Not being social enough is a big problem for corporations trying to use social media. That’s what Jeremiah Owyang and his team at Forrester discovered in a new report. Forrester selected 16 firms across four industries and found only one company worthy of accolades. What makes BMW a social marketing winner? In part, it’s that the automobile manufacturer managed to avoid the most common pitfalls, which is still where most firms fell short. Some examples of those easy-to-make mistakes: creating marketing programs that aren’t self-fueling, that don’t encourage members to participate in conversations amongst themselves and that don’t include some amount of participation from the corporation, itself.

Jeremiah discusses his findings with Jennifer Jones in this Marketing Voices podcast.

What your friends are sharing is most important to most people and it is also especially relevant for marketers. FriendFeed, a service funded by Benchmark Capital imports feeds from 41 websites, photo sites, music sites and video sites and aggregates them all in one place. It is making things all over the web much more personal. Jennifer Jones spoke with Co-Founder of FriendFeed, Bret Taylor, about his company, his business model and his plans for the future.

Both Electronic Arts and Microsoft have created social media campaigns for Facebook. Kevin Barenblat, CEO and Co-Founder of Context Optional discusses the creation of these campaigns on Facebook and how companies are making more social media connections through Facebook. Barenblat explains how Microsoft further developed the idea of a poke and geared it to the office. He also delves into how Electronic Arts taught more people about gaming with their gaming application.