We’re not sure if it’s because of Mercury Retrograde or that we’re in a slow news cycle, but there were quite a few interesting Social Media stories popping up today.  Read below and enjoy; but don’t overlook the importance of having a solid Social Media plan for your brand.  There are rules of the road and violating them comes with big risks.  As always, let us know if we can help your brand develop the right strategy.

1.  Sex does sell.  After doing some research, Dan Zarrella, a social media researcher, says, “Articles in my dataset that include sexual references in their titles, are shared on Facebook far more than the average story.”  Read more about Dan’s findings here.

2.  Consumer Reports says half of social networkers post risky information online.  Read about it here.  Just imagine what the marketing pros at Life Lock could do with this information.  Their TV ads could sizzle.

3.  If you don’t think the virtual world’s economy isn’t real, think again.  Second Life users are suing over a virtual land dispute.  This does raise an interesting question:   who owns virtual goods – the creators of the goods or the people who have paid virtual currency for them?  Read more here.

4.  Did you know that 7% of Americans use Twitter.  While the tone of the article, which you can read here, suggests 7% of the American public isn’t an impressive number – and maybe it’s not compared to Facebook – I can think of a lot of brands that would love to have 20 million customers.  Congrats to the Twitter folks.