Social media presents both tremendous opportunities and potential risks for all types of businesses and brands, including our own. To remind staff in China about the importance of posting responsibly and how we can protect ourselves, Ogilvy and our clients from harm we created this cartoon to make policy reading a little less boring. Enjoy!

Since then new social media platforms have become relevant, either side of the Great Firewall, and so we have reworked the infographic to reflect some of the changes.

[Click the graphic to view a larger, clearer version]

Some of the more interesting changes:

The merging of SNS and Microblogging categories: The line has always been blurred between Chinese SNS and microblogs, but with recent changes made to Sina and Tencent weibos that make them as much like Facebook as they are like Twitter, as well as the increasingly “Facebook-like” role in society of these platforms, I felt we had to reflect this in our infographic.

The addition of Purchase Sharing: Only a very rough equivalent to Buyosphere, platforms like Meilishuo and Mogujie allow people to share photos of what they have bought or might buy and allow easy links to shopping sites. These are growing quickly in popularity, especially among young women, and are an important force in branding that I believe marketers must do more to take advantage of.

The addition of Light-blogging: A number of Tumblr clones, such as DianDian and Sina’s Qing, have become popular in China among those that want a change from the “noisy” nature of Weibo.

The addition of Online Dating: You don’t get much more social than China’s dating websites, which are exploring various revenue models and have even gone ahead with some high-profile stock-market listings.

Of course, making graphics like this is far from being an exact science. Much of the changes we made are debatable, in many cases the Chinese equivalents have different features to their equivalents, and there are inevitable difficulties relating to category crossovers. We welcome any suggestions in the comments!

The rise of “geili”, which means awesome or cool and is sometimes translated as “ungeilievable”, has gone hand in hand with the staggering development of SNS and content-sharing platform Sina Weibo.

The word  – along with many other Chinese internet neologisms – drives me mad. I always thought Geili, which I found was first used on Weibo on September 24, 2009, would die out quickly, especially after major brands such as Intel (cl.) started using in their social media campaigns. Instead geili has proved unstoppable, and has been mentioned 66,374,879 times since then.

More so than Western equivalents Facebook and Twitter, Sina Weibo has a powerful search function that allows you to search for relatively complex keyword strings according to specific date and location. This means you can do some pretty interesting quantitative analysis.

Based on the number of mentions, I was also able to work out that Saturday was the most geili day of the week, that July 3, 2011 was the most geili day in history, and that September 20, 2011 was the least geili day – some may remember that it was this day that saw Sina Weibo mysteriously taken offline for several hours.

Spotlight on Malaysia – Education and crime in Malaysian tech focus

Other Asia – Updated Internet stats from all over Asia

China

China Mobile makes far more money than Unicom and Telecom

http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/08/25/china-mobile-makes-way-way-more-money-than-unicom-and-telecom/

In the past year, China Mobile made 61 billion RMB (about US$9.6 billion) in profits alone. For the first half of 2011, China Mobile’s profits were six times more than China Telecom’s, and twenty-four times more than China Unicom’s.

China tops US to become largest PC market

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14639021

China passed the US in PC shipments in the second quarter of 2011, marking the first time the Asian nation has done so. 18.5 million units were shipped in China during the quarter versus 17.7 million in the United States. The US is still expected to remain the largest PC market for the year of 2011 but will probably relinquish the throne to China at the end of 2012.

 Microsoft forms cloud-computing partnership in China

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/08/23/microsoft-forms-cloud-computing-partnership-in-china/

Microsoft has announced a new joint-venture in Beijing which will, “develop, market and sell solutions for the booming cloud-computing market in China.”

Their partner is China Standard Software, a Shanghai-based R&D company.

(Thanks to Pete Mitchell for the link)

Chinese TV alludes to US website attacks

http://allthingsd.com/20110825/chinese-state-tv-alludes-to-u-s-website-attacks/

Chinese state television has broadcast footage of what two experts on the Chinese military say appears to be a military institute demonstrating software designed to attack websites in the U.S. The evidence is far from concrete, however some experts believe it to be an example of an official source contradicting China’a repeated assertions that it doesn’t engage in cyberattacks.

Spotlight on Malaysia

Social media helps find lost student in Malaysia

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/world/asia/22iht-search22.html?_r=1&ref=technology

The hunt for a lost student in Malaysia spread from email to Facebook to a Twitter hashtag and eventually resulted in his safe return home. Malaysians connected with the student’s family in the US and organized to gather information of his whereabouts.

