The movement was started by a group of women who were bald themselves from chemotherapy or had children suffering from either the effects of treatment or other causes of hair loss like alopecia. More than 150,000 Facebook page Likes later, toy maker Mattel got the hint. The result: Hairless Barbie dolls will be distributed in 2013 to children’s hospitals.

As always, a few detractors are complaining that the dolls won’t be available through retail stores. That’s just negative thinking – Mattel is doing this right. The target market for the bald Barbie’s is not your typical Toys R Us shopper – it’s the kid going through a difficult time in her life. Directing their efforts to hospitals makes the most sense.

An added bonus: Now the movement has legs. A Facebook page is also up encouraging Hasbro to create a similar GI Joe product for boys.

In the past, organic write-in campaigns took years to gain attention. Social media has changed the timeline. It’s because of Facebook that the bald Barbie campaign has achieved its current level of success.

What other causes do you think would benefit from a strategic use of social media?

At last count, Twitter had about 30 million users. It’s fast, fun, direct, and one of the quickest ways to meet new people. Want to tell an author how much you liked his book? Send him a tweet. Chances are if he’s savvy, he’ll answer you back. Trying to connect with a cool new band? Tweet out how much you love their newest song – they might retweet it to their followers.

A lot of tools are available to maximize your Twitter use. Here are three of my favorites:

1)     BufferApp – One common complaint is that people don’t always remember to tweet. With BufferApp, you can schedule when you tweet. Sit down for a half an hour and queue up a dozen.

2)     Twitter Grader – Unless you’re a celebrity, building a Twitter following is an organic process. But you need to work on it and accept that it will likely take some time. To check on your progress, you can use Twitter Grader, which will give you a score to gauge your influence. It’s like Klout, but Twitter-specific.

3)     Twibes – One of the best parts of Twitter is finding like-minded people to share your interests. With Twibes, you can locate those people and join the discussion. In the process, you’ll build your following and influence.

Are you an active Twitter user? What are some of your favorite Twitter tools?

1)     Spam – Throwing out everything and anything just to get a response is the number one bad move. Your customers will engage with you if you provide content that is valuable. Bombard them with nonsense and you could turn them away forever.

2)     Blatant Sales Pitches – Again, your current and potential customers want good content that engages. If you blatantly try to pitch them on goods or services, customers will rebel and call foul. The page is about them, not you.

3)     Censor – You may not like everything that shows up on your wall, but if try to filter out the stuff you don’t like, your readers will notice. And if that happens and they go to social channels to complain, you’ve got yourself the makings of a public relations nightmare. Be transparent and accept that some discourse won’t be perfect.

4)     Above All, Stay Professional – Your Facebook business page, though part of a social environment, is still an extension of your brand. You must always retain a sense of professionalism in the content and comments you put out on the site.

Do you have a Facebook page for your business? What are some of your tips for maintaining a level of professionalism on a page?

One billion dollars is a lot of scratch to pay for an application that currently makes no money. Making that money back is going to take some time. Some postulated that it was to grab hold of Instagram’s estimated 30 million users, but that makes little sense. Facebook is already a social behemoth – another 30 million users isn’t worth the cost. Others suggested it was just to keep Google from grabbing hold. I get the idea of snatching up the hot product before your competition gets there first. But, again, $1 BILLION! Sorry, not buying it. The only explanation that seems to make even a little bit of sense is the desire to integrate a good mobile service into your platform. Facebook, whether they’ll admit to it or not, is pretty lousy at mobile. People use it but they don’t like it. Buying Instagram forces users to spend more time on with Facebook in the mobile environment, which means more opportunities to make money from them.

Still, it’s hard to escape that number. One billion dollars. It seems almost comical. I wonder if the creators of Instagram imagined something like this could ever happen. Most people are still scratching their heads.

What do you think of the purchase? Forward-thinking or pure folly?