what companies do you think engage effectively in social media marketing - locally or nationally?

[Duncan Alney]

what companies do you think engage effectively in social media marketing - locally or nationally? What's the reasons for their successes and failures. I believe that if there's no failures along the way - there's probably not a lot of effort or some cover up going on. Anyway, I'm keen to hear your thoughts everybody!

[Arnie Goldberg]

It seems that Realtors in general are beginning to catch on some as to the value of social media marketing...
More and more service companies, even small to mid-size at least have a presence on the social media platforms.. How much they know about using the platforms effectively is another question....
Many larger corporations are dedicating a person or two to social media responses .... as far as specific companies I can think about that and respond more later....

[Ryan Sawrie]

A company that I enjoy following on Twitter and Facebook is Threadless. Threadless is an alternative t-shirt company that has done a great job engaging their customers through these tools. They offer weekly competitions and giveaways that are easy to participate in and give customers an enhanced experience with the company. Personally, I have purchased five t-shirts in the past few months because of the social marketing promotions that they have run. Check them out at @threadless and facebook.com/threadless.

[Rodger D. Johnson]

Ford is doing a pretty good job with its Fiesta Movement By no means and I a Ford customer, but the social media hype and tools they are using to build buzz for the car is quite entertaining and informative too. Do check it out.

[Michael Henry Starks]

Duncan,

I listened to a few webinars on social media over the last few weeks. In one of them, "Social Media Success Summit" (www.socialmediasummit09.com/), Chris Garrett (www.chrisg.com) mentioned Comcast, Starbucks, Zappos and Dell as standouts. MarketingProfs.com cites KOGI KOREAN BBQ, THE COFFEE GROUNDZ, COMCAST CABLE, ZAPPOS, DELL COMPUTERS, SOUPLANTATION, TECHRIGY, DECHO, SHAQ, WALT DISNEY CO., and 12FOR12K CHARITY.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you want to discuss or need more details.

Pax,
Michael

[Kristen Bitzegaio]

A local company that is really nailing one area of social media marketing is Bring the Hope. I follow them on Twitter, and Mike always has a great tweets. Quite the variation of company information, relevant news and fun stories.

[Duncan Alney]

Good to know Kristen! I'll have to check them out!

[Lola McIntyre]

Prime word here is 'engage'. I try to improve my use of social media marketing as a tool. The biggest component is that of 'engagement' or conversation. Yesterday, I notice General Motors car sales have gone up 10%, while competitors have dropped. Their reason? Implementing social media marketing and 'engaging' authentic conversational interactions with the public, specific the Gen-Y and Gen-X demographic; it's working.

[Duncan Alney]

what about local companies guys? It seems like there are a lot of non profits that use social media well for marketing? Thoughts?

[Jane Goodwin]

Steve Spangler Science does a spectacularly excellent job with social medial. Not only is Steve himself on Twitter - so are all of the employees. The employee list is on Steve's blog. There are also links to all of the actual employee Twitters. His employees are encouraged to speak their minds on Facebook and Twitter both. You will also find Spangler people on educational forums. We are everywhere.

[Johnnie Firari]

I have always thought Scotty's Brewhouse has done a fairly decent job of utilizing Social Media. They have their MySpace icon, Facebook icon and Twitter icon on all there marketing material. Scotty the owner I do believe is on Smaller Indiana. The only thing I have not notice them doing on their website is a blog. Overall they are effectively using Social Media marketing and every time I go business appears to be good.
@yougonetwork