Tech oddities! Branding delights! Social media marvels! Step right up and enjoy the little online marketing circus we like to call “Five Things You Might Have Missed!”

1.) Meet the Social Pizza: What’s more social than sharing a few slices of pizza? How about actually creating a pizza on social media? Domino’s in Australia is calling on Facebook fans to create the ultimate social media pizza pie. Through March 25th, Domino’s fans down under will have the opportunity to vote on favorite sauce, crust and topping combinations, with the winning concoctions featured on Domino’s menu. Amateur pizza chefs will also get a shot at $1,000 bucks for coming up with a great pizza name.

2.) Skin Vibrations: Here’s one from the “What the Tech?” files. Nokia is reportedly working on a patent to help smartphone holders literally feel when they receive a call. A small patch of fabric or a tattoo can be attached to the skin and will vibrate when an incoming call is received. While still in the developement stage, the vibrating tattoo officially ushers in the era of humans being literally attached to their phones.

3.) Main Events: Like the rest of Facebook, Facebook Events got a big-time makeover this week. Unlike Timeline and some of the other updates, however, this one is bound to make plenty of people happy. Easy for brands and individuals alike to use and keep organized, the new Facebook Events is the must-use use tool of the spring on the planet’s biggest social media mecca. Check out Social Media Examiner’s in-depth look at Facebook Events to learn about all the new features.

4.) Holy Phileas Fogg! So they might not be able to make your skin vibrate today, but Nokia claims its battery can last on a trip around the world. Inspired by the 140th anniversary of Around the World in 80 Days, Nokia sent its phone to 12 cities and 4 continents with a single charged battery and no charger. The results are a globe-trotting, good-time viral hit.

5.) Help for Your Ugly Office: We close out our list with a drool worthy digital contest from Turnstone. Those makers of pricey but awesome office accoutrements, Turnstone is giving away 5 office makeovers to startups with great ideas and amazing stories. Wannabes are encouraged to pitch their dream office ideas to Turnstone via video. After a judging committee sifts through the submissions, Turnstone will post the best videos and users will vote for their favorite. It’s a cool contest with a great prize from a brand that encourages vision and personality.

In social media marketing, we live by the legend that everybody gets all of their information from Facebook and Twitter. After all, we see big news stories spread like wildfire on social media every week, if not daily. From celebrity scandals and branding snafus to sports scores and natural disasters, the common belief is that social media isn’t just talking about the top stories of the day, but actually breaking news stories, too. Yet a new study is out to burst that bubble by claiming only 9 percent of Americans turn to Facebook and Twitter to get their news.

Shockingly, The State of the News Media 2012, a report from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, finds that Americans are decidedly old school when it comes to getting their news. More than a third claim they still hear the headlines from news organizations like CNN, MSNBC and local radio/TV news outlets. Tech sources for news weren’t totally out of the picture, however; 32 percent say they rely on search engines and 29 percent use news aggregation sites and apps like Flipboard, according to Pew.

The numbers in the survey shift dramatically, however, when the study focuses on subjects who rely on digital for their only news resource. A full 52 percent of digital news consumers admit to getting at least some of their daily news from Facebook and Twitter. Pew subjects were also very opinionated about which they liked better for news — Facebook or Twitter. Seven percent of digital news consumers say they get news from Facebook very often while only 3 percent said the same for Twitter. But Twitter dominated in being first for original stories; 39 percent said they read stories on Twitter they wouldn’t have found elsewhere.

But does the dip in social media news mean anything to marketers? You tell us, readers! Has the social media news era already ended, taking our interest in engaging with brands on Facebook and Twitter with it? Sound off below!

In online marketing, there are some brand names you hear time and time again: Innovators who can simultaneously rock social media marketing, traditional advertising and digital engagement. Over the last two years, Dunkin Donuts has truly emerged as one of those names, and this spring the company launched two newsworthy social media campaigns.

