The automated customer service representative annoys all of us. We have all navigated numerical menu options (press one for 'I want to bash your product against the wall') that make us wait for a solution until we yell, "Can't I just speak to a human?" We've also dealt with customer service over e-mail, watching threads of miscommunication go on for days. Built up frustration and unsolved problems often lead a user to complain on social media - the same digital place that companies are trying to promote themselves. (...)

Today, with music services on Facebook, there's a new way to listen with friends. This feature lets you listen along with any of your friends who are currently listening to music. You can also listen together in

a group while one of your friends plays DJ.

You can listen to the same song, at the exact same time-so when your favorite vocal part comes in you can experience it together, just like when you're jamming out at a performance or dance club.

How it works (click here to know more)

Each participant is asked to upload a picture of themselves as a child and a recent one, in order to win a photoshoot with the renowned Irinia Werning. This argentinian photographer owes its success to her project "Back to the Future" that offers her models to redo a photoshoot of one of their childhood pictures, 20 years later, with the same details.

After participating, users can invite their friends to do the same.

This is one singular way to celebrate the birthday of the theme park, that has one of the biggest Facebook community in France - with more than 1.5 million fans on Facebook.

We hope good resolutions have been taken for everyone...social media included! Here are a few suggestions...

1 -- Google+: I will make more friends this year

It's been a strong year of growth for the newest social media group on the block, but when people are comparing you to a platform that is within an earshot of a billion friends, you feel like a hermit with  only 62 million people in your circle.

You've done good so far Google+. You became the fastest growing network ever and you started letting in brands and people using alas names, but you are going to have to boost those numbers for it to feel like there are any fish in this vast ocean.

I think 2012 could be the year that Google+ gains its stride and... click here to read more

Vodafone, one of the biggest brands on social media, launched a Facebook app, the "Zoozoo X'mas Melodies".

ZooZoos are white creatures with ballooned bodies and egg heads who are used to promote various value added services of Vodafone in India, where they are hugely popular. There are more than 200 pages on ZooZoos having over 200000 fans, growing daily.

Talking about this exciting new app, Anuradha Aggarwal, Vice President-Brand Communication and Insights of Vodafone India said: "Vodafone Zoozoos have spread cheer through their unique and quirky antics ever since they came into our lives. This special Zoozoo application has been designed to add to the festive fervor and let fans experience the Vodafone way of celebrating life with joy, fun and togetherness.  Our lovable Zoozoos will help you send personalized greetings to your friends and family across the world this Christmas. With the world going digital, we are confident that this application will be quite popular amongst the millions of Zoozoo and Vodafone fans on Facebook."

For the moment, Facebook isn't letting brands use Timeline and hasn't given any details on a potential date. Too bad, there is some pretty good creative potential to be unleashed there!

He talks about the ROI of social media and how it will be necessary for each business, whatever the size, to use social media in the forthcoming years, the empowerment of the common consumer having created a fundamental shift in how businesses are expected to behave.

You click here to see the full keynote.

Like the page and get the 'Swiss citizenship'

Simply ask the mayor of Obermutten, a Swiss village of barely 80 inhabitants. He made a promise: anyone liking their Facebook page will have the honor to be displayed on the bulletin board.

The concept worked so well that the number of their fans has almost reached 10 000 members (125 fans for 1 inhabitant, quite a fair ratio!). The name of Obermutten has been buzzing all around in the last weeks, from local TV to international newspapers.

A simple yet engaging content

The content on the wall is not revolutionary, but very well on point: we are a village no one has ever heard about, but that does not mean you shouldn't try to get to know us better. And we would really like to know you too.

A first kind of post consists in some information regarding the town or the region (a video, an album photo, a link). The few introductory lines are always written in a polite yet friendly way, almost in the form of a letter you would write to a friend. ("Dear fans", "Greetings", "Kind regards").

The second kind of post asks for contribution from the fans. It is very interesting here to see how the village is really thinking social, asking for help on the translation of their wikipedia page into other languages, or to introduce them to people from other remote places for example ("We look for a fan who lives in the Antarctica. Do you have friends there?").

Members joining the page or contributing are warmly thanked. Very often the thanking is personal.

One of the highlights of the page is a contest, with a fan picked at random winning a homemade made present, a scarf made by the daughter of the mayor in person. The winner was a man from... South Korea.

A successful case of marketing on Facebook

An original idea making the page go viral, a simple but relevent content, a direct and sincere conversation with the fans, all the basic ingredients are reunited to make the page a success. And in fact, it works. The engagement rate on the page is impressive (higher than that of Lady Gaga's page), and the traffic onto their website has increased by 250%.

People of Obermutten, you may only have "one hotel, one church, and a few cows", you rocked it.

Fans will vote which car, between the two legendary Combi T1 and Beetle, will resuscitate.

Blue coloured, it will be the most social car ever, by integrating most Facebook features: a gearstick in the shape of a 'like' button, the possibility to print out your news and to even change your relationship status on the registration plate.

Pushing realism a step further, Volkswagen even designed a vintage manuel describing in details the social characteristics of the two potentially winning cars.

The car which gets the most likes will be won by a fan, who will have the opportunity to customize it.

For the moment the Combi T1 is largely ahead...