Government donates computers to pondok schools

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=609979

The government is helping some of the poorest schools in Malaysia move into the digital age by giving them computer equipment. At the prompting of ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan, the Malaysian government will give the equipment to five schools in Southern Malaysia. “Pondok” is the word for hut schools.

Cyber casinos busted in Malaysia

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Crime/Story/A1Story20110819-295158.html

The Malaysian police have been cracking down on an epidemic of corrupt cyber-casinos in the country in recent years, and this week arrested three more suspects in the city of Georgetown. The police have conducted 286 raids since 2009 on illegal gambling centers in the North-East District of Penang and confiscated 4,135 computers and gambling devices worth about RM6mil (2 million USD).

Other Asia

Asia’s Internet by the numbers

http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/08/24/asias-internet-by-the-numbers/

Check out these great interactive graphs concerning the Internet in Asia. Great statistics include: 52.2% of Asia’s Internet users are in China (with India, Japan, and Indonesia combined making up 25%); South Korea has the highest Internet penetration with 81% (followed by Brunei(?!), Japan, and Singapore); and Indonesia, India, and the Philippines lead the continent in the number of Facebook members.

 New statistics show that blogs are big in Japan

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/8/Japan_Internet_Users_Spend_Most_Time_on_Blogs_Worldwide

The average blog reader in Japan spends a whopping 62.6 minutes a month reading blogs (on the bog?). This makes it the number one country in the world in terms of blog engagement. Traffic to blogs is continuing to rise in the country as well, quieting murmurs that microblogging is making traditional blogging obsolete.

Social media in India (Infographic)

http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/08/24/infographic-social-media-in-india/

India is a social media powerhouse. They are the third largest Facebook country in the world (behind the USA and Indonesia) with 31 million users. 100 million people are online in India, with 20 million of those coming online daily.

Help write this newsletter (please!) – If you see anything interesting send it to me at:

Barney.loehnis@ogilvy.com (@barneylo) & Michael.mcclelland@ogilvy.com

I did so because for a long time I’ve been convinced Tencent Weibo is an important platform that will soon rival Sina Weibo. Putting it there is a way of starting a conversation with the marketers I meet about how we should be taking this platform more seriously.

For those less familiar with social media in China, Weibo is the dominent SNS/content-sharing platform in the country right now. The platform shares many features with Facebook and Twitter and is used in same ways as these platforms by both users and brands. There are 2-4 other Weibo platforms, of which, by the way, none are mentioned on my business card.

So, why am I so enthusiastic for Tencent Weibo?

1. In terms of functionality, the platform is as good as Sina Weibo. In fact, there are great features that Tencent had before Sina (photos that don’t get buried in brand feeds, for example) and others that Sina has yet to copy (built-in photo collage functions, Twitter-style public lists, and so on).

2. Tencent Weibo has loads of registered users. Credible estimates have this number around the 200 million mark. Fine, they might not be as active as they are on Sina Weibo, but still…

3. Tencent Weibo has loads of active users. Admittedly, one way Tencent is able to achieve such high registration numbers is thanks to its ability to channel traffic from its dominant instant messaging platform, QQ.  This has led to lots of zombie fans and, arguably, a less engaged user base. Yet estimates have the number of active users on Tencent still high, at around 115 million. More importantly, for me, my own observations of online activity and chats with a range of people around the country tell me that there is a major increase in enthusiasm for Tencent Weibo.

Don’t get me wrong, Sina’s Weibo platform is still ahead. Currently only Sina Weibo can match the levels of engagement and the society-wide importance that  Facebook enjoys in the West. For this reason Sina should in most cases be the first option for a brand hoping to engage with consumers in China.

The growth of Tencent Weibo, however, should be watched closely by marketers. Some brands and agencies are making moves on this platform, yet I believe not enough are stepping out of the “Sina Weibo comfort zone”, something that we would benefit from doing more often.

One of the most significate change in this report compared to the previous one is the Internet population in China; In December 2010, China’s netizens reached 457 million, representing an increase of 73 million since the end of 2009; Internet Penetration rate rose to 34.3%! Number of Chinese Netizens has doubled the amount of Internet users in the United States (272 million), and surpassed the population of N. America (348 million).

