Ideas That Spread

35 Examples of How Companies are Using Social Media

35 Examples of Corporate Social Media - via Mashable

• Blendtec
• Adobe maintains a list of interesting company related websites and conversations on the social bookmarking site Delicious.
• Best Western sponsors a blog, “On the Go with Amy”, where the author travels the country writing about her experiences.
• Cadence recently relaunched its website that now prominently promotes the company’s community.
• Cisco hosts 12 blogs addressing a variety of audiences for their global business.
• Coca-Cola Conversations is a blog written by company historian Phil Mooney that focuses on Coke collectibles
• Dell leverages a variety of social media platforms for customer engagement, including an island in the virtual world of Second Life.
• Ford publishes news releases with lots of multimedia content and employs a social media news release format to display them in their newsroom.
• Fujifilm recently launched a social network to build a community of photo enthusiasts around its newest camera.
• GM uses blogs to communicate directly with its customers around topics ranging from design to green tech.
• H&R Block created a Facebook fan site to aggregate its social media activities, engage customers and offer tax advice/resources.
• HP used Twitter to power a scavenger hunt at a recent conference.
• HSBC built the HSBC Business Network to connect entrepreneurs using blogs, videos and forums.
• IBM was the first large enterprise to embrace employee blogging and now boasts thousands of blogs related to every facet of its business.
• Intel has also developed many social media touch points with its software communities, which includes blogs, Twitter and virtual worlds.
• Intuit sponsors the Tax Almanac wiki, where anyone can find and contribute to this resource for tax information.
• Jeep connects with customers via a community page with links to photos on Flickr, the company’s MySpace and Facebook pages and a list enthusiast groups.
• JetBlue employs social media as part of its training for JetBlue University, as this video explains.
• Johnson & Johnson uses this blog to show another side of the company, with frequent video posts and interviews.
• Lenovo launched “Voices of the Olympics Games” to aggregate posts from the athletes competing in Beijing.
• Marriott CEO Bill Marriott posts regular updates and stories from his travels to Marriott properties around the world to fuel the content for this entertaining blog.
• McDonalds maintains a blog to highlight the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.
• National Geographic uses Google’s new virtual world, Lively, to bring people together around its new show, LA Hard Hats.
• New York Times is beta testing a Firefox add-on that allows users to share and comment on stories through a decentralized social network.
• Nike started a social community on Loopd to connect athletes interested in surfing, BMX bike racing and similar activities with the brand.
• SAP sponsored a global survey of social media professionals to learn more about social media worldwide.
• Sears partnered with MTV to create a social network around Back to School shopping.
• Southwest Airlines employees share their stories and communicate directly with customers through the “Nuts About Southwest” blog.
• Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz’s blog is the example most often cited for what the CEO blog can be.
• Starbucks started MyStarbucksIdea so that customers can submit ideas for the company which are then voted on by other users, the best of which will be implemented by the company.
• Toyota started its own virtual world to promote its products in Japan (site is in Japanese).
• Visa launched The Visa Business Network application on Facebook to connect small business users and to help them promote their businesses to a larger community.
• Wells-Fargo blogs target two audiences; one examines the company’s history and the other is for students interested in getting their finances in order.
• WWE has a Facebook application, among other social networking tools and widgets, to bring fans closer to the action.
• Xerox blogs address several of the company’s core B2B constituencies.
• Zappos uses Twitter for employees to communicate with Zappos customers about their shared love of footwear.