Social media examples and stats | Segal Benz

Great examples from the eBay/Ragan conference

If you were born after 1980, 62% of the content you read is created by someone you know. Yes, seriously!

That statistic is amazing, but makes sense when you think about all of the content created on social networking and blog platforms. Corporate communications now has to compete with all of that content in addition to typical “mainstream” media.

Here are just a few of the great examples of social media campaigns discussed at the conference.

Good customer-facing blogs written by real employees

• TSA Evolution of Security
• Southwest Airlines blog (They have a Flickr group too!)

User-generated video content

• Deloitte Film Festival—Asked employees to answer the question “What’s your Deloitte?” Check out the Green Dot video if nothing else!
• Disney Dream Job—Asked fans to submit videos to win a day as a Disney character. Also was their most successful recruiting campaign ever. This one is my favorite.

User communities that support business

• Disney’s Moms Panel helps families plan their trip with expert customers to guide them through planning and give them tips and advice. Disney was overwhelmed with applicants who wanted to be the “mom” panelists.

And, here are IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines, referenced several times as the gold standard of corporate guidelines for blogs, wikis, social networks and social media.