Jeremiah Owyang is a real thought leader in this space - I encourage you all to follow his posts

"when consumers were exposed to both brand-specific search results and social media, search clickthrough rates increased by 94%, indicating the investment in social media can help marketers to better influence consumers "

Substantial support to the investment in social alongside traditional

"American Express has developed a simple app that can turn Foursquare's "check-in" feature into a highly secure method for its cardmembers to complete transactions or participate in local store promotions. "

"What should you measure? I recommend using a combination of rankings and analytics data (including ecommerce and/or goal data). But whatever you do, make sure your measurements clearly gauge the area you're trying to improve."

"The study finds "zero statistical correlation between media expenditures, either total or digital, and brand sentiment." The creative-feel and message-look drives positive buzz around a brand, along with how companies spend ad budgets."

"ads placed on long-tail sites-those with an overall reach smaller than 1.5% of the internet population-had a significant lift in clickthrough rate compared with ads on larger web properties. " What this means is that the long tail is more effective than the sort term in generating click thru for ads - 48% better for B2B contacts

When is an ad not an ad?  When a corporate video is so nicely done and contributes to the conversation.  

Dollar for dollar, you are actually going to receive more branding, and more impression impact, using streamed endorsements on Facebook and Twitter, than people seeing an ad on Facbeook, because the engagement rate is so much higher,