Click here to see the full report in Chinese

Having Google has as a client is a privilege in many ways, especially when they are kind enough to send us invitations to try the service before a broader opening. Therefore, we had the luck to be one of the first ones able trying, adding, updating, posting, sharing, watching, circling, commenting, youtube-ing, +1-ing…etc

I must say that among our very heterogeneous group of testers (boys, girls, geeks, non-geeks, social media people, and traditional media/PRpr people), reactions have been extremely positive. People loved the easy and fresh user interface, which is clear enough to instantaneously understand how things work, without having to check any manuals or How-to’s.

The “Hangout” (video conference) system really is a killer app (imagine a conference with 10 people or more directly into in your browser), the “Circle” system (where you can separate your contact into different groups such as “Family”, “Friend”, “Ogilvy”, “Web”…etc) is also well done since it allows the users to easily and clearly set privacy rules about the content they are sharing.

But one thing that has aroused my interest is that the overall user experience looked like particularly familiar, because I use Google+ the same way I use Sina Weibo! The timeline, the way we post and share links, pictures and video (they are directly implemented into the post) can be very similar to the popular China- based service. Some contacts on Twitter told me that most of mainland Chinese users of Google+ have had made the same remarks.

Of course we aren’t saying here that Google Plus (which proposes much more than a simple timeline) has copied some of Sina Weibo’s features, but I can’t help to but notice some uncanny similarities. It would be the first time that a popular western internet company is inspired by innovations from a Chinese one.

For those of view you who are not familiar with Sina Weibo, it’s one of the most popular microblogging platforms in Mainland China (also used by Taiwanese celebrities) and is often called “The Twitter of China”, with the difference distinction of being technically innovative. There is, for example, no need to use a third party clients to access Weibo, since the web interface is good enough. Indeed, Sina is one of the few internet companies in China to mainly focus on the technical/usability part before thinking about monetization.

It’s of course very difficult to say how successful the service will be (after all, to be “Social”, a network must be used by a critical mass) but at least they are starting without technical problems and usability flows that characterized its two predecessors.

Tencent tests microblog translation tool, opening door for Chinese sites to adopt English

http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/22/tencent-tests-microblog-translation-tool-paves-way-for-chinese-sites-to-adopt-english/

Chinese Internet giant Tencent has recently partnered with Kingsoft, maker of the machine translation product PowerWord, and Youdao, Netease’s online dictionary, to bridge the language gap among users of its microblogging platform by developing a microblog translation tool. The technology will be responsible for automatic translations to and from English, while Youdao will offer translations for Japanese and Korean. In addition to these two, Tencent is reportedly in talks with several other major translation companies to bring other languages into its microblogging platform.

Cartier joins other luxury brands by getting a Youku channel

http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/21/cartier-lv-youku-video-channel/

Cartier has launched a branded channel on Youku.com, China’s biggest video-sharing site. It joins six other upscale brands – Louis Vuitton, Dior, Burberry, Gucci, Omega, and Mido – in opting to engage with Chinese consumers via Youku as a part of their social media strategy in the country.

Apps in Asia – China huge, Japan most expensive

http://mashable.com/2011/06/22/china-app-store-market-study/

China is now the second largest iOS apprket in the world (after the USA). Japan accounts for most of the revenue in Asia, as Japan is the most expensive in the region. The study also found that the majority of popular iPhone apps in Asia are only popular in Asia. This is especially true in China, South Korea and Japan. In countries such as India and Indonesia, app localization is less important.

Other Asia

Consumers in Southeast Asia bought over 260,000 tablets in the first quarter of this year

http://www.gfkrt.com/asia/news_events/news/news_single/008189/index.en.html

261,000 tablets spanning almost ten brands were sold across seven Southeast Asian markets* from January to April this year. Tablets operating on the Android operating system (OS) has been rising in prevalence and is today the most popular platform embraced by users. In April, almost half of all tablets (46%) purchased by consumers was an Android compared to five months before, in November, where the proportion was only slightly just over one out of ten (13%).

Taiwan-based chip developer reveals Amazon’s plans to release tablet PCs in September

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110621PD222.html

Amazon adopts processors developed by Texas Instruments, with Taiwan-based Wintek to supply touch panels, ILI Technology to supply LCD driver ICs and Quanta Computer responsible for assembly, the sources indicated. Monthly shipments are expected to be nearly a million units. The autumn launch will allow Amazon to target Thanksgiving and Christmas shoppers in key markets.

