With the Academy Awards fast approaching, we’ve created our own awards. The Social Media Del Awards reflect the highest achievement in Social Media. The categories are listed below, with three nominees per category.

Most Hilarious Tweeps

• @DeathStarPR
• @NickGenius
• @RobHuebel

Most Tweeted About Events

• Royal wedding
• Raid on Osama bin Laden
• Beyonce baby bump revelation

Best Viral Photo

• Vancouver riot kissing couple
• Royal wedding balcony kiss
• Hawkeye the dog at soldiers funeral

Best Business Collaboration Tool

• Yammer
• Salesforce Chatter
• Google+ Hangout

Best Social Media Tool

• HootSuite
• TweetDeck
• Sprout Social

Best Viral Video

• Ultimate Dog Tease
• Crazy Nastyass Honey Badger
• Webcam 101 For Seniors

Best use of Social Media in Marketing Campaigns

• Diesel
• KLM
• Coca-Cola

Addiction of the Year

• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Spotify

Most Improved Platform

• Facebook
• Google+
• LinkedIn

Best Social Media for Writers

• Storyfix
• WritingRoom
• Scribd.

Top Social Media PR Fails in 2011

• Chrysler
• Kenneth Cole
• Anthony Weiner

Let the voting begin! Post your votes in the comments, or vote through Twitter @SocialMediaDel #SocialMediaDelAwards. Next week we will tally the votes and award the winners. Stay tuned!

Our newest intern, Alejandro Fernandez, shares how to keep work life and personal life separate when it comes to social networking.

Brandie Broihier | @Brandienic 

Now that the wings have been eaten (all 1.3 million of them), the touchdowns scored, and the tweets sent, it’s time for the analysis of the Social Media Super Bowl to begin.  The buzz surrounding this year’s Super Bowl started early and strong, and set several new Social Media records to boot.

• Bluefin’s data shows that the Super Bowl generated 12.2 million social media comments, up 600% from 2011′s 1.8 million comments.

The results of this year’s #brandbowl are in: Doritos scored with its “Crash the Super Bowl” consumer generated commercials contest. Chevrolet ruled the automotive category for advertisements, ranking high on the lists for positive tweets (indicating customer enjoyment of emerging media techniques).

Brands have become creative at engaging consumers in their marketing strategies.  Big names like Doritos and Chevrolet hosted fan-made commercial contests and saw great success as a result of their efforts.

Every year around Super Bowl time, an amazing thing happens.  People start anticipating big brand advertising.  It is not uncommon to hear that many people watch the game mostly for the commercials.

This year, Social Media platforms classified the relevant game buzz to bring us the truth: most interaction with Social Media isn’t about the game.  In fact, according to Networked Insights, which analyzed millions of tweets:

• 42% of the conversation was about the commercials and 32% was related to Madonna and the halftime performance.
• Super Bowl ads or ad teasers were watched more than 30 million times on YouTube before the big weekend this year, adding to the buzz surrounding the biggest marketing event of the year.
• According to Alex Iskold, founder and CEO of GetGlue, more than 150,000 users checked-in to the Super Bowl on GetGlue, three-times more than any previous event.

Twitter ruled the social media sphere once again this year, with live tweets referencing the Super Bowl estimated at 13.7 million during the game.

Super Bowl XLVI made two new Twitter records, putting this years game in the 2nd and 3rd highest tweets per second rating. @Twitter posted the stats: “The highest Tweets per second #SuperBowl peak came at the end of the game: 12,233. 2nd highest was during Madonna’s performance: 10,245.”

“This was truly a watershed year for social media and the Super Bowl,” Edward Boches, Mullen’s chief innovation officer, said in a statement. Just about every brand built interactive elements into their commercials, knowing that the true measurement of success these days is immediate consumer reaction and long-term consumer engagement.”

Launching your own startup company can be both terrifying and exciting. Trying to reach potential clients on a shoestring budget is daunting. You just don’t have the money to spend on an expensive, polished marketing campaign.

That’s the beauty of social media, it’s cheap and it’s easy to get started.  Social media allows you to interact directly with current and potential customers. It’s a great source for feedback and as a means to spread word-of-mouth about your product or service. But, for some reason too many small business owners are not taking full advantage.

In a recent poll released by Zoomerang Online Surveys and GrowBiz Media, only a third of all small businesses are currently utilizing social media. Whether the others don’t feel comfortable or are too intimidated to learn a new technology, these companies are losing out on a great way to grow their business.

When we launched our premium soy sauce, Little Soya, we needed to clear a big hurdle. The average grocery store in the US carries more than 30,000 products and we had to differentiate ourselves from the pack.

