Five Gems – I’m It!

Parker Mason from BlogCampaigning tagged me in an interesting game going around the Web right now. The game is to “come up with five great examples of social media use that our peers might not have noticed.” It’s harder than I thought it would be!

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules
2. List five social media projects that deserve better exposure
3. Tag “Social Media/Digital Experts” at the end of your post and list their names
4. Let them know they’ve been tagged
5. Tag your post “Five Gems” so we can search for all of these great examples

Here are my favorite five in no particular order:

 

Nike+

Nike has always meant “genius” in my mind. The company took a product and turned it into an online community for runners to partner together and share experiences, goals, training and accomplishments. Training alone is extremely hard (I did it for my first marathon and it was not easy), so why not meet your target market’s needs with a product and a community? Get your Nike+ gear, plug it into your computer and you and your online running friends and supporters can track your progress and cheer you on to achieve your goals.

Starbucks

Specifically, Starbucks’ use of Twitter. The official Starbucks Web site says, “We always figured that putting people before products just made good common sense. So far, it’s been working out for us. Our relationships with farmers yield the highest quality coffees. The connections we make in communities create a loyal following. And the support we provide our baristas pays off everyday.” The relationships built through consistent daily twittering in which the company offers contests and other incentives for interaction actually makes fellow twitter-ers feel connected to the company. The way the person behind the account writes and interacts reflects the comfortable, personal, “where everyone knows your name” feel that a small-town coffee shop has in spite of the global nature of the company.

Barack Obama

I hate political campaigns, I realize that today is election day, but I don’t want to talk about it. The statistics say it all. (I know it’s irrelevant now, but future politicians and campaign managers would do well to look at this!)

PROpenMic

PROpenMic is a social networking site for PR students, educators and professionals. It has many similarities to Facebook, but groups are PR-centered, the front page content is PR-related, and participants can feed their own PR blogs to the site, among other features. The creator, Robert French, is a PR professor at Auburn University and he maintains the site, constantly adding new and useful features. If you are in any way related to the field of public relations, check out the site!

Keppie Careers

Miriam Salpeter founded Keppie Careers, offering a number of services related to job searches and careers. This woman is everywhere the people who will be entering the workforce in the next few years are. She hosts the official Keppie Careers Web site, maintains the Keppie Careers blog, and is on Twitter, to name a few of the social media outlets she uses. I have watched her build and maintain relationships with clients (and potential clients) through Twitter, while attracting new potential clients through free advice and interesting nuggets of information on her blog. I’m impressed!

I’m tagging Robert French, David M. Scott, Brandi King, Whitney Taylor (because I want to know what the fashion industry is doing with social media), and Dana Lewis (to make her start a blog – probably the most accomplished person in the world without one!)