Happy July! This week’s roundup runs the digital gamut — from the engines (is Google working on its own social network?) to Facebook (guess which beloved cookie brand is launching a global Facebook page?) and everywhere in between. Find full recaps of these and other stories in the post below. And of course, you can follow 360i on Twitter for insights from our team all week long.

‘Google Me’ Rumors Swirl as Details of Facebook Competitor Take Shape

A tweet from Digg’s Kevin Rose (since deleted), a confirmation from a former Facebook exec and a story on TechCrunch were all it took for rumors to fly that Google is working on its own social platform to go head-to-head with Facebook. This week several outlets began speculating about Google Me, which according to former Facebook CTO Adam D’Angelo (he’s now heads up Q&A service Quora) is a very real project to build a “first-class social network” modeled off of Facebook.

Though none of this has been confirmed by Google, the company did begin integrating Google Buzz updates within Google Social Search this week (via Search Engine Land). Social Search, launched in January, displays search results based on individuals you’re connected to per Google.  As Danny Sullivan notes, if all this represents a larger overhaul of Google Profiles and/or Google Buzz, we can expect that Google Me (if and when it exists) will also be integrated into Social Search.

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A Wednesday New York Times article reports that Oreo, a Kraft Foods brand, will be ramping up its efforts in social marketing by giving its Facebook page a global face lift. The popular page, currently more than 5 million-“Likes” strong, will feature a new look on July 5.

As partners with Oreo on this initiative, we at 360i are looking forward to unveiling the refreshed page to Oreo lovers worldwide on Monday. Though the page has been up since August 2009, its focus to date has primarily been the American audience. However, a large volume of comments and “Likes” from global Oreo fans prompted the amended strategy which will engage fans of the brand from all corners of the world.

Mark Clouse, senior vice president for global biscuits at Kraft Foods, told the Times’ Stuart Elliott that the outpour of global engagement created an “a-ha moment” for the brand. He went on to say that Kraft sees Facebook as “a global vehicle and a platform” that can be leveraged to create dialogue with all consumers – wherever they may be.

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“Ubiquity” was one word that struck me when David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” kept mentioning it at a Gotham Media Ventures breakfast panel last week. The other was “China.”Those were the answers. The questions, if you summon Johnny Carson’s Carnac, were, respectively, “What is Facebook’s goal?” and “What is Facebook’s biggest obstacle in achieving its goal?”

China may be Facebook’s single biggest obstacle in growing from 500 million users to 7 billion and beyond as it tries to gain adoption by every single person on the planet. Yet there’s a bigger obstacle collectively: the other 4 billion people who are neither currently using Facebook nor living in China. How will Facebook colonize the rest of the world?

The question came up on the panel, and I had an answer. By the time Facebook has exhausted other courses of pursuing growth, it’s going to go for its most ambitious marketing push yet: Facebook will give every person alive age 13 and up a phone.

Facebook will need to do this once its growth levels off, as it reaches somewhere between 1 and 2 billion users. Once it has signed up between 15%  to 30% of the world’s population, one of the most ambitious companies the world has known will need the mother of all stimulus packages.

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Amidst heavy coverage of the effects of Facebook’s recent Open Graph and Social Plugin releases, one unforeseen side effect arose that no one predicted, not even Facebook. In order to link more users to Pages , Facebook connected fans’ Likes and Interests on their profiles with corresponding Facebook Pages. However, by doing so, Facebook inadvertently created thousands of unofficial community pages based on the way users entered their interests.

If you used to have Lady Gaga listed in your Favorite Music section of your Facebook profile, you would now become connected to the Lady Gaga Facebook page.

There were some upsides to Facebook’s changes – turning Likes and Interests into Page Connections. Specifically, if an Official Brand Page was aligned with a user’s likes or interests, Facebook automatically added those users into the Page. Some Official TV Show Pages saw as much as a two-fold increase in fans in the span of a week.