We turned to social media. We built a persona for our Facebook page and began engaging people on Twitter. It really didn’t take long for it to pay off. After reading a few of our tweets, we located our first of what we call “Shouters”. These are fans that rave about your product to anyone who will listen.

Pei Pei Yuan is a dancer, blogger, stuntwoman, producer and director in Los Angeles. Pei Pei reached out to us telling us she had been looking for a good-tasting, gluten-free soy sauce but had little luck. She added that she loved our cute packaging and our product’s personality and asked where she could get it in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately Little Soya wasn’t available in California yet, but we sent her a care package. Shortly after we began getting barraged by tweets and Facebook posts from her telling us how much she enjoyed Little Soya.

Pei Pei posted pictures of her and friends using it around town and a funny thing happened. We noticed our number of followers and likes started to increase faster than normal. Pei Pei had given Little Soya something a traditional ad campaign couldn’t on its own: credibility. People love to feel that they are on the cutting edge of a new trend and she clearly was a trend-setter.

You can’t put a monetary value on that type of exposure. Following her example, we started to get photos from people across the country. From places Little Soya wasn’t even available. Slowly, either from friends or while traveling, we started building a buzz around our product.

The buzz continued to build up to the Winter Fancy Food Show, one of the premier food trade shows in the country. Even though there were more than 80,000 top gourmet food products from around the world on display, Little Soya was selected as one of the trending products.

The Zoomerang and GrowBiz Media poll also asked what small businesses planned on focusing on in 2012. Roughly 25% said creating new business, while another 25% said maintaining current business. Social media is a great tool to do both. Don’t be intimidated, jump in!

Written by: Grant Mehlhoff 

@LittleSoya – Changing the way America thinks about soy sauce! We are the world’s best tasting gluten-free, less-sodium soy sauce. “Just Squeeze to Squirt & Enjoya Little Soya!”

Brandie Broihier | @brandienic

As you sit down this Sunday with your chips & dip, smart phone and wings, you’ll be joining the incredibly connected world that has become Super Bowl culture. Super Bowl Sunday, 2012 is leaps and bounds beyond the games of years past.

We will see brand engagement soar through social connectivity at the biggest television advertising event of the year. ”The big goal is to be the most connected Super Bowl ever, we think we’re going to be able to achieve that,” said Chairman of the Super Bowl Host Committee, Mark Miles.

Social Media Command Center

For the past two weeks, a team of nearly fifty social media experts have been working around the clock to interact in real time with fans arriving in Indianapolis for this year’s Super Bowl.  This Social Media Super Team will provide directions, Indianapolis local entertainment suggestions and other important information (such as what to do in case of an emergency at the stadium).

They will be able to pick up on keyword phrases like “parking is awful” and respond quickly with help. The command center has taken more than a year of planning to achieve and will run on over a mile of ethernet cable to fuel its success. From the main Super Bowl XLVI site, fans can access the social media command center’s activity through its management of the Super Bowl Facebook page, Flickr and Twitter accounts and the site’s blog.

Coca-Cola Polar Bowl

Coca-Cola’s famous polar bears have a new toy: a TV.   For the first time, Super Bowl fans can watch the polar bears react in real time to the game. Not only will the polar bears (who sport team scarves to support the Giants and the Patriots) comment about the game, the Coca-Cola polar bears will share their live reactions to the commercials, an event nearly as anticipated as the game itself.

RSVP at Coca-Cola’s website.  #GameDayPolarBears

Fan-Made Commercial Contests

Super Bowl anticipation has been underway for months, with the past few weeks gearing up to record-setting levels of communication about the “other” game: fan-made commercials that air in million dollar time slots.

Doritos hit the ground running again this year with Crash the Super Bowl.  As the pioneer of brand engagement via Super Bowl advertising, we’ve seen rejected ads go viral weeks before expected.

Take this already famous “rejected Doritos ad” for example:

The Super Bowl is, well, the Super Bowl of Advertising.  Brand engagement via contests continues to grow as an ingenious way to converse with customers and preserve the loyalty of consumers.

Social Media holds a sweet spot in the hearts of sports fans. 2011 saw record-setting tweets about Tim Tebow (9,420 tweets per second). And the only Facebook status that topped number of posts about the Packer’s win at last years game? The death of Osama bin Laden.

The 46th Super Bowl will take place on February 5, 2012 at Lucas Oil Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 ET on NBC.

