S'WORLD

The Social Media Digest is a weekly feature where we highlight interesting campaigns, links and news from the previous week in the world of social media. This week, we look at a big brand that’s using a small social media platform to build its new microsite, a social media term that has become part of the common vernacular, a new category of social participation, an example of social media as a tool for employee education, and an update on the results of one social gaming company’s campaign to raise money for those effected by the earthquake in Haiti.

Department of Fannovation – Coca-Cola is the latest company to build a microsite on top of a social service with their Dept. of Fannovation, powered by the micro blogging service Posterous. The site itself isn’t very exciting, and the campaign isn’t very compelling either (submit your idea about how to improve the NCAA fan experience for the chance of winning $10k) but it’s interesting to see large companies tap existing audiences and keep the cost of development down by applying their own design to an existing infrastructure.

‘Tweet Me’ – This year, the Sweethearts candies that everyone gives to one another for Valentine’s Day will include a new saying: Tweet Me. If that’s not a sign of social media hitting the mainstream, nothing is.

Conversationalists – Forrester, a research company that often focuses heavily on social media, has added a new category to their social ladder: Conversationalists, or people who use Twitter and Facebook to post status updates and engage in conversations with their friends. According to Forrester, one third of all US adults now fall into this category, meaning that they post their status onto at least one social networking site at least one time per week.

Ribbon Hero – Microsoft has created a social game to help users boost their skills in Word, PowerPoint and Excel. By playing these games, users score points and unlock challenges, and can then brag about it to their friends on Facebook through Facebook Connect.

Haiti Relief Fund Update – Last week, Zynga announced that they would be raising money for the Haiti relief efforts by selling virtual goods in four of their most popular social games, and this week, they announced that in just five days, more than 300,000 players had purchased virtual goods and helped Zynga raise more than $1.5 million. One interesting thing to note however is that more than $1 million of those funds was raised in FarmVille alone, so the spread of spending inside of social games isn’t quite as widespread as Zynga would have you believe.

The Social Media Digest is a weekly feature where we highlight interesting campaigns, links and news from the previous week in the world of social media. This week, we look at how to get the most out of your Twitter and Facebook presence, a unique way of integrating social into your trade show booth, a social media RFP template, and one way social gaming is helping to raise money for those effected by the earthquake in Haiti.

Twitter Guide Book – The social media blog Mashable has gathered up all of their Twitter content into a complete collection of resources ranging from Twitter 101 to using Twitter for Business. If you’re looking for anything Twitter related, this is probably a good place to start.

Twitter Case Studies – Twitter has a whole site dedicated to helping business use their service, and one of the most useful features is the addition of a case studies section. If you’re interested in what’s possible for a business that really embraces Twitter, check out the companies that they’re highlighting.

Facebook Guide Book – Similar to Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book, but for Facebook. If you just want to review the basics, or if you’re looking for more advanced topics, this is a great resource.

Inside Facebook Pages – Sysomos is a social media analytics company, and they released a very detailed report that looks at Facebook Pages and the numbers behind them. If you want to understand more about what makes a good Facebook Page, and how fans interact with Facebook Pages, give this report a read.

CES Bound – Instead of the usual trade show booth, Griffin restored an old VW camper-van and drove it across the country on their way to the Consumer Electronics Show, promoting Griffin’s products along the way through all kinds of social media. (Messages through Twitter, a blog, videos through YouTube, and location check-ins through BrightKite.) Be sure to check out how they used a customized Tumblr blog to lower the cost of developing a website for the campaign, and to integrate their trip with the pre-existing Tumblr community.

Social Media RFP Template – It’s not perfect, but Social Media Group’s Social Media RFP Template does give good insight into the types of things companies are going to be looking for when they hire an agency to handle their social media.

Haiti Relief Fund – Zynga users raised more than $1.2 million for Haiti’s women and children during their previous campaign, so in response to the recent earthquake, Zynga quickly launched a new campaign on FarmVille, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker to help their 40 million daily users donate to the relief efforts. If you’ve ever wondered how much money people are actually spending on virtual goods, keep an eye on the results of this campaign.