Vail Resorts has abandoned its long-time advertising strategies and practices. In their place, the billion-dollar-a-year corporation, which operates five major resorts and twenty hotels, has built a new in-house marketing operation that uses social media and other digital venues to constantly engage skiing enthusiasts in real time…more here

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Check out Coke’s Expedition206! Wow!

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According to a second annual survey of companies conducted by Deloitte, Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research, 94 percent of the respondents (major global companies) indicated that they plan to maintain or increase investment in their communities, while only six percent plan to decrease investment. …read more

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Deloitte LLP’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications (TMT) practice has recently released the results of the 2009 Tribalization of Business Study, which evaluates the perceived potential of online communities* and identifies how enterprises believe they may better leverage them. Conducted in conjunction with Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research, this second edition of the Tribalization of Business Study measured the responses of more than 400 companies including Fortune 100 organizations which have created and maintain online communities today. …read more

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SmallBlue, an innovative expertise locator that helps those IN the IBM community find knowledgeable people or learn more about new acquaintances. SmallBlue is a suite of four tools:

•SmallBlue Find — to see a relevance-ranked list of people associated with any search term.

•Use SmallBlue Net — to get a view of the social network of the top 100 experts in any topic.

•Use SmallBlue Reach — for more information about a person, including a list of their latest blog entries, bookmarks or forum posts or to see which communities they belong to.

•Use SmallBlue Ego — to see your own connections, and through them, the number of other people you can reach.

…read more

Main SmallBlue site

SmallBlue demo movie at main SmallBlue portal

SmallBlue case study

Popularity: 4% [?]

With the popularity of social media ever on the rise, it’s no surprise that industry experts are weighing in on SM trends for 2010.

Things to look for: Increased popularity in mobile and sharing functionality, tighter workplace regulations on employee profiles and a continuation in companies looking for cost-effective ways to serve their customers through access to online support – further proof that companies are looking to social media for cost-savings and optimal monetization.

Read on for David Armano’s full article on the Harvard Business blog Six Social Media Trends for 2010.

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Charles Nelson, president of Sprinkles Cupcakes, doesn’t have a Facebook profile. Nelson, who works seven days a week, has no time for chatting online with Facebook friends.

But Nelson is logged on to Facebook all the time. That’s because more than 70,000 people have declared themselves fans of Sprinkles’ Facebook page, which is at facebook.com/sprinkles.

Each day on the site, Sprinkles announces a secret word, such as “ganache” or “bunny,” and the first 25 or 50 people to show up at any of its five stores around the country and whisper that word get a free cupcake.

“On Facebook, we can ask our customers what’s the next location they want,” Nelson said. “What do they think of our next flavor? It’s an amazing way to communicate with our fans.”

Facebook is not just for friends anymore. The free social networking site — blocked in some workplaces as a potential time-waster — is increasingly becoming an inexpensive marketing tool for small businesses.

Sprinkles is among a growing number of small businesses taking advantage of a relatively new program on Facebook, one that allows them to claim their name, become visible even to folks who aren’t on the site, and stay in close contact with their customers. The business, in effect, can act like any other person on Facebook, posting status updates and seeing what its fans are doing. …read more here–>

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Companies Crave Corporate Versions of Twitter and Facebook.

How should companies embrace social media? Twitter co-founder Biz Stone ticked off examples of corporations and small businesses using Twitter as a tool to reach customers, but many Brainstorm participants said they need social networks for internal collaboration. Diane Bryant, chief information officer of Intel, extolled the virtues of sites like Facebook: the engagement, the constant feedback, and the ability to quickly discover what your “friends” find interesting and important — all information that would be valuable in a working group. “Why isn’t there a social media application for the enterprise?” Bryant demanded. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s executive chairman, later described an emerging service, CompanyGroups, that might be the answer Bryant seeks. The tool serves as a sort of online back channel for workers to chat and share information. Hoffman explained that many individuals now use LinkedIn to ask their associates or advice on, say, the best way to stay abreast of industry news. Now, he says, “you’ll be able to do that within a company.” Sounds as if Intel might soon be one of those companies.

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