The problem with Facebook in Japan

http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/20/problem-with-facebook-in-japan/

In a survey of Facebook users in Japan, all participants agreed that Facebook is less secure, has a more complicated user interface, and is definitely not popular compared with Mixi. Many also had issues with Facebook’s real name policy. Participants also pointed out the Facebook goes against the traditioncal Japanese values of harmony and also is too literal for the very escapism and fiction-frenzied culture of Japan.

Tsutenkaku Tower to get LED lights

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20110622f1.html

Hitachi will replace most neon lights for its advertisements on Osaka’s signature Tsutenkaku Tower with light-emitting diodes in a bid to cut electricity consumption by half and contribute to nationwide energy-saving efforts.

Southeast Asia to ship over 100 million smartphones this year

http://www.zdnetasia.com/sea-to-ship-100m-phones-this-year-62300828.htm

106 million mobile phones are expected to be shipped across Southeast Asia this year, marking a 19 percent increase from 90 million units last year. The number will increase to 163 million by 2015 at a compound annual growth rate of 39 percent. This region encompasses Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

South Korea – eCommerce Cannes winner for Tesco

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPM4Ui6Sjfk

Sina Weibo launches a user data center as a potential revenue source
http://techrice.com/2011/06/15/sina-weibo-launches-user-data-center-a-potential-source-of-revenue-infographic/
Sina Weibo is offering their 140 million users tools to track and monitor their own Weibo accounts through data.weibo.com. The site allows users to monitor their own accounts on a weekly basis in five categories: influencer rating, followers, people followed, weekly top weibo, and top trending topics.

Renren to issue social credit card
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/15/renren-partners-with-china-merchants-bank-to-issue-credit-card-with-social-features/
Renren has just announced its partnership with one of China’s leading commercial banks, China Merchants Bank, to create a co-branded Renren CMB credit card that takes advantage of the social network’s features.
This credit card program takes advantage of social, location, and mobile services, where credit card holders will be able to “check in” from their current locations to receive promotional information from any of the ten thousand Merchants Bank merchant partners who happen to be located within the vicinity.

China: Truth, rumors, and a basket of fruit
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/06/truth-rumors-and-fruit-baskets.html
China has been awash with rumours and uprisings in recent months. Part of this is due to access to the Internet. Though sites are censored and rumours are eventually erased from the public forum, authorities are still struggling to balance the release of information and public opinion.

Yahoo/Alibaba/Alipay/Jack Ma/Carol Bratz: What happened an what it really means
http://www.chinalawblog.com/2011/06/yahoo_alibaba_alipay_jack_ma_and_what_really_happened_and_what_it_means.html
Yahoo owns a part of Alibaba, which owned Alipay, the online payment business. According to Chinese law, this means it cannot be foreign owned. Yahoo alleges it just recently learned that Alibaba had transferred ownership of Alipay to a fully domestic Chinese entity. Alibaba is saying it did that so as to bring Alipay in line with the laws prohibiting foreign ownership of an online payment company.

Chinese E-Commerce Giant Taobao Splits Itself Up
http://www.businessinsider.com/taobao-split-jack-ma-2011-6?
Taobao, the biggest commerce site in China, is splitting itself up into three sites and entities. Taobao is often referred to as the “eBay of China” but it’s a much broader e-commerce platform and the split reflects that. Now there will be Taobao itself, a consumer-to-consumer marketplace (i.e. like eBay), Taobao Mall, a business-to-consumer marketplace (i.e. businesses open storefront on Taobao Mall to sell to consumers) and eTao, a shopping search engine. Despite the split, still no IPO of Taobao, on the horizon.

Chinese now spend 41% of their online time on social networks
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/13/chinese-now-spend-41-of-their-time-online-on-social-networks-in-lieu-of-news-sites/
A new report reveals that the Chinese now spend 41% of their time online on social networks, which indicates a major shift in how Chinese netizens are no longer purely consumers of web content, but are now more open to communicate, share, and engage online as well.
(Thanks to Sascha Engel for the link)

Chinese Secretly Copy Austrian UNESCO Town
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,768754,00.html
Residents of the Austrian mountain town of Hallstatt, population 800, are scandalized. A Chinese firm has plans to replicate the village — including its famous lake — in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, Austrian media reported this week.

