Skittles: taste the social media rainbow

Have you heard what Skittles is up to? They've abandoned the traditional corporate website for a small toolbar that relies entirely on what's in the public domain. Want to know about their flavours? Click on the link and it takes you to a Wikipedia article about skittles. Want to watch their media? The link takes you to YouTube for both skittles- and user-generated videos. Curious to know what people are saying about Skittles? It directs you to Twitter for realtime updates where you can monitor everything anyone tweets about regarding skittles.

It's a brave move for a major brand to make, because it relies entirely on what's in the public domain. They're relying on user-generated content about their brand. Marketers are quickly realizing that it's difficult to control the message when it comes to social media. They're finding new ways to join the conversation, and learn more about their demographic along the way. How sociable...

Learning to tweet

We're embarking on expanding our knowledge of the wide world of social media. A little behind the times perhaps, but among our social and professional circles we're savvy to the extreme. Time to expand the social network, you say? We agree. The slightest tweet has our friends saying "yes, I agree - Spring can't come fast enough." They're still finding their way around Facebook while we're mastering Twitter. It's not much, but we'll get there.

Okay, so we're not leading the pack. But we're doing what we can to watch the leaders and take in the possibilities of this wide, exciting world of what blogs, microblogs and social news sites are doing to change the landscape of the public conscioussness. There are exciting opportunities to have real discussion about issues that matter. If they're smart, marketers and communicators will see what's coming and jump on the bandwagon to join - not control - the discussion, and work as part of a community to meet common goals.