This is an interesting video on why brands need to start engaging in social media conversations. Everyone knows they need as many Brand Advocates as possible, but as always, most brands rarely take any additional action to help create more of them. Things like time, budgets and skill sets always get in the way. But more so now than ever, brands need to make the time to harvest online conversations because increased sales are waiting…

Creating brand advocates can be easier than you think and with social media, that influence is powered 10x, 20x 100x 5000x depending on the size of the advocates network. So just imagine what customers would think when you tweet your frustration about your new mobile phone and then the company, say Vodafone, starts tweeting back with live help… You only have to tweet back once for your entire network to know Vodafone just saved the day for you!

A new study by sociologists at the University of Maryland concludes that unhappy people watch more TV, while people who describe themselves as very happy spend more time reading and socializing. The study appears in the December issue of the journal Social Indicators Research. Analyzing 30-years worth of national data from time-use studies and a continuing series of social attitude surveys, the Maryland researchers report that spending time watching television may contribute to viewers' happiness in the moment, with less positive effects in the long run. "TV doesn't really seem to satisfy people over the long haul the way that social involvement or reading a newspaper does," says University of Maryland sociologist John P. Robinson, the study co-author and a pioneer in time-use studies. "It's more passive and may provide escape - especially when the news is as depressing as the economy itself. The data suggest to us that the TV habit may offer short-run pleasure at the expense of long-term malaise."