Add to that the fact that we’re now working with the British Gas Swimming team and you can expect us to burst in to the chorus of Land of Hope & Glory at any moment!

We’re absolutely thrilled to be supporting the British Gas Swimming team with its social strategy, so watch this space for further news on what we’re up to over the coming weeks and months.

British Gas supports British Swimming at all levels – from teaching children to swim to helping Britain’s elite swimmers compete on the International stage.

For more information about British Gas Swimming, check out the Facebook page we launched ahead of the British Gas National Swimming Championships, which took place at the Aquatics Centre in London from 03-10 March 2012 – www.facebook.com/bgswimming.

Stoli is currently scouring the UK to find four unique people with an original story to tell. The winners will star in a short-film – 24:4 – directed by BAFTA award-winning film maker, Martin Smith, and the film will follow a day in each of their lives. In addition to starring in the film, the successful entrants will be flown out to LA for the party of a lifetime at an exclusive event.

SoSocial is working alongside Stoli’s existing agencies, Multiply UK and Focus PR, to implement a comprehensive social strategy to grow Stoli UK’s Facebook community, increase engagement and drive quality submissions. Activity to date has included influence outreach and engagement, extensive on and offline seeding, as well as a Facebook ad campaign.

To find out more about Stoli Originals, take a look at this video from director, Martin Smith – http://bit.ly/tbwXAC.

Now we’ll drink to that – Cheers!

Well MADE has ploughed through hundreds of experiential case studies from the last 12 months to chose 10 of the best from around the world, which they feel represent the most innovative and effective brand experiences.

The campaigns range from big budget activities such as Tropicana’s Brighter Mornings experience, to low budget initiatives such as Germanwings brilliant Plane-Mob.

Here’s the full list. Do you agree with MADE’s selection?

1. Cabbieoke, Telstra, Australia
2. Plane-mob, Germanwings, Germany
3. Teletransporter, Andes Beer, Argentina
4. Arrivals hall serenade, T-Mobile, UK
5. Mini Getaway, Mini, Sweden
6. Brighter mornings, Tropicana, Canada
7. Hands-on with Office 2010, Microsoft, UK
8. Support your Marathoner, Asics, USA
9. Facepark, Diesel, Germany
10. Cool Hotlines, Grolsch, Netherlands

To find out more about MADE, check out www.madeinsoho.com.

OK, so it transpires that the campaign didn’t have anything to do with the NSPCC and it’s taken its fair share of criticism online, but there’s no escaping the fact that the campaign has generated a significant amount of buzz.

In fact the campaign went viral within days of its launch, with more than 90,000 people joining its Facebook page and countless more people changing their pictures.

What I like about the idea is its simplicity. There are no expensive Facebook applications. No complicated entry mechanics. Just a simple call to action.

And it certainly got the nation talking.

The mystery surrounding the source of the campaign has certainly added to the buzz but anything that makes us feel nostalgic about our childhoods is also a surefire way of getting people talking. The thousands of tweets, blog posts and news articles that have been published globally off the back of the initiative certainly support this.

The cynics have questioned how much good the campaign has done, given that there is no direct way to donate to the NSPCC, but I would argue that anything that raises awareness of the fantastic work done by the NSPCC in its fight against child abuse can only be a good thing.

And I have a sneaky suspicion that NSPCC’s creative agencies will be kicking themselves that they didn’t come up with the idea first!

The good news is that the rise of social commerce – a relatively new WOM phenomenon – looks set to prove a major opportunity for brands and word of mouth marketers looking to monetise word of mouth measurably.

Marketing Week says ‘forget e-commerce; social commerce is where it’s at’ whereas Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said ‘if I had to guess social commerce is the next area to really blow up.’

So what is social commerce exactly? Well according to IBM it’s ‘the concept of word of word of mouth applied to e-commerce’. Or, put another way, social media plus shopping. Either way, it’s rapidly turning retail on its head – enabling brands to take products direct to consumers within a social context.

The premise behind social commerce is an interesting one. As a rule, people like to shop together. Together we feel that we make better shopping decisions, using what Paul Marsden calls social intelligence, based on the advice and opinions of other.

It’s fair to say that customer reviews sections on e-commerce sites are certainly nothing new, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that brands are beginning to up their game. iTunes, for example, has introduced the social network Ping with its latest software update, enabling its customers to recommend and share music with their friends.

Dell on the other hand has generated more than $8 million in sales by enabling its customers to access exclusive deals through a dedicated Twitter feed – DellOutlet – whereas Diesel Spain introduced social networking capabilities to its fitting rooms so that shoppers could upload pictures direct to their Facebook newsfeed – enabling them to share their shopping experience with their friends in real-time.

The real game-changer however is Facebook’s recent addition of its new Deals platform that will run with its mobile Places app. Facebook is by no means the first to market, but the sheer number of people who use Facebook on their mobile (more than 200 million globally and counting) suggests that this is a significant development for both big and small businesses alike.

Add all of the above to the ongoing global success of Groupon and it’s a pretty safe bet that we’re going to see an increasing number of brands turning to social commerce over the coming months as a way of engaging with their customers, whilst demonstrating tangible ROI.

(This is an updated post I wrote a couple of months back when I worked at Wildfire.)