Social networking is the #1 activity online. Even though Google gets the most visitors, Facebook is where most of us are spending our time. And it’s not just about Facebook anymore. We are spending a lot of time on LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr and Twitter. While there are some clear major players in the social space, the social media universe continues to expand and 2011 was a banner year for the idea of an “Interest Graph.”

In 2011, we saw Google launching Google+ and Pinterest grewing at an astounding rate. Facebook launched “Timeline” and “frictionless sharing” with partners like the much anticipated Spotify. Facebook also acquired design companies and the team behind Gowalla, showing the company’s intent to provide a consistent experience across devices and becoming a more prominent player in the mobile space.

2011 was also a big year for social IPOs: From LinkedIn to Groupon and Zynga, small tech startups are becoming public companies. There is much speculation around the existence of a bubble, and some say growth cannot continue because social networks are running out of users. However, Facebook is not yet public and we still don’t see a clear exit for Twitter.

There might be saturation, but social media has changed the way we live. And this means social media is no longer a question for marketers. Companies of all sizes have accepted and even embraced the importance of social media. Investments are starting to increase and companies are now building teams to tackle the new risks and opportunities that social media has created. While Facebook and Twitter ad spending is expected to grow only at a decreasing rate, advanced brands are leveraging more digital dollars for their social media marketing strategies and tactics. “Social” has been an afterthought for many years, but marketing campaigns and programs are finally starting to feel inherently social.

This presentation is about the state of social media and social media marketing on January 1st, 2012:

Marcia Conner is a partner at Altimeter Group and the co-author of “The New Social Learning.” She blogs at http://learnativity.com/ and tweets as @marciamarcia.

The book is a good read for anyone interested in learning more about how companies can leverage social technologies and tools to become, well, better companies. I asked Marcia a few questions to go deeper into some of the topics on the book, and here’s what she kindly had to say.

1. If social learning is truly a competitive advantage, how can companies that are late to the game differentiate and compete?

The competitive advantage doesn’t come from the technologies themselves associated with social learning. It comes from the expertise and perspective your people have today that’s often never shared with anyone or put to use in the organization. Social media tools can provide venues for people to connect in ways they hadn’t before, differentiating an organization by the quality and brainpower of their people who now can build new approaches together that they couldn’t before.

2. In today’s culture of sharing, does it make sense for companies to publicly display real-time information about how they are performing and how consumers are talking about them on the social web?

Customer perception — heck, even employee perspective— has been posted on bulletin boards and user group meetings for years. If you don’t believe that, google your company then read 10 or even 20 pages into the search results to see all of the places where you’re talked about now. The trouble with many of those venues is that they are only from a narrow slice of your customers, often without additional insights from people within your organization who have additional information. By engaging with those people in those spaces… or better yet, creating venues for a healthy conversation about what you are doing right and what you need to improve upon, you are far more likely to learn from people’s experiences and correct misperceptions and give people with alternative (and possible more favorable) views a chance to weigh in too.

3. What is needed to inspire and create change at companies with an “anti-social” culture?

I’ve worked with many organizations who consider themselves anti-social because their work is either solitary or senior leadership is very button up… or because middle-management has instilled a sense of fear in the ranks that talking with one another is grounds for dismissal. Each of these needs to be addressed slightly differently.

In the first situation, find bright spots where people are working together and learning from one another despite their individual paths. Use these as exemplars to find more opportunities to cross-pollinate ideas and build relationships between shifts, in common areas, or across online communities where people can congregate in the little moments between other tasks.

If senior leaders are modeling behavior that doesn’t appear to be social, and yet they are interested in fostering a more socially oriented culture, ask them to demonstrate some of the relationship work they do behind the scenes. Perhaps they are active in a community organization where they show a different side of their personality. Encourage them to participate in online social networks where they can be their introverted selves but in a more open and engaging way. Find ways to help them show a side that is committed to working in different ways.

