them with a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. This saves media buyers who are interested in social network advertising the trouble of parsing through the morass of applications in search of a perfect fit. It also puts advertisers squarely in the parts of the network where users are in contact with each other — via games, causes, photo-sharing and other group activities.

Whether the creation of such premium inventory turns out to be effective remains to be seen. But it does sound a lot like what Facebook’s Kendall is talking about when he speaks of helping advertisers “really take advantage of how users interact on Facebook.”

Photo credit, Laughing Squid

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