2012 saw a ton of brands get in on last week’s Saint Patrick’s Day action with all sorts of Twitter- and Facebook-based campaigns. Fast food chains in particular were quick to push their green-colored products in hopes that the luck of the Irish would translate to a bump in seasonal sales. Dunkin Donuts launched the hashtag #GooDDLuck to promote its GooDD Luck Twitter Sweepstakes. The clever contest called upon DD’s 134,000+ Twitter followers to tweet what items or rituals bring them good luck (followed by the #GoDDLuck hashtag). Dunkin social media wizards then picked 7 lucky winners to get $50 gift cards. That’s a lot of green donuts! The campaign boasted a lot of responses and even picked up some headlines along the way.

On the Facebook front, DD is one of the many companies capitalizing on March Madness. The Dunk Zone is Dunkin’s Facebook hub for all things basketball. As one of the lead sponsors of NCAA Basketball, Dunkin has partnered with CBS to offer Facebook fans inside info on all the latest games, scores and stories coming from March Madness. While basketball and the company’s new Angus Steak & Egg Sandwich might seem like a brand disconnect, DD has a long history with the sport — even recently calling upon superstar LeBron James to promote the company in Asia. Dunkin has all kinds of other action happening on its Facebook page, as well, and clearly people are responding. As of this writing, Dunkin Donuts has 6 million-plus Facebook Likes.

So what can indie companies learn from a donut digital dominator like Dunkin? First off, seasonal social media campaigns like Dunkin’s are the kind of things anybody can do and are a great internal motivator to plan ahead. Also, Dunkin excels at coming up with interactive conversational campaigns on Twitter and Facebook. Again, all of us could and should do that. Lastly, Dunkin Donuts is a great example of a brand that’s simply well-liked. Donuts are not supposed to be serious or make people think, so Dunkin appropriately speaks the language their customers want to hear.

Brandsplat Report-FaceBook Advertising, Video Tips, Pinterest Hate from Enzo Cesario on Vimeo.

Enzo F. Cesario, Brandsplat’s CCO shares his thoughts on FaceBook Advertising, Video Tips and Tricks from Google WebMaster and Pinterest Hate. Check it out! Or click here for more Brandsplat vids

Hey, Facebook marketing geniuses: Already sick of the constant online badgering to advertise on Facebook? Then you’d better brace themselves. The social media megasite is now offering all sorts of advertising innovations and incentives to make putting your brand on the planet’s biggest social network a whole lot easier. But the question remains: Should you do it?

Paid advertising on Facebook is one of those online marketing techniques that has fiercely divided folks in our industry. Facebook advertising fans are steadfast in believing that paying for ad space on Facebook can only bring good things when considering how many people visit the site daily. On the other hand, social media marketing conservatives are apt to prefer a “wait and see” approach when it comes to paid Facebook advertising. Now the company is hoping to unite both sides of the discussion with a variety of new advertising products. Mobile is the first place where Facebook promises to take ads where they’ve never been before. In previous apps of the network, ads have been tiny or non-existent. Facebook has now tweaked the mobile version and apps to accommodate brand messaging from companies, big and small.

Still, critics of the program say Facebook has missed a major mobile marketing opportunity.

“There is a huge opportunity for someone with Facebook’s size, reach and mobile expertise to develop a killer mobile advertising strategy,” GigaOm.com says. “Unfortunately, what Facebook rolled out Wednesday falls short of that goal.”

So should the increased mobile visibility finally make you take the leap into Facebook advertisements? We remain members of Camp Cautious. Great Facebook page campaigns don’t need to cost a thing, regardless of how many times the company tries to make them colder and less easy to use. Another new version of Pages is coming, too, which is said to come complete with that Timeline look so many love to hate. As far as that goes, we think smaller companies would be just fine if they hung onto their current grassroots Facebook efforts until advertising on the site is even more easy, more affordable and more cutting edge.

We’ve talked about how Facebook can help your blog marketing a lot on these pages lately. It seems like weekly there are new ideas and innovations to get the world’s most popular social network to work for your blog. But Google+, with its 25 million (and growing) users, is an untapped goldmine for driving people to your company blog.

One of the biggest benefits of Google+ is how users can set up different “circles” or audiences. Instead of wrestling with two Facebook accounts, one business and one personal, Google+ gives you the option of having two circles that keep your social and professional lives separate without more account setup hassles. Once your circles are set, linking and distributing your blogs to your followers is super-easy. Using Google+ Sparks, the topics you blog about are easier for interested readers to find. Sparks are categories and keywords picked by you and tagged to your posts. This handy tool makes not only reading the content you want to read on Goggle+ incredibly easy but it also makes your own content easier to find.

