IMEDIA CONNECTION — Google the words "United Airlines." What do you see? When I did this test, the website United Airlines -- Problems with United Airlines showed up within the top five results, right underneath headlines about a drunken United pilot getting arrested at Heathrow airport. Twitter, too, was buzzing with news of the pilot the day I searched for #unitedairlines. And of course "United Breaks Guitars," the user-generated music video about the airline breaking a customer's $3,500 guitar and then refusing to cover the damage, is still the No. 1 "United" search result on YouTube, with more than 7 million views, to date...

IMEDIA CONNECTION — Social media is young and remains undefined in many ways. Even the most successful early adopters of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogging, etc., had a few stumbles along the way before they hit their strides. The following failures are examples of common mistakes made by many brands in social media. As best practices are more widely adopted across industries and individual organizations, mistakes like these will become less commonplace. But one thing is for certain: Large brands that still refuse to adopt a social media strategy are embarrassing themselves. It can be scary, but even a less-than-perfect social media strategy is essential...

CLICKZ — Participating in social media can help a brand in many ways, but successful strategies must tie into business objectives, agreed an expert panel at ad:tech New York on Thursday. Many brands are beginning to realize the importance of participating in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, but they can get overwhelmed by the noise if they're not careful, according to Pete Blackshaw, EVP of digital services for Nielsen Online...

COMPETE BLOG — Twitter continues to capture the attention and imagination of marketers; the site has posted twenty consecutive months of all time highs in site traffic. Its 23M+ monthly user base (as of July) provides a huge opportunity for brand marketers to directly engage customers, drive brand awareness, and drive revenue. Jetblue, Southwest and United are the most active airline brands on Twitter with approximately 1M, 460K & 30K ‘followers’ respectively (at the time of writing). Leveraging its ability to track consumer behavior across the internet, Compete measured the directional potential for twitter traffic to drive airline business by quantifying the extent to which shoppers of these airlines also visited Twitter...

USA TODAY — Looking for a quick, cheap getaway? A bargain may be just a tweet away. JetBlue and United airlines are offering their Twitter followers first dibs on some discounted fares, using the uber-trendy form of messaging to quickly connect with customers and fill seats on flights that might otherwise take off less than full. Like the e-mails that many airlines began to send out in the 1990s, tweets are presenting a new, faster way to promote sales. And in fitting with this latest mode of instant communication, travelers have to decide quickly whether to fly...