NY Giants vs. NE Patriots

References:
http://mashable.com/2012/01/21/super-bowl-xlvi-social-media/
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/super-bowl-ads-doritos-pepsi

CEO, Eve Mayer Orsburn (@LinkedInQueen) shares how small businesses can leverage social media to connect with their audience.

By Meredith Darling | @merdar

The hashtag. That elusive little symbol found so often with popular topics and witty phrases. Twitter defines hashtags as “The # symbol… used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.” That organic creation is attributed to Chris Messina. In August 2007 he tweeted:

how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?

Things evolved from there. In July 2009, Twitter began hyperlinking hashtags and then in 2010 added trending topics to the homepage.

The original purpose of hashtags, as described in Messina’s tweet, was to make it easier to find groups or conversational topics. Protesters of the 2009 Iranian presidential election started a “Twitter Revolution” by using hashtags to communicate with each other. Live events then began using it to encourage conversation and participation. And now, as with most social media marvels, the hashtag has taken on a life of its own.

While the hashtag still holds true to its original purpose of searchability, people have begun using hashtags for phrases you can never expect anyone to search for, besides maybe the writer. Then, the clever and extra long hashtag sayings began appearing on Facebook, emails, and now in public conversation:

By Rosalyn Eishen | @rosalynchoo

We’ve gathered and shared with you a list of top social media marketing professors on Twitter. You’ll recognize many of the names here from Social Media Magazine’s article  by @KentHuffman, and we’ve added a little more information about each professor. These professors each teach marketing, communications or something related and are all very active on Twitter.

	Eric Qualman – @EQualman Professor at Hult International Business School Socialnomics ☆ Author ☆ Keynote Speaker ☆ Spartan & Longhorn ☆ Superhero in name only – I do own a cape though Author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms the Way We Live and Do Business.
	Mark Schaefer – @MarkWSchaefer Adjunct Professor at Rutgers University Chieftain of the social web’s most unique blog, {grow}. Consultant, college professor, author of Return On Influence and Tao of Twitter. Social Media Bouncer. Prolific social media blogger and author of several books.  In addition to his professorship at Rutgers University, he offers traditional classes and webinars through his website.
	Dave Saunders- @MadMain Adjunct Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University Chief Idea Officer @madisonmain Husband, Dad, Pee Wee Basketball Coach, Speaker, Advocate for small business….I wear a lot of hats. The man of many hats combines passions via social media platforms to connect with his followers.
	Patrick Strother- @PatrickStrother Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota Founder SCG PR. Teach advertising and PR at the University of Minnesota. Interests: PR, marketing, higher ed, public policy, playing the guitar. Patrick Strother has over 25 years experience in teaching marketing/PR.
	Crystal King- @Crystallyn Adjunct Professor at Boston University Social Media Maven @Keurig, Professor, PR pro, Novelist, Italophile, Bibliophile, Technophile. Follow me on G+ http://gplus.to/crystallyn Author and self-proclaimed foodie, oenophile, and geek.  Her website expresses her philosophy on social media and life.
	Dr. David Aaker- @DavidAaker Professor Emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley Vice-Chairman of @ProphetBrand, Executive Advisor to Dentsu, Professor Emeritus, UC Berkeley, Author of Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant. Creator of the Aaker Model™ and has published more than 100 articles and 15 books.
	Jim Lyons- @JFlyons Professor at the University of Phoenix Printer industry participant and observer/writer/analyst; marketing and economics professor; technology fan. His monthly print column, “Observations”, appears in The Hard Copy Observer — a publication of Lyra Research.
	Kathy Magrino- @KathyMagrino Adjunct Professor at Rider University I’m Kathy Magrino – a writer, marketing consultant and adjunct instructor in the comm/journalism dept. at Rider U. I own my own biz: The Write Way, LLC. Kathy’s 15+ years of marketing experience have evolved with the times to include social media platforms.
	Michael Redwood- @MichaelRedwood Professor at the University of Bath Marketing guru and leather expert. Cradle to cradle enthusiast. Marketing specialist in the leather industry using social media to promote material versatility.
	Kelly O’Keefe- @KellyOKeefe Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Brandcenter Professor, Brand Builder, Cultural Observer, Creative Entrepreneur and Father of Four. Early web-pioneer and non-profit enthusiast, Kelly uses creativity and social media to further his passions.
	Joaquin Presas – @JoaquinPresas Professor at UniBrasil Diretor de Criação da pontodesign. Também sou professor universitário. In addition to being a university professor, he is also the Creative Director of a communications and design agency in Brazil.
	Kenneth Cossin- @Kenneth_Cossin Professor at Full Sail University Professor in Communications & Mobile Advertising in Internet Marketing. Hobbies are: amateur photographer, and artist. Alternative marketing guest speaker.
	Steve Shu- @SteveShu Assistant Professor at Irvine University Specialist in incubating new initiatives. Management Consultant, Business Development Professional, and Assistant Professor Focused on SLC (Sales Learning Curve) Advances. Over 18 years brand marketing experience.
	Johanna Skilling- @JohannaSk Adjunct Professor at New York University EVP/Strategy, Euro RSCG Life 4D. Adjunct Prof of marketing, brand strategy at NYU-SCPS. Author, speaker, redhead, chocoholic. All opinions my own. Naturally Frequently writes for @Life4D, a digital health agency that aims to simplify connections between people and health worldwide.
	Rob Croll- @RCroll Professor at Full Sail University Digital Marketing consultant, Program Manager for the Internet Marketing bachelor’s, master’s & certificate programs at Full Sail. Internet addict. Passionate about small business internet marketing & websites, SEO, pay-per-click, email, and social media.
	Dan Gorgone- @DanGorgone Professor at Full Sail University Web Design and Usability teacher – Internet Marketing programs at Full Sail University. Also: parenting podcaster, Red Sox fan. Internet marketing teacher, usability preacher, photoblogger.
	Doug Quintal- @BugSyph1 Professor at Emerson College Marketing/IMC Prof @ Emerson College. Punk musician & Rush (the band) fanatic. Hockey is my religion-Bruins & Canucks. Top Marketing Professors on Twitter (SMM) Frequently tweets about social media marketing and his favorite hockey team.
	Dr. Joann Wayman- @JoannWayman Professor at Columbia College Offical Twitter page for Dr. Wayman College Professor–Marketing,Consumer Behavior, Social Media, International Business Uses Twitter to share articles from the industry, trending topics, and valuable information for her students.
	Cindy McColley- @CindyMcColley Adjunct Professor at Michigan Technological University Work for GM as a Digital Marketer. Adjunct Professor at Michigan Tech University teaching Introduction to Digital Marketing. Cindy says she decided to create a blog to enable dialog and interaction between generations of new Social Media users. She believes participating in the media is the best way to learn how to become a great marketer.
	Dr. Raymond Fisk- @RayFiskTX Professor at Texas State University Professor of Marketing at Texas State University, service marketing scholar, service arts advocate. Service arts advocate in San Marcos, TX who tweets about current trends, news, and service marketing.

