The person in question had been given a brief by their EMEA Board to investigate how organisations were using Social Media, in an effort to develop an organisation-wide strategic approach. With more than a touch of cynicism about the value of such an exercise, (reinforced by a fruitless afternoon’s trawling search engines for an answer), the Director had started searching LinkedIn Answers for inspiration. They came across a response I had posted to a similar question and as Bernard Hodes Group had an existing supplier relationship with the company (albeit with a different department), she contacted the head of that department to get my contact details. The irony wasn’t lost on me…

As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we regularly trawl the ether for examples of good/best practice (as well as poor/worst practice). We try to encourage our clients to benchmark themselves not only against other competitors in the HR industry, but against a broader competitive set. In one such recent ‘expedition’, we came across a useful blog that provided a list of social media marketing examples.

There were two specific questions that the consultant was looking for: how were organisations using Second Life and whether YouTube could be used for commercial purposes. I’m not going to delve into the response we provided (conversations are still ongoing), but the list of URLs below is worthwhile exploring. The first is a list of some companies using Second Life, the second, a list of some companies that are using YouTube. Neither list is exhaustive, but it should start to give you a good feel for the pros and cons of each option.

Second Life

·         ArcelorMittal:  Second Life presence

·         Coca-Cola: Virtual Thirst contest in Second Life to design a vending machine

·         Dell: Second Life island

·         IBM: IBM Business Center and Rational Software Conference/Hipihi in Second Life

YouTube channels

·         Alltop: Alltop tutorial on YouTube.

·         AT&T:  Share AT&T channel on YouTube

·         DaimlerAG: Daimler-Blog YouTube channel

·         EMC2:  YouTube channel

·         Forrester: YouTube channel

·         Johnson & Johnson: J&J health channel on YouTube.

·         Kodak: YouTube channel

·         Quicken: YouTube account.

·         Sun Microsystems: YouTube account.

·         UK Government: Number10 channel on YouTube

·         Wells Fargo: YouTube channel