Socialcast (which was recently acquired by ReadWriteWeb sponsor VMware) ran an interesting infographic these week visualizing, among other things, a social media study conducted by the Center for Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth on the use of social media in Fortune 500 companies (we covered part of this study back in 2008).

The majority of companies studied found social media – such as blogging, social networking and online video – to be successful. Even as far back 2007 (why does that seem like so long ago?), a majority of the companies surveyed found social media to be at least somewhat important. – The Business Impact of Social Media

I am starting to rethink about our whole social media strategy approach for small businesses. Not so much with our own companies, but for our clients. It has taken me an inordinate amount of time to discover the constraints of “not being their boss,” something consultants and agencies a like are challenged with constantly.

I have spent most of my marketing life on the other side, as the buyer of marketing and branding services. In an odd chain of events over the last several years, that has shifted to the consultant and marketing studio side. I have wrongly made the assumption that when we sold the marketing ideas and strategy to the boss’s boss, the gal or guy at the top of the pyramid and the person paying the bill, all was well. Not really, that is just the tip of the iceberg. – When You Are Not Their Boss

Time and again it has been proven that the blogs, which succeed in every niche, are the blogs that constantly deliver the best information.  Great blog content will encourage people to share your posts, link to your blog and engage with your message.  That’s gold dust if you’re a business blogger and want to monetize your blog. – Content Marketing: Why content is king

Most large companies spend a fortune on influencing search results and there is no doubt that done well it drives sales or at least business leads. The landscape of the web is changing though and many factors are starting to come together that could make it less important in the future. For the last couple of years people have been going on about social search without really knowing what it would look like but I think we could be very close to a tipping point especially as Google the world’s biggest search engine starts to go social. – Are We Nearing The End For The SEO Business?

We are the connected generation. Thanks to our ever-present mobile devices we are always ‘on’ and connected. This allows us to capture a record of all the great things we do, and share our experiences, our recommendations and our memorable moments with friends, colleagues and the world at large, through the medium of popular social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp. We broadcast these moments out to the rest of the world. We let others share in our passions and see the details of our daily lives. We have become the lifeblood of information for our friends and followers, and they have taken on the role of gatekeepers as we filter and pump information from network to network.

As the opportunities to share information have become more ubiquitous, there has been an increasingly hyped-up debate and concern around the topic of privacy. But is privacy really the issue? – Does privacy exist in a world of social networks and sharing?

Here are the top Internet strategy, marketing and technology links for the week of July 2, 2011…

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