Coca Cola's social media policy

A couple of weeks ago I talked about the social media trends for 2010 (see here). One of the trends mentioned was that more and more companies would get social media policy's. Only just a couple of days ago I stumbled over a blog post talking about the social media policy that Coca Cola employs. This post predated the article I read before, but it gives a good insight into how a company handles social media. Next to listing 10 principes for online spokespeople it also links to a pdf containing Coca Cola's social media policy, which is a very interesting read.

Go here for the blogpost and here for the pdf.

An interview with Coca Cola's head of social media (yes they have one)

One of the more useful ways to use Twitter as a company

Not all of you might be familiar with Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of several legendary PC games, but I would still like to use them as an example. Many companies are looking for ways to use Twitter and other social phenomenons like facebook, but I think that not all companies have found a good use for Twitter yet. However, Blizzard did. They use it to keep people updated about upcoming patches for the Starcraft 2, which is currently in beta phase, as well as answering questions and promoting their game by posting examples of what is possible with the supplied game editor. They also have a big discussion board, but I do feel Twitter greatly supplements that by the more small and informal messages that are posted there. It gives costumers are more direct link with the company. I also think that more companies should use Twitter like this. Twitter is a very useful tool for short messages about servers that are down or small announcements. It also gives companies a place where they can directly refer to others using their products, something that could look quite out of place on their normal websites.

The official Starcraft Twitter can be found here

Augmented reality in your living room

I think most of use are familiar with the concept of augmented reality (if you're not, read up here) on mobile devices, but augmented reality in your living room is something new. A researcher at MIT came up with the idea of "Surround Vision". This allows a user to use his (or hers) mobile device to look at the content shown on a television from a different perspective. You should really check out the video to see what I'm talking about, because it explains things so much better than I can. I wonder what kind of roll augmented reality will play in the future, I'm pretty sure there must be some value in it for companies (I see a bright future for virtual banners shown in an augmented reality).

Dutch Police also using Twitter.

Last week I read an interesting article in one of the free newspapers you get at the train stations: it was about Dutch policemen using Twitter to talk about their job. Several police departments are using Twitter as a tool to help solve cases quicker. For example, the police in Veendam used Twitter to spread news and gain information when a pyromaniac went on a spree (read more here).

I find it interesting the Police has found Twitter to be a useful tool, but I am a bit worried about the lack of policy with regards to Twitter. There are no set rules about what a policemen can publish on Twitter and what not. How do you determine if they are acting as a policemen or if a tweet is a simple private tweet?

Let me know what you think!

David Letterman's first tweet

Couple of months old, but still pretty funny

A nice video about social media

And a more boring video of social media as a marketing tool.

The six social media trends for 2010

At the beginning of every year people like to predict the trends for the coming year. Even though it's already March I still would like to talk about it. I found an interesting blogpost from David Armano (Senior Vice President at Edelman Digital). He names the following trends:

The six social media trends for 2010
1. Social media begins to look less social
2. Corporations look to scale
3. Social business becomes serious play
4. Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)
5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline
6. Sharing no longer means e-mail

Especially trend number 4 is an interesting one. It shows that corporations are becoming aware of the power of social media. It recognizes the need for some kind of policy about how employees have to behave on social media platforms without being harmfull for the company they work for.

I do have doubts about trend number 6. I do believe e-mail will phase out in the future, but I doubt it will happen very soon.


Read more: David Armano's blogpost