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Beattie Communications has launched the world’s first male marketing boutique, Only Men, proving a range of PR and marketing services to brands targeting a male audience.

Companies are reporting an increase from 4% to 9% in the portions of their total budgets allocated to the measurement and evaluation of PR/comms programmes, a spike which represents the widespread adoption of social media monitoring tools and greater use of primary research in planning and evaluation, according to the Communication & Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices study from USC Annenberg.

The functionality behind Twitter’s new image galleries, which allows pictures to be displayed on a user’s profile page, may see images posted which a Twitter account holder may prefer to remain hidden, warns Punch Communications.

Harris Interactive has launched Social Web Ladder, an audience segmentation tool which categorises online communicators by social media involvement and influence. “Social Web Ladder demystifies the who behind the what and helps businesses identify the most valuable brand influencers, then streamline engagement strategies around them.”

Euro RSCG Worldwide PR’s recently launched Buzz Group is already racking up big metrics. They include 120 placements in print, online and broadcast for the 2011 Mary J Blige Honors Concert, a close to 360% increase in Facebook post views

By Maria Stadtmueller. More than 1 million people a week view Tweets related to US cable TV customer service experiences and over 80% of those posts reflect a critical or negative customer experience, according to TOA Technologies’ Twitter Study.

By Steve Mullins. While 60% of the FTSE Global 500 companies are present on social media platforms, less than one tenth of them are effectively using the channel to support their corporate social responsibility activities, according to research conducted by The United Nations Office for Partnerships, the Centre for Public Relations Studies and Wolfstar Consultancy.

By Steve Mullins. The Social Media Reality Check 2.0 is here, exploring professional communicators’ use of the channel compared with consumer opinions about social media influence on their purchasing behaviour.