And in the last situation, where there is a fear-based culture because people in the middle feel social is contradictory to productivity, work with senior management to reiterate the disconnect with the larger vision of a more social culture. Actively eliminate roadblocks in people’s path to work together by publicly changing rules and policies that stymie collaboration—and adopting ways of working that more accurately support people’s natural tendencies to learn from one another. You might not, at first, get the buy in or support of people who have been silenced for a long time but you will get newer hires to work in engaging ways, and that alone has the power to shift culture in less time than forcing people to work in ways they don’t believe will be well received.

 I’ve conducted collaborative culture audits with dozens of organizations and almost all of them at first showed an inclination to distrust anyone overly social or relationship oriented. Over time, with specific steps and activities, often with the assistance of easy to use and mobile social technologies, they each became more mindful of what social really means (interacting to get work done) and saw it as an opportunity rather than something to avoid.

4. From SharePoint and LotusLive to SocialText and SocialCast, enterprise collaboration platforms within the firewall are getting quite advanced. What key elements are important when considering these and which do you think is the leading product today?

Each enterprise collaboration tools you mention has pros and cons, environments where they are better suited than one of their competitors, so it would be shortsighted to say one is the leading product today. Having said that, though, I believe it’s important for organizations to carefully consider their culture, their resources, their objectives, and the gaps they are trying to bridge when making a decision on the right tools for their environment. Are they looking for an on premise solution because they have the people to manage the systems? Would a SaaS implementation free people up to focus on business processes and making strides in workforce productivity? Do workers expect one interface where they can access every type of information flow or will they be comfortable using different tools for different activities? These are the types of questions organizations should consider when discerning what’s best for them.

5. What role do executives have in social learning? Do they only provide direction or should they lead by example?

Executives are learning today socially whether they recognize that or not. They learn from their management teams, from fellow executives in other companies, and from being active members of the world around them. While they provide direction to others, if they don’t demonstrate to those that work with them and for them that learning and relationship-building are important, they can undermine their guidance and miss a critical opportunity for people to learn from them too.

6. There are many monitoring tools out there, but they often lack in engagement, social CRM, and analytics capabilities. Do you think they will expand into these areas or will the industry remain fragmented for a while?

Organizations are often so trapped in their fear that relationship-building is anti-productive that they haven’t even begun to consider some analysis of the payoff from those engagements might prove otherwise. This becomes a chicken and the egg dilemma. Organizations are expecting analytics and useful measures of the gains made by working together… and because that level of monitoring isn’t yet widely available, leaders continue to focus on what they fear will happen. Until social technology vendors, on their own, deliver measurement capabilities (and ways to put those metrics into context that proves meaningful, not just numbers for counting’s sake) and up the conversation about the deep change these tools can create, the industry will remain fragmented and there will always be an err of mystery about the value of these tools.

7. In terms of Social Analytics, what should companies with social presences be measuring?

Organizations using social technology to connect people within their ecosystem should, at the least, measure four things:

1) Initiative (how many people logged in)

2) Persistence (how many people came back, presumably because they found value)

3) Connection (how the network expanded)

4) Technology Transition (fewer documents sent across email, for instance).

These four measures will demonstrate to those needing numbers to perceive value that change is underway. It will also begin to create conversations about the usefulness of legacy practices and the multiplier effects of expanding relationships.

The transparent nature of social media makes it easier to measure what’s going on because it can be observed and tracked. For instance, you can analyze what people are searching for and map what they find. You can analyze not only where people go with their social tools, but also how they get there, how long they stay, and what they do when they are there. Although this does not verify the transfer of knowledge or skills, it is a pretty good indication.

The next level of measurement look at functional outcomes rather than simply asking, “Did they engage?” There is little value to the organization if people don’t apply what they take in—put into practice what they learn and how their decisions have been informed. The best measures go the next step to connect using new skills and knowledge with how they affect measures such as the bottom line.

