Although most lists of "things we can learn from celebrities" include more don't's than do's, there is definitely one thing they can teach us: the art of social media.

There are parallels between gorging ourselves on Twinkies and measuring the value of our social audience by the number of "likes." Experts have been telling us for a long time that we need to ditch these empty "likes," but they've been so easy to get and so ingrained in our social media upbringing that we continue to indulge ourselves.

Some brands are holding their breaths while others are diving head-first into the social media pool, hanging on for dear life to both their budgets and resources while trying to navigate the many platforms that continue to emerge.

Clearly, social and mobile technologies are fundamentally changing the way people communicate and share with their peers. The intersection of mobile and social technologies has given rise to the connected consumer, and I've found myself in the perfect laboratory to study them.

The economy will eventually improve. When it does, the organizations that are social, mobile, in the cloud, and using big data will be on top. The rest of you will wonder what happened.

Excitement is exactly the response we strive for with our social media promotions. But we're looking to give our customers more than just exclusives; we want them to have an experience.

By actively incorporating social and mobile capabilities into core processes your business will run better, employees will be happier, productivity will increase, and IT's hairball will be reduced.

The days of dropping comments into a box are long gone. Now, someone can go right on Facebook or Twitter and be in charge of a company's brand. They can make or break how people perceive a company in a very short period of time.



Remember when Facebook switched the button on group pages from "Be a Fan" to "Like"? Any company whose materials said "Be our fan on Facebook" had to change the message immediately or risk looking disconnected.