One of the more common misconceptions about social media is that a company or brand can achieve and maintain meaningful results at little or no cost. Sure, setting up brand pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and just about any other social channel can be done in almost no time without spending a dime. But that’s like ordering tap water at a restaurant and hoping it will be the whole meal.

The truth is, achieving ongoing success on social media is anything but free. Based on the social media audits Renegade has performed over the last three years, we have identified five buckets of “hidden costs” that just about every practitioner will face soon enough.

This is the most epic brand meltdown on Facebook ever.

The two owners of Amy’s Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro took over the restaurant’s Facebook page last night to fight unruly commenters, and man, was it embarrassing. If you recognize the name of the restaurant, it was recently featured on an episode of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. The owners were dumped by Ramsey after being too difficult to work with.

As the landscape of media consumption continues to fragment and change, it is more challenging than ever to reach voters with paid political messaging.

Video on demand, streaming video and DVRs are all giving voters a new sense of time, allowing them to watch content when and where they want. Presidential campaigns and Super PACs are spending more money than ever on paid political communications ($3.2 billion in 2012), and they face even greater challenges when it comes to finding and reaching the small segments of voters needed to swing elections in today’s highly polarized political environment.

YouTube has just crossed a major milestone. On Wednesday, the Google-owned giant announced that it now has over one billion unique viewers on its site every month.

That’s one billion with a B - every month.

If you are using YouTube as part of your social media marketing strategy, how can you take advantage of this popularity? How can you get more YouTube viewers, and increase your YouTube views? Wishpond wants you to succeed in your online marketing, so we’ve put together a few answers.

Eight Tips on How to Get More Views on YouTube:

1. Brand Your YouTube Channel

Be consistent in your branding image when setting up your channel. Make sure your customers can easily identify you, by using the same logo and imagery used on your website, other social media sites, and your brick and mortar business.