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I think Pat Benatar had it right when she sang “love is a battlefield” almost thirty years ago. Love is, and will always be, a space for our hearts’ inner most fears and desires to be won or lost for all to see. Love is just that motivating, inspiring dangerous and sometimes, simply nuts. And Valentine’s Day brings all the vastness of love to a head and often times, leaves some of us out in the cold. That is, until social media showed up.

What with all the social media marketing efforts flying around for Valentine’s Day, such as being able to send loved ones an Angry Birds - themed Facebook valentine or sending a virtual gift from CBS’s Mad Love Facebook Page, it is easy to assume that Valentine’s Day has lost all of its remaining sentimental value. However, I would argue that social media is actually beneficial for all the lovers out there. With tools such as Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, Yelp or even a recent startup (that connects to Facebook to help people find local & gift recommendations that match a loved one’s taste), making plans and sending gifts has become a simplified process. Now, there is really no worry (nor excuse) to not have plans, a gift or even a simple status update to showcase your love for another on Valentine’s Day.

Check out this video from Socialnomics to see just how easy social media has made it for anyone who needs to pull together great Valentine’s Day plans at the last-minute:

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As a follow up to our recent webinar, Facebook Bootcamp for PR, you’ll see five blog posts in the coming weeks exploring the five trends set out in our presentation.

There are two distinct forms of currency set to expand on Facebook: Facebook credits and cold, hard cash. Months after Facebook playing around with gift credits and launching a candy coated beta test, Facebook announced last week that it will be rolling out more gift monetization options. And just on Wednesday, Facebook posted a Payment Terms of Service Agreement on their developers’ site showing that this option is not far off. In this post I’ll touch on both and what each trend means for brands. continue reading