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This week, we learned of Facebook’s plans to launch a location-based service with partner McDonald’s, Congress introduced a web privacy bill, Google unveiled a new look and the Microsoft-Yahoo alliance announced that it will soon begin its advertiser transition. Read our complete recap below — and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter to find out about new job opportunities with our team.

Report: Facebook to Get in on the McLocation Game with Fast Food Giant

AdAge reports that Facebook is partnering with McDonald’s for the launch of its much-anticipated location service. The new location functionality will not be only for brands – soon, users will be able to post their location within a status update.

Image via InsideFacebook.com

McDonald’s is reportedly building an app that will allow customers to check in to a restaurants and receive information about a featured product for that location. The image above shows a location-based app already live within the McDonald’s Page, though this feature is not yet ready for primetime. According to Inside Facebook, at present the app simply tells users to be on the lookout for updates, as McDonald’s is expanding its “local Facebook reach.”

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Nielsen and Facebook recently released a study outlining the positive relationship between paid and earned media on brand awareness and engagement metrics. The study is the first joint research report from the two companies following their September 2009 announcement that they were partnering to develop quantifiable brand-focused measurement for advertisers on Facebook. This white paper outlines the cumulative results of their “BrandLift” studies across 14 Facebook campaigns.

360i POV on Nielsen and Facebook’s Advertising Effectiveness Study

Key Takeaways

What prompted the study?: As social marketing continues to evolve, marketers, agencies and publishers have been struggling to understand the impact of social channels on driving brand metrics – and, more importantly, how to measure and compare this impact alongside traditional brand media channels. Measuring brand awareness, ad recall and purchase intent within the context of Facebook advertising will help marketers understand the value of running paid and earned media together and could inform larger decisions around their media mix and budget allocation.

Why is this important to marketers?: Looking at the bigger picture, this study highlights the importance and impact of online media, both paid and earned, on driving brand metrics. Social marketing as earned media is becoming a bigger part of the marketing mix, but is often planned and evaluated separately from traditional digital media channels. Thus far, there has not been a definitive study showing the complementary connection between paid and earned media. Nor has there been the framework through which marketers and agencies can plan these two mediums together.

Next Steps: Marketers need to begin looking at paid and earned media initiatives as complementary and know that planning them together can impact brand metrics. Marketers and their agencies will need to develop strategies that include both, clearly laying out how they’ll play off each other.

When planning a campaign that’s meant to engage consumers beyond the initial click, it’s imperative that consumer behavior and social context are taken into account. Marketers and agencies have the ability to drive that behavior by including the right tools and support to help their audience connect with their brand and amplify their message.

Stay tuned for more thoughts right here on our blog and via Twitter at http://twitter.com/360i.

The biggest news this week came out of Facebook’s F8 Conference, where the social network announced plans that will change the way content is shared across the Web. Other top stories include Foursquare’s new local business initiatives and the announcement of AOL Ad Desk. Read our roundup for a summary of these stories and more.

Facebook Rolls Out Social Plugins and Open Graph

At the F8 Conference this week Facebook unveiled new features that have instantly made the Web more social. The world’s largest social network – now 400 million users strong – rolled out its Social Logins and Open Graph across dozens of sites, empowering site owners to make any content on their site more personalized and sharable.

Social Plugins – such as a Like Button, Recommendations and others – make it easier for site owners to add social components to any site and empower visitors to share content via their Facebook activity streams. The Open Graph connects websites with Facebook users’ profiles, and allows publisher to reach such users through their News Feed streams.

Pandora is one of 75+ publishers that have already integrated the new Facebook features into their sites.

Though there have been some early privacy concerns, Facebook’s initiatives are primed to help brands increase engagement on their sites, drive traffic, encourage consumer advocacy of their content and products, and potentially improve conversions due to increased personalization.

For a full recap of the news – and what it means for your marketing efforts – read our POV.

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