Other Asia

Ebay, Yahoo, Google, Nokia, and Skype announce Asia Internet Coalition
http://www.campaignasia.com/Article/260505,ebay-yahoo-google-nokia-and-skype-launch-asia-internet-coalition.aspx
Ebay, Yahoo, Google, Nokia and Skype have joined forces to launch a new industry association, The Asia Internet Coalition (AIC), which aims to promote understanding and resolution of Internet policy issues in the Asia-Pacific region.

Village in India named after a Groupon clone
http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/15/village-in-india-named-after-a-groupon-clone
An Indian Groupon clone has adopted a village called Shiv Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, India, and renamed it to Snapdeal.com Nagar. The one-year-old online group-buying start-up will develop the village’s infrastructure, including installation of water pumps and support of the local school and hospital.

Taiwanese newspaper pre-announces iPad3
http://allthingsd.com/20110614/taiwan-newspaper-pre-announces-7-inch-ipad-3/
Taiwan’s Economic Daily, which correctly predicted some of the specs of the original iPad well ahead of its debut, has stated that Apple has another iPad in the works and intends to launch it before the end of the year. Rumour states that it will have a 7-inch touchscreen with an image resolution five to six times greater than the iPad2.

Malaysia braces for cyber-attacks
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110615/tc_afp/malaysiaturkeytechnologyinternethacking
Malaysian officials are bracing for hacker attacks on government websites by a group which sabotaged Turkish sites last week to protest against Internet censorship. Internet activists Anonymous warned on a website that they would target Malaysia’s government portal www.Malaysia.gov.my.

Singapore promotes healthy eating with apps
http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/10/singapore-promotes-healthy-eating-through-iphone-app/
To promote healthy eating, Singapore’s Health Promotion Board recently launched ‘Healthy Chef,’ an iPhone app that provides healthy cooking recipes for Singaporeans. The app provides over 70 recipes created by renowned chefs in Singapore with choices over Chinese, Malay, Indian or Western cuisines. A user can search for recipes based on calorie level and save them within their shopping list for future reference.
(Thanks to June Saowanee for the link)

China

Microblog saves desperate melon farmer
http://www.china.org.cn/china/2011-06/07/content_22728263.htm
A farmer in China turned to Weibo.com to voice his frustrations about a lack of sales following stories of exploding melons (due to growth chemicals). He said, “The reports of bursting watermelons have brought a miserable life for us. We have tens of thousands of jin (one jin equals half a kilogram) of watermelons waiting to get rotten in the farmlands.” Seven hours after his first post, Fu said in a new post that his melons were almost sold out, but his neighbors were also in need of help.

China’s Sina to launch English microblogging site
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/TechandScience/Story/STIStory_677126.html
Sina has announced plans to start an English version of its hugely popular microblogging site by the end of the year. It will pursue this venture with foreign partners. There is some speculation that Facebook could possibly partner with the Chinese giant.

Sina Weibo – competition for Twitter?
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/06/08/sina-weibo-competition-for-twitter/?mod=WSJBlog
While Sina’s English site could be a viable competitor for Twitter, Sina appears likely to police user posts on the English version of Weibo just as it does on the Chinese version, where it filters messages for sensitive content to comply with Chinese regulations.

Chinese “cyber attacks” – are they fallacies?
http://the-diplomat.com/flashpoints-blog/2011/06/07/china-cyber-attack-fallacies/
Reports surfaced last week saying that China was behind a hacking campaign. The proof to support the headline was that Chinese IP addresses were involved. What both Google and Siobhan Gorman, who reported on the story for the Wall Street Journal (which we featured in Digerati last week), failed to disclose was that other countries IP addresses were used as well, including South Korea and the United States.

China’s global reach (map)
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/07/136930746/chinas-global-reach
A fantastic resource for tracing China’s foreign investments. Between 2005 and 2010, China invested more than $319 billion overseas, funding projects in energy, agriculture, finance and more. The top countries that China invested in were Australiua ($33.9 billion), the USA ($28.1 billion), Nigeria ($15.4 billion), Iran ($15.1 billion), and Brazil ($14.9 billion).

China increases Internet control, takes down hundreds of websites
http://thenextweb.com/asia/2011/06/08/china-increases-internet-control-takes-down-hundreds-of-websites/
Under the new controls, more than 700 pornographic and copyright infringing websites have been shut down. Individuals have also been banned from registering domain names ending in .cn, which is now now limited to registered businesses in China.
(Thanks to Pete Mitchell for the link)

Other Asia

Korea’s Got Talent – a Korean orphan stuns the audience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BewknNW2b8Y
Sung-bong Choi, a Korean laborer who grew up as a homeless orphan, supporting himself in the streets by selling gum and beverages, stunned the audience of Korea’s Got Talent with his trained tenor singing voice.

