There are many social media theories flying around these days. It's new (comparing to traditional media) with a unique point of "participation" from outsiders, hence it's so interesting.

More and more companies give social media increasing weight in their marketing mix, due to the nature of the brand and products, the approach varies to certain degrees.

If using B2C or B2B business as example, B2C services try to leverage the spirit of the consumers, or say evangelists. On the other hand, B2B services use more of their own staff to keep the momentum.

B2C companies, such as P&G (with brands like Olay & Ariel), General Mills (makes products like Cheerios and Häagen-Dazs), they are more flexible with their social media strategies. They focus on each individual brand and let them do their own thing, however, trying to keep the synergy of the whole platform. The most important thing they want to maintain is the human touch of the brands and learn more of consumers, then react. The staff/department/agency working on the task are more like facilitators and keep the conversation flow.

B2B companies, such as IBM, Intel, they value their employees as the assets of the company. With the great communication internally and externally, their employees got motivated and themselves are actually carrying the most weight of the social media playing. IBM has 17k internal blogs, almost 50% of global employees are on Facebook, twitter and Linkedin. They are the influencing others about the brand and company. Chosen industry experts from the company leverage their own profile, pages and groups to engage with the world. Intel claims that their goal is to empower any employee who would like to engage in conversation with customers on Intel's behalf. The company provides training programs, seminars to discuss its official guidelines, potential legal issues, and how to ensure communications are personalised.

I will try to discuss more later on specific case studies, since they are inspiring and amazing.