8. By 2014, aprox half of the workforce will be Millenials. Many such Millenials have grown up with video games like Halo, Counter Strike and World of Warcraft. How can companies introduce gaming mechanisms to encourage collaboration and learning?

Children and animals don’t play because they have free time. They play to move through developmental stages and to learn from one another how to interact and how to grow strong. With that knowledge, organizations can introduce more playful practices — be it pool tables in break rooms or races to see which team can come up with more novel ideas to vexing organizational problems. Video games can be introduced in leadership development, customer service training, and even program bug hunts to extend those practices and connect with young workers who enjoy games. Just don’t convince yourself that video games are required to engage a young workforce. Playful, interesting, meaningful work, where people can learn new things and connect with people around topics that matter to them will retain them for a long time.

9. It seems “immersive environments” like Second Life have lost some of the appeal from some years ago. Why is that?

Social tools these days are getting lighter and more mobile, being used to augment work, not as the activity itself. Many of the virtual immersive environments still require a great deal of processing power and big displays that don’t fit easily in a purse or a pocket. This means that the tools providers are either going to need to create an even more captivating and compelling reason to use their tools—or they are going to need to find ways to miniaturize the experience or find ways to take it with you through projection or augmented environments.

10. Should social learning be led by cross-division teams or should it be ”owned” by a specific division/group?

The idea any group or cross-division team can own social learning is like asking one department to be responsible for organizational health. The only people who can own social learning are the individuals who themselves are learning each day, from one another, based on their work and in the flow of work. One department can set strategy and review tools, and even document and advertise healthy social learning practices, but at the point when they give the impression it is their responsibility to manage the learning, they step back in time to an age when we thought training (or knowledge management, or human capital development, or..) was a discreet set of activities and events that could be turned on and off like a light switch. Rather, learning and collaboration are ongoing actions taken by individuals in concert with one another to produce something greater than anyone alone could create. And that is owned by (and directed by) every individual all of the time. Remove the obstacles in people’s paths to do what is hardwired into their DNA—to learn together to grow strong—and you’ll find it creates healthy organizations where social learning is their lifeblood.

You probably already heard about the fake @BPGlobalPR Twitter account that was created to criticize the tragic BP oil spill. The account pretends to be an official BP handle, and with a mere 138 tweets, it already has aproximately 85K followers (and it has been listed by 2095 users!) in just a few days.

Of course, the AdAge article and other media have helped spread awareness of the account, but the reason for its speedy rise in followers is mostly due to the severity of BP’s oil spill combined with the the cleverness and relevance of the tweets.

Humor goes a long way when it comes to Twitter. Fake accounts like this one are created all the time, but they rarely make much of an impact. We’ve seen fake Twitter accounts for everything from presidents dictators (ie. @ChavezCandanga_) to Star Wars characters (ie. @DarthVader), but the most effective ”fake” Twitter accounts are often parodies (ie. @BogusBogusky, @ChuckNorris_ @Nick_Nolte) or created by actual fans (ie. @PeggyOlson and maybe @BadPeggyOlson). However, @BPGlobalPR is going against BP with intelligence, and dare I say it.. strategy?

I have no idea who is behind this @BPGlobalPR account, but I wouldn’t be surprised if another “fake” Twitterer like @michael_bay was doing it.

BP has decided not to go after the rogue account, at least for now, and I applaud this because they have decided to focus on communicating through their real account @BP_America and seem to be doing a very good job there despite the huge challenge they are facing. (Update: The @BP_America account was recently hacked for a short time.)

BP could’ve easily asked Twitter to suspend the @BPGlobalPR account soon after it was created, as most companies would’ve done, and as CNN and Megan Fox probably did with @cnnbreaking and @the_megan_fox, respectively. I guess BP could try to reach out to the creator(s) to try to make some peace, but who knows whether much would come out of doing so.

So where does a fake @BPGlobalPR account with a potentially serious, long-term agenda go from here?