Yet the most appealing reason to put your blog on Google+ is the Google factor itself. Every company blog writing expert is going to want to take a few minutes to check the little box on Google+ that reads “Help others find my profile in search results.” This tiny preference change can take your blog and profile from obscurity to high ranking. Google+ has the benefit of being the byproduct of the most powerful search engine on the planet… so why not utilize that?

Google+ certainly has the power to drive audiences and consumers to your blog and brand, but the question remains: Do you have time for another social media marketing endeavor? And with that, we’ll turn it over to you, lovely readers. Is Google+ worth the time and effort? Which brands do you follow on Google+? Let us know in the comments section!

With Tiger on the outs and Tebow too polarizing, the world of sports has been in desperate need of a hero who could potentially become a branding superstar, a headline-maker and an international sensation. No current figure from professional sports fits that bill better than Jeremy Lin. Thanks to a jaw-dropping winning streak earlier this month, Lin is suddenly an unlikely superstar — and an illustration in what’s right and what’s wrong with Facebook marketing and online brand management.

The 6-foot 3-inch tall Christian Asian-American Lin reluctantly joined Facebook; within days, his followers were in the hundreds of thousands. As a brand and personality, Lin is intriguing, different and enigmatic. On Facebook these are great traits to have but being an individual also opens the doors for a world of ridiculous and ignorant comments. ESPN has already canned one employee who spewed racist nonsense on Facebook, and hundreds of other anti-Asian comments have flooded his page from so-called fans.

Sigh. Lin’s presence and celebrity should be celebrated and as a global brand he should be one we are ready to embrace. Facebook in the same right should be the place where that can happen. But as it’s been noted by smarter folks than us, what’s wrong on Facebook is sometimes a mirror of what’s wrong with the world at large. But it’s not just on Facebook where Lin is misunderstood. Ben and Jerry’s attempted to pay tribute to Lin with an ice cream flavor entitled “Taste the Lin-Sanity.” Featuring lychee fruit and fortune cookies, all that was missing from this stereotype-fest was a miniature gong and dragon on the label. Yeesh. Lin was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the U.S., so this type of “ancient Chinese secret” packaging seriously missed the mark. Thankfully, the folks at Ben & Jerry’s realized it, too, and replaced the fortune cookie pieces with waffles.

While Lin is exciting to watching on the court, we as marketers and consumers are learning a thing or two about cultural sensitivity. Looks like we still have a long way to go.

The Pope dabbles in Twitter marketing, a birthday boy melts Red Lobster’s butter and much, much more in this white-hot edition of the Five Things You Might Have Missed!

1.) Flashmobs, now less dorky: We happily laid branded flashmobs to rest. Honestly, we were thrilled to see them fade into the Internet mist. But Intel’s latest spin on flashmobs might have changed our minds. Armed with Intel Ultrabooks, mobsters popped up in locales all over Los Angeles to make fireworks, perform live music and create live digital art, all by using a laptop.

2) #IGaveTweetingUpForLent: It was bound to happen sooner or later — the Pope has gone cuckoo for Twitter marketing. His newest campaign? Tweeting during Lent to educate followers the on the reason for the season. The Pope started tweeting on Ash Wednesday and will continue until Easter morning. Pope Benedict sums up the brilliance and effectiveness of Twitter by saying, “In concise phrases, often no longer than a verse from the Bible, profound thoughts can be communicated, as long as those taking part in the conversation do not neglect to cultivate their own inner lives.” We totally agree, Popester.

3.) Remember Facebook Shopping? Us Either: It’s a trend that could’ve been but never really took off: Facebook shopping. Bloomberg reported this week that JC Penney, Gamestop and Nordstrom are all shutting down their Facebook stores after slumping sales and waning interest. More proof that not everything int the world of Facebook marketing is guaranteed to be a smash hit.

