By Nick Johnson - June 13th, 2012

The winners of the inaugural Useful Social Media Awards (sponsored by our friends at Webtrends) have just been announced at the Corporate Social Media Summit in NYC. The winning, and highly comm...

The winners of the inaugural Useful Social Media Awards (sponsored by our friends at Webtrends) have just been announced at the Corporate Social Media Summit in NYC.

The winning, and highly commended, entrants in each category are as follows:

B2B Marketing Effectiveness

Highly Commended: Sophos

Sophos were recognised by our judges for their "robust and participatory approach to social", and for the strength of their impact measurement. Finally, their metrics were very closely aligned with to their key corporate goals - something that happens all too rarely.

Winner: Sage

Sage have been awarded the B2B Marketing Effectiveness Award because of their extremely advanced integration of social into broader marketing and branding efforts. Their  joined-up approach to social media, marketing and brand strategy is rare, and puts them at the vanguard of b2b social marketing. The insights they gain from their social marketing activity are fed directly back into the business, to make meaningful changes at the product design stage.

Most Effective B2C Marketing

Highly Commended: Samsung

Samsung's truly holistic approach has put them at the forefront of b2c marketing. Their reputation for responsiveness, and constant innovation makes them a true leader in this field. Their social media marketing efforts are integrated into broader local and broader campaigns, across products, categories, and geographies. Each program is tailored to specific goals, and the company measure based on those goals. Whether it's earned media value, positive sentiment, number of 2-way conversations, or the size of our communities, they measure based on business objectives and goals.

Winner: Ford

Ford win our award for B2C marketing effectiveness for their understanding that the true integration of earned, owned and paid media have a much more powerful force than any of them on their own. Their clear KPIs and goals are allied closely to broader marketing goals, and well integrated with overall marketing strategy. Furthermore, their emphasis on listening to what content most resonates with their social media followers has allowed them to successfully humanize their brand, while growing their online presence. Importantly, their impressive scaling up of their social media activity has happened without losing that all-important engagement rate.

Deliver customer satisfaction through social media

Highly Commended: Samsung

Samsung are again highly commended for their work at delivering customer service through social media. They are proactive at listening and engagement - not simply responding to queries. Their work in the space means that 90% of customer service issues are now dealt with online, with a 10% higher 'customer satisfaction' via social delivery than over the phone.

Winner: Microsoft XBox

XBox have an impressive series of initiatives, campaigns and processes designed to deliver brilliant customer service through social media. The first element is their Tweet Fleet - XBox employees who use Twitter to resolve customer service issues. The Tweet Fleet has the highest CSAT rating of any Xbox support channel, and a response time of under 5 minutes.

The second element is the engagement of their own consumers in an online community to help other consumers with problems. The community is motivated to help through a gamified incentives system, and is productive - with the Community Ambassador program resolving as many issues as their Tweet Fleet on a month by month basis.

The Most Social Business

Highly Commended: General Motors Corporation

The company got positive feedback from our judges for going 'all in' with social - often launching products exclusively on social media, without a traditional print and ad campaign. They have also aggressively scaled up resourcing to provide a better service to their customers through increased responsiveness, and have cleverly used 'product sampling' with key influencers to get feedback for - and build awareness about - new products.

Winner: AVG

The judges felt that they were most deserving of this award for a number of reasons - the main one being their holistic, comprehensive approach to social. The company's integration into many business functions is extensive, at the vanguard of what is happening in their own industry, and we would argue, leading across all industries.

Not only this, their work to use social to generate product feedback that is then fed directly into product development lifecycle is unique in its extensiveness and importance.They truly are a company who have made social work for them and positively impact not only the way they do business, but their bottom line.

The Useful Social Media Awards have been run in alliance with the Corporate Social Media Summit New York, which is currently taking place at the New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan. To follow the discussion, debate and best practice from the conference, check out the hashtag #csmny.

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