Some fakers like @stephentcolbert, with an impressive 96K followers, seem to be trying to profit from their clever tweets through Ad.ly ads. Of course, independent Twitter ad networks are on the way out so @stephentcolbert better have a book something in mind because his ad.ly tweets are not going to keep paying for the broadband connection.

Unless suspended, the @BPGlobalPR account will likely stay open for a long time. And what about spreading itself to other social networks? Well, they seem to have recently opened a fake Facebook Page.

The Facebook Page only has 8 fans at this point, but with several comments (spammy ones) on Mashable’s FB posts, I’m sure other people will start to “like” the FB Page.

(Update: Looks like there is a another “BP Global PR” Facebook Page at http://www.facebook.com/BPGlobalPR and that one has 315 fans.)

One thing is for sure: The @BPGlobalPR account will be remembered as one of the most toxic (very sorry for the pun) cases to remember when considering a crisis response plan. It’s become quite obvious that every company needs a very integrated approach to PR, customer service, and social marketing so everyone should consider the worst of the worst when it comes to getting prepared. We should also pay close  attention to the way that companies like BP, Nestle, United, Domino’s, and others have reacted in difficult times. Learn from those who have been proactive, those who have responded quickly, and those who have extended heartfelt apologies.

More importantly, we should not point a finger at the companies that have failed to respond effectively because as real-time communication becomes the norm and as lurkers become “critics” and “creators”… this could easily happen to any company or person for any kind of problem or crisis. If you think you’re immune because of the industry you’re in or the history you’ve had, it’s time to let go of your complacency because we live in a brave new social world that can be quickly changed by anyone with an Internet connection.

If you’re reading this, you’re a human being. A person with feelings, thoughts, joys, passions, fears, etc. All companies are made up of humans; people just like you and I. Sure, you can automate much of what a company does, you can hide it behind buildings and legal terms and conditions. You can even use technology instead of people to make them more efficient, effective, and easier to manage. But, deep down, every company is comprised of people.

If you’re reading this, you’re also a “customer.” The word is not as exciting as “people” because none of us want to be seen as mere “buyers” of things. Still, we are all customers because… we buy things.

So if we’re all humans and we’re all customers, companies could act a bit more like people, right? And they could see all customers a bit more like, well, people. Humanizing a company or brand is not making it less powerful; it’s simply realizing that without the human beings working there and without the human beings purchasing things/services, such company would not be much more than a bunch of tangible and intangible things that would eventually rot.

I bring this up because the rise of the Internet and real-time conversations have forced many companies to be much more human, and that’s a good thing. Still, companies need to WANT to be more human. The power of apologizing is one example of how a company can be more human.

Apologizing does at least four things: First, it acknowledges the harm done. Second, it shows your humility and expresses respect and appreciation. Third, it opens up the door for forgiveness. And finally, it provides the opportunity to change.

Companies make mistakes. Just like customers need to better understand that companies are not perfect, companies need to understand that such imperfection needs to be acknowledged. Mistakes can be hidden and ignored, but sooner or later, someone will point them out.

So the acknowledgement of mistakes is a good start, but it should not be the final outcome. Impressions, visits, rankings, awards, or even sales, I’m afraid, should not be the end either. The end should be a new beginning: Learning from mistakes and actually doing something about them reduces the likelihood of making mistakes in the first place.

People will forgive companies for their wrongdoings. They really will. But just as when a person does you wrong, we all tend to forgive more often and more fully when there is an apology. And more importantly, as with all relationships, change is required for the relationship to truly be strengthened.

Sure, anyone can market the idea of change, but I’m not talking about self-promotion, PR or TV commercials showing off how sorry you are. I’m talking about saying sorry, in private and/or in public, and then doing something to change the root cause, even if it starts with baby steps.

Being in a field (social media + marketing) where people constantly demand perfection from you and often point out the imperfections of your company (and your own), it is often easy to get a bit thick skinned. And that thick skin is good to have at times because it is not always easy to take it all in. The fact is that there are some people that simply like to complain and they will never be satisfied.