Brandie Broihier | @brandienic

Last week, Google announced a new search feature called “Search Plus Your World.” Using Google+, the search engine will begin to filter your results using information obtained from your Google+ circles. So say you need to look-up your old friend Bob Smith. Normally, your friend would be hidden amongst thousands of pages because of his super common name. If you are logged into Google+, though, you will have a much better chance of finding the correct Bob Smith.

Sounds useful, right? Not everyone thinks so. Privacy watchdog EPIC filed a complaint with the FTC on Thursday, saying that “Google is using its search engine to create an unfair advantage for its social network. The report says Google is highlighting results from Google+ at the expense of pages that might be more relevant.”

Consider this in terms of profit. If your company is named Bob Smith’s Power Tools, and you primarily use Twitter to engage with customers, you could be in trouble when the guy with a Google+ account suddenly shows up pages ahead of you in searches. Google+ guy could snag your potential customers.

To illustrate the idea that the new search feature will not adequately serve consumers, Twitter general council Alex Macgillivray then tweeted an example of why he thought Google’s new results were inefficient: Google search results for the search term “@WWE” — yes, with the “@” symbol — that did not include the organization’s Twitter page.” The problem with this is the WWE has more Twitter followers than does Google+, thus making the results not optimum for most consumers.

Google responded that they have never indexed the @ symbol, and furthermore, Twitter is responsible for being excluded from Google search engine results as they let their contract agreement with Google end in July of 2011. Google denies intent to harm Twitter, while Twitter insists this is a strategic move to optimize Google+.

While Google+ is the newcomer to the Social Media scene, it is backed by the full power of the Heavyweight Champion of the Internet. So what does this mean from a Social Media perspective? Your business had better be sure you have a Google+ profile. Share every post on Google+ too, make sure you have Google+ buttons on your posts and, most importantly: keep building relationships with people!

Social Media Delivered (@socialmediadel) can help.

References: 
http://mashable.com/2012/01/13/ftc-google-plus/
http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/google-twitter-social-search-at-symbol/
http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/watchdog-ftc-google-social-search-unfair/
http://mashable.com/2012/01/11/twitter-google-smackdown/