So the King has entered the Twitter building! I’m sure somewhere in San Francisco there was a company toast at Twitter HQ, but is the decision by LeBron James and his LRMR marketing team (headed up by Maverick Carter) to hop on the social media tool the right timing? More importantly, is LeBron’s marketing team really prepared to handle all of his online PR during “The Decision” tonight on ESPN?

The details behind this digital move are fuzzy.  Will LeBron answer questions in real-time via Twitter during the 1 hour long ESPN special? Probably not. Will he simply answer a few carefully vetted questions post TV announcement? If the LRMR team really wanted to push the social media envelope, they could integrate Twitter live on the TV screen during the announcement. Of course, that’s way too risky considering the polarizing nature of “The Decision” (and not my recommendation).

Which brands are activating the best social media campaigns during the 2010 FIFA World Cup? Does being an official World Cup sponsor or FIFA partner like Adidas give the brand an edge over an unaffiliated competitor like Nike?

Even more interestingly, does focusing budgets on ambush marketing actually present a greater value proposition for brands such as Pepsi whose main competitor Coca-Cola is spending millions of dollars to be officially affiliated with the most popular sporting event in the world? Read our white paper to find out more!

Building on 32 years of futbol history as an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup (although a formal relationship began in 1974), the Coca-Cola Company recently launched a global ad campaign centered around its current theme of “Open Happiness” and backed by an aggressive digital strategy.

This campaign comes off the heels of the soon-to-conclude FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour which to date has seen the famed 18-carat gold trophy travel 93,958 miles (151,217 km) in over 225 days, crossing five continents and touching the lives of more than 500,000 futbol fans. The tour, which began on September 19, 2009 will do one final circuit in South Africa.

In case you didn’t already know by now, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his Director of Products, Brett Taylor (former Co-Founder and CEO of Friendfeed) introduced the next iteration of the Facebook Platform called the Open Graph to the web developer community, and it was generally well received by the public at large—at least on the content provider side.

Despite this announcement coming a mere two weeks ago on April 21, 2010 at the company’s third annual f8 conference, the Facebook Like Button was already implemented on over 50,000 websites and was seen tens of billions of times globally. In fact, the Like Button instantly exceeded 1 billion impressions in less than 24 hours with only 75 major websites using it at launch.

But what exactly does this mean for the sports marketing world, and what about you Joe fan?

Let’s get one thing straight upfront—social media is not as easy as “if you build it, they will come” for any athlete, team, league, or sponsor looking to establish or enhance brand equity.  Social media marketing is no different than traditional off-line marketing in that it requires a well thought out strategy, devoted resources, and a budget targeted at a reaching a measurable goal for the individual or organization.

With that said, social media’s major advantages—the cost-to-creativity ratio and the ability to expand reach via an engaged audience (key word here is “engaged” but I’ll explain more)—make this form of marketing so powerful that most athletes looking to enhance their salaries with fat endorsement checks should be asking their agency, management team, or friends and family why social media isn’t a part of their overall marketing strategy.

Facebook recently introduced an opt-in list of “Suggested Pages” as another step in the new user registration process. In stride with the recent decision to replace the “Become a Fan” button with “Like”, this appears to be an attempt by Facebook to encourage new users to express their interests and become active.

The phrase, “Connect with your favorite celebrities, businesses and brands to hear the latest news from them”, is displayed above the list.

Yesterday’s 2010 NFL Draft was one of the most anticipated and hotly debated in recent history, both off- and online. Rightfully so, the NFL has made a concerted effort to facilitate and capture fan conversations that are taking place across social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and blogging networks.

The key to the NFL’s online social media draft strategy was recognizing that “conversations are happening in a lot of different places,” NFL.com’s General Manager Laura Goldberg said. “We want to make sure we’re aggregating comments no matter where they are.”

Jimmy “J-Roll” Rollins has always been known for his blazing speed and affinity for two-baggers.  On Tuesday, April 13th, Rollins will look to add homerun king to an already impressive baseball resume.

While his Philadelphia Phillies teammates are resting after their Citizens Bank Park home opener against the Washington Nationals, Rollins will spend his afternoon launching baseballs in excess of 550 feet over a closed-down Philadelphia highway in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record.

Who’s the top athlete on Facebook? Is it an international phenom like Cristiano Ronaldo or Roger Federer with millions of fans? Or maybe an engaging personality like Shaun White or Steve Nash with creative, authentic content?

That’s a question Activ8Social set out to answer early in the new year and in the process, we decided to rank the Top 30 professional athlete Facebook Pages as of February 2010. Top caliber athletes from all over the world and from a variety of sports made the grade. Read our full blog entry for more details.

Activ8Social invites you to network with sports professionals in the Washington, DC area at our first event of the year. This will be a great opportunity to meet new people, exchange ideas, and talk sports.

It is FREE to attend and all are welcome, whether industry veteran or just starting out.

Where: Greene Turtle (Verizon Center), 601 F Street NW, Washington, DC (map)

When: Thursday, February 25, 2010 (6:00 pm – 9:00 pm)