But, having a permanent thick skin shows what you truly have: indifference. Having an real DESIRE to recognize mistakes, apologize (in real-time if possible), learn from what happened, and become better (as soon as possible) shows that you CARE. Caring beats indifference every single time.

No matter what you do for a living, make sure you care about the people you interact with and that you apologize when you have to. You may not always be able to apologize or you may not be allowed to do so, but make sure you care deep down.

As long as you care, you will be able to build strong relationships, and you will be able to make yourself and your company better. Never settle for what you are right now, and never settle for how you’ve done things in the past. You can always be better and you can always try harder.

Care more, try harder, and say sorry when you’ve realized you haven’t cared or tried enough. The rest may be out of your control, but you will definitely see the fruits of genuinely apologizing to your customers, apologizing to your fans, apologizing to your followers, apologizing to your enemies, apologizing to your frienemies, apologizing to your friends, apologizing to your family, and apologizing to yourself.

Saying sorry is not a weakness; it is much more powerful than you think.

On the most recent “The Social Nerdia Show!” I had a conversation with  Angela Natividad and Bill Green, the podcasters behind AdVerve.

Angela’s Twitter profile tells us that she is “VP-Marketing, hypios. Ad scribe, Culture Buzz. Hostess, AdVerve. And yes, still the wholesale purveyor of The Sass™.” Bill Green blogs at MTLB (Make the Logo Bigger), a personal favorite, and  has worked with lots of great brands. You might also know them from their work with AdRants and their appearances on The BeanCast.

Listen to the entire conversation with A &B on the Flash player below. Please subscribe to us on iTunes, stream from mobiles on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming LIVE shows on blogtalkradio.

Angela and Bill told me that they started AdVerve because they wanted to take ad podcasting in a new direction, to a place where every topic is welcome. “Every topic is about advertising. Advertising surrounds everything, all of the nuances from our culture,” Angela told me. Bill added that they wanted to have a “conversational (podcast) and see where things go, the way ad agencies are, the way creatives actually talk about situations.”

While the show is quite open-ended, both of them emphasized the importance of honesty and respect. “We’re careful about what we talk about on the show. We’re honest but respectful of anything that is confidential,” Bill explained. He told me a story that reflects just how much some advertisers and marketers are still not sure what do do with bloggers and podcasters: “There was an incident on the BeanCast where one of the guests on the show was fired, even though he didn’t say anything incendiary.. It was just a very nervous employer.”

Angela and Bill met through AdRants, a blog and email newsletter that provides “marketing and advertising news with attitude,” published by Steve Hall. “I knew Angela had a style that could transform into a different form,” Bill explained. Today, AdVerve already has 15 shows and its first episode was downloaded over 2,400 times. Regarding the future of the show, Angela told me that they “do see an opportunity for AdVerve to expand.”

The world is full of bloggers and podcasters that are all theory and no practice, but A & B have done their fair share of work. “We bring a working perspective from brands from both sides, agency and client sides.. We’ve won business, lost business, dealt with the whole process,” Bill said.

He added, “what we talk about is a reflection of what we’d like to be done differently and now with the push of social media, the strength of the industry is moving to smaller shops. You’re never gonna walk away from traditional, but social media is the glue that makes all of that work together, work holistically.”

I asked Angela about the rise of the super niche small agencies (ie. focused on crowdsourcing, viral, social media) and Angela thinks these are good acquisition targets for larger companies. “You’re going to have rock stars but in the end it doesn’t matter if you’re narrow, you always need to have a full perspective, full context; you always have to have an understand about what’s going to fit your brand best.” Bill added, “there are a lot of big companies and agencies that don’t know how to use social media beyond sending a message.”