4.) No, Free Cheddar Bay Biscuits Do Not Count as a Meal: On the other end of the spectrum, Red Lobster is the most recent brand to cave to Facebook fan pressure… but this time it was for a worthy cause. 56-year-old Robert Mills bemoaned on his Facebook page how he couldn’t afford a birthday dinner for himself and thought Red Lobster should offer a free meal deal like other chains do. After some campaigning and cajoling by Buzzfeed, Red Lobster happily gave Mills a free birthday dinner. Aww.

5.) Pimp My TV: Named as the No. 1 trend to watch at this year’s SXSWi, “Me-TV” is exploding already (and the festival isn’t even for a few more weeks). Me-TV, or customized video programming, is the next big thing and everybody from P Diddy to Shelby.tv is eager to cash in on the craze. Think of it as all of your regular and online viewing in one place and controlled by you. Marketers will be next in line to see how Me-TV can work for brands. Stay tuned.

If you happened to be watching HGTV on Fat Tuesday during a House Hunters marathon hosted by Michael Ian Black and thought to yourself “that guy is everywhere,” you are not alone. Black, who rose to fame in the ’90s on cult cable comedies like Viva Variety and The State, is suddenly a hot commodity and can be seen online in a new series of ads for Expedia, on television and on nearly every talk show. And it’s all because the comedian knows how to flawlessly work social media marketing.

To date, Michael Ian Black has nearly 2 million Twitter followers and he keeps the masses entertained by tweeting endlessly. During his Mardi Gras gig, Black played House Hunters bingo with Twitter followers, mocked drunken parade goers and even took time out to promote his soon-to-be-released book, You’re Not Doing it Right. Black takes the Twitter engagement a step further by regularly re-tweeting responses from his followers, something even B-list comedians don’t do. Black has carefully crafted himself as a pop culture commentator — and what better place to discuss that topic than social media?

The actor and author has submerged himself in social media since 2009 and can also be found on Tumblr and even MySpace. Now, his book is already having bang up pre-sales on Amazon and he’s chatting with the likes of Esquire magazine. Black has gone from being that guy from some ’90s shows to a real social media-made celebrity. And while we can’t all expect our tweets to land our brands on television, Black’s story is proof that social media marketing works when you mix hard work with humor, personality and one-on-one engagement.

Feeling those mid-winter, uninspired blahs when it comes to online marketing? We’ve got just the thing to get your brain moving: Our weekly list of five things you might have missed. This week’s fivesome features news stories, marketing innovations and social media ideas guaranteed to ignite your creative fires!

1.) Food + Fashion: This interview with Cupcakes and Cashmere creator Emily Shuman tops our list for proving that when we blog about the things we’re passionate about, the money is sure to follow. The former ad executive is making big dollars by covering fashion and food in her highly-read blog. Shuman is further proof of the blog as business model and we love it.

2.) The Golden Voice Returns: Remember Ted Williams, that homeless dude with the amazing voice? After a rough ride through the media ringer, Williams returned in a charity Twitter campaign for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese this week. Kraft donated thousands of boxes of mac’n'cheese for every #voiceoflove tweet they received to Feeding America. The campaign was a stand out on Valentine’s Day for showing the Twitter love for folks who really deserve it.

3.) Best Apology Ever: O.b. Tampons has made more than a few marketing mistakes over the last two years, so when the company pulled its o.b. Ultras from store shelves late in 2011, consumers were not happy. Instead of tweeting a “we’re sorry” message, the company came up with a now viral video that sets a new standard for creative corporate apologies. Without giving away the details, we’ll just say this hilarious and ingenious interactive spot is sure to put o.b. on the road to redemption.

4.) Even Zuckerberg’s Pinterest Crazy: We clocked Pinterest as the “it” social media site last year and having Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg sign up this week seems to confirm that prediction. Zuckerberg is already enthusiastically pinning and posting, proving that Pinterest is a social media force to be reckoned with.

5.) Here’s to New Voices, Too: With the sad passing of Whitney Houston and the downright bizarre Grammy awards from last weekend, it seemed like music could use a fresh face or two. Luckily, a super-viral Target commercial answered the call by introducing the planet to 11-year-old Denise Bestman from Staten Island. Her cover of Rolling in the Deep is evidence that talent and hope are found in unlikely places.