LinkedIn, the social network for business, just added a new feature that makes the service a little more like. . . well, you know, that other popular social network which shall remain nameless.

It’s called Company Status Updates and it’s an easy way to keep your company’s name in front of your customers. This new feature allows the page admin to post a 500 character message which can include a video, URL or photo. That update then appears in the feed of any person following your company.

Here’s a screen shot from their intro video:

Only company page admins can post, but anyone can comment and that comment shows up on the Followers home page, so there’s that extra bit of reach everyone is always talking about.

The Millennial Generation, those aged 18 – 29, are poised to take over the world. There are 1.7 billion of them in the world, 77 million in the US and you need their support.

Luckily, Millennials are willing to go the extra mile for a brand they love, but they do expect a few easy rewards in return.

Aimia released the first part of a study today called “Born This Way: The US Millennial Loyalty Survey.” In it, they compare the attitudes and responses of Millennial consumers to those over 30 (Non-Millennials) in regard to loyalty programs.

Right now, 77% of US Millennials said they participated in a loyalty program, slightly less than their over-30 counterparts. But 78% said they were more likely to choose a brand that had a reward program over one that didn’t.

To quote an old cigarette commercial, you’ve come a long way, baby. As recently as 2009, social media ad revenue barely crossed the $2 billion mark. This year, eMarketer predicts the number will hit $5.54 billion, rising to $9.99 in 2013.

Right now, the US is responsible for most of the spend, but the rest of the world is coming on strong. By 2013, 51% of the ad revenue will come from outside the US.

As you can probably guess, most of the money is going to Facebook, but Twitter is pushing for more and more. eMarketer added LinkedIn to their predictions this year, figuring them for 3% of the ad revenue in 2011. This represents a big jump over the last few years, but eMarketer says that growth spurt is already leveling off.

If you’re reading this post, then chances are you use social media to market your business, but what else do you use it for?

A new study by Booz & Company and Buddy Media, shows that social media is coming into its own as a customer service tool, a way of conducting market research and even a way to handle internal communications. It all points to the fact that companies of every size are getting serious about social media and that means more money and resources going to support the cause.

The new study, called “Campaigns to Capabilities: Social Media and Marketing 2011, takes a closer look at the role social media plays in a variety of companies. The results are hardly startling, but interesting nevertheless.

How do you measure the success of your Facebook page? We look at the number of Followers, we look at the number of comments and the number of views per post. But social media marketing is more encompassing than that. It’s about connections and reviews, it’s about creating buzz that travels from your customer to their friends and out to their friends and so on.

Facebook is making an attempt to quantify these connections with new metrics for Pages. Once the product is launched, you’ll find these new details on the Insights tab which is open to any admin on a Fan Page.