More Korean talent – Lip-synching, badminton-strumming schoolgirls!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaNj-3cwB38&feature=share
In addition to showcasing fine lip-synching talents, these girls use bushy eyebrows and facial hair to entertain Korea (and YouTube) with hilariously over the top performing.

Media offices receive mysterious coffins in the mail; advertiser arrested
http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/06/06/indonesia-mystery-coffins-advertising/
The sender of these coffins was listed as “Rest In Peace Soon”. Police have raided the sender’s address and found it to be the offices of Buzz & Co., an advertising agency. The company’s CEO, Sumardy Ma, was subsequently arrested. He explained that the coffin delivery was a marketing strategy to launch a book entitled “Rest In Peace Advertising, The Power Of Word Of Mouth Marketing.”

Chunghwa Telecom sets foot in mobile advertising biz
http://news.cens.com/cens/html/en/news/news_inner_36550.html
Chunghwa Telecom recently announced that its online software-download store, Hami Apps, has set up mobile-advertising operation named In-App Advertisement, becoming Taiwan`s first telecom carrier to enter the subcategory of mobile marketing.

Sofitel in Bangkok to unveil Apple-based digital hotel entertainment

http://www.psfk.com/2011/06/apple-based-digital-hotel-entertainment-at-the-sofitel-so-bangkok.html

Each of the hotel’s rooms will be equipped with an Apple Mac mini, which will function as a multimedia center, offering guests digital TV, radio channels, movies, music library, DVD and CD player, and the ability to play your personal iPod, iPhone and iPad

Mobile

Mobile payments to reach $50 billion by 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-07/mobile-phone-payments-to-reach-50-billion-by-2014-report-says.html
Consumers worldwide will spend about $50 billion using their mobile phones through a technology called near field communications by 2014 as the payment method gains popularity. North America and Western Europe will account for 50 percent of the total spending, surpassing the Asian market (which is still dominated by Japan).

The Social Web

Top ten luxury brands with highest Facebook IQ
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2011/06/06/what-are-the-top-10-luxury-brands-on-facebook-with-the-highest-facebook-iq/
The top ten are: BMW, Clinique, Audi, Lexus, Bare Escentuals, Benefit, Bobbi Brown, Johnny Walker, Belvedere, and Tory Burch. They were ranked on: size and velocity, programming, engagement, and integration.

100 examples of corporate social media policies
http://www.kokasexton.com/word/100-examples-of-corporate-social-media-policies/
Check out the ways in which companies such as BBC, GM, FedEx, ESPN, IBM, and more treat social media in the work place. This contains great examples from companies of nearly every discipline and would be an excellent resource for any client hoping to write a social media policy.

Creative

Perrier: The more you watch, the hotter it gets (Ogilvy)
http://www.youtube.com/perrier

Ogilvy Singapore celebrates quitters with anit-smoking drive
http://www.campaignsingapore.sg/Video/259924,ogilvy-singapore-celebrates-quitters-in-anti-smoking-drive.aspx

Dove’s Digital Body Language (Ogilvy)
http://apps.facebook.com/dovebodylanguage/

McDonalds’ McFriends
http://vimeo.com/20306234
(Thanks to Sascha Engel for the link)

Nike SB: Support Your Local
http://www.psfk.com/2011/06/nike-sbs-support-your-local-2011-video.html

Hong Kong Death: Clean Air Flash Mob
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz0zQcpzj38

Social media sandals – a “step” too far?
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/twitter-inspired-innovation

Augmented reality – String ‘Wonderment’
http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/06/augmented-reality-string%E2%84%A2-wonderment/

And Finally…

The World’s Most Exclusive Website
http://theworldsmostexclusivewebsite.com/index.php?e=v
This site allows levels of access based on how many Twitter followers a user has. To enter “Room 1,” you need to be a “verified” Twitter user. To enter Room 2, you need to have at least 5,000 followers., and so on. Most users won’t even be able to get through the front door and will be re-directed to the Olive Garden website.
(Thanks to Soohan Han for the link)

If you don’t make it in based on your following, see what is inside here: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-the-most-exclusive-website