Both ad agencies and companies need to think beyond what they’ve thought about in the past. With rapidly changing technologies and shifts in customer behavior, creativity continues to be very important. “Enjoying what you’re doing makes you creative. Creative people are always looking for ways to play with things,” Angela said. Bill added that “for creatives, there’s a sense of ‘what if,’ All great agencies needs a sense of ‘what if.’”

Angela and Bill were kind enough to chat for much more than an hour (even with the various technical problems we had), so there is much more you’ll just have to listen to on the podcast..

Other topics we talked about:

• The rapidly changing roles of people at agencies: Art director + copywriter + producer + blogger + etc.
• The importance of mobile and the mainstreamization (is that a word?) of Augmented Reality
• Ad agencies and product design/development (Was CP+B involved in the decision of recreating the Domino’s turnaround recipe?)
• Automated press release vs. the busy blogger dilemma
• Snack culture and the mass consumption of compelling content
• Online, everyone is a marketer
• The impact of technology on music, film, and pop culture
• Why we think of Nike, Puma, Adidas, and TOMS before we think about Reebok (Reebok who?)
• Survival of the design-fittest (Target vs. Walmart)
• American and global perspectives on the Super Bowl’s impact on the ad industry

By now most people know that Microsoft has finally scored the deal it’s been wanting for quite a while. I’m guessing CEO Steve Ballmer still gets a little annoyed when thinking about all the trouble and time he wasted trying to get Yahoo! to give in. Then again, maybe things would’ve gone horribly wrong if Yahoo! had accepted what now sounds like a crazy initial offer.

The fact is that Yahoo! was so concerned with how much they could get out of Microsoft (or maybe how cool they would be by playing difficult) that they lost track of their purpose.

Yes, Yahoo!’s purpose in life was search. That’s how I know about them. That’s how you found out about them. Ok, to be fair, maybe some folks that still use Yahoo! Mail don’t realize this, but they probably only recently made the switch from AOL, so that doesn’t really count.

For most people on this Earth of ours, Yahoo! used to be a synonym for search engine.

Well, no longer. And with that, Yahoo! proves that they not only lost the #1 position many years ago, but that they also didn’t realize just how important search was. I mean, if they cared about search, they would’ve done something about it, right?

Wrong. Yahoo! was so concerned with becoming a portal, becoming the source for movie information (I admit it, Yahoo! movies is pretty good), capturing screenshots of Geocities and Flickr (instead of enhancing them), and wondering if red or purple is cuter, etc. that they totally forgot about the reason for their very existence.

So, while Yahoo! slept and dreamed about getting flirtatious notes from Ballmer and Co., and Google grew into the cloud monster it now is, Microsoft realized that search was, well, kind of important. So they acquired companies, found new talent with actual personalities, and came up with marketing ideas that start with “decision” and end in “engine.”

Microsoft focused as much as possible on what search wasn’t, what it could be, and how they would market it to people who are way too lazy to Google elsewhere. And, of course, they lost sleep trying to get Yahoo! to marry them, or at least have a kid together. Yahoo! said no time and time again (in the midst of a crazy confusing recession) until they woke up one morning after a very scary Bing-branded nightmare, and they had no other option but to say “maybe”. And now that they are not married and don’t have a kid together, they could’ve easily said their new relationship status is simply ”complicated,” but instead they went with “we’re a partnership.”  Right…

Everyone says that this is all to take Google out. Perhaps, but I think Microsoft is more concerned about being around till the end of time than about killing Google. No one will kill Google and everyone knows that. Just ask Jeeves, AOL, WolframAlpha, Mahalo, and the yet to be born Blekko.

But being second place is not a bad place to be for this apparently revitalized Microsoft, especially when Yahoo! will soon proudly advertise the Bing name right under the “Web Search” button. Who knows? With an established and innovative Xbox 360 console, a tolerable Windows Phone platform, some retail stores, controversial advertising, a cloud-friendly Office 2010, and the eternal cash cow known as Windows, Microsoft might start becoming somewhat cool again.

And alas, tomorrow is another day, and Yahoo! is just another web site.