Social Media in Practice

by jill ~ March 13, 2009

We’re bombarded everyday with information on how executives and companies should be utilizing the social media tools at their fingertips - that combining traditional content, talent and service with the digital/social media world can enhance a brand and draw more loyal consumers.

Today, I wanted to point out a few recent examples of “social media done right” - being reported on this week:

- How I Met Your Mother, the popular CBS television series has been working scrupulously to build an online presence for its show, characters and cast. Yesterday’s The Business Insider has an article about the ways that this show has banked on viral videos, web sites and blogs to promote the show.

- PepsiCo, a major sponsor of the film and music festival South By South West (SXSW), is going Web2.0 this year by harnessing Twitter, which has created a “Twitter Visualization” that’s designed to showcase all the chatter around the event. Check out this article in Brandweek for more information.

- According to this story on CNN, the Police and Fire Departments in Lakeland, Florida (population: 78,452) find social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook as convenient wasy to share information - “tweets” range from road closures to suspect descriptions, and they are looking at it as “a police scanner for the digital world.”

- This article on AdAge.com shows who is using Twitter and how - including: “How Dell sold more than a million dollars worth of overstock computers through its @DellOutlet Twitter feed, which has 137,000 followers; how Zappos has a page that shows who’s tweeting about it; how Comcast is digging itself out from under a poor service reputation one customer at a time; @comcastcares will respond if you tweet about challenges with your Comcast service and will solve your problem in 140 characters or refer you to people who can help; and how H&R block asks its Twitter followers about potential product upgrades.”