Much has been written about social media strategy for small business. It’s a personal medium, and a few employees engaging directly with customers on Twitter and Facebook can be a natural extension of a small biz web presence.

But things can get complicated when you extrapolate engagement over the multiple departments, offices, and countries of a large corporation. Do you centralize your social message with a few managed accounts, or do you empower every employee to be a social representative of your brand? How do you manage the hundreds, if not thousands of daily mentions and messages directed at a global company while still keeping it conversational? We spoke with the architects of some leading social media enterprise strategies for their takes on this evolving field.

The Social Challenges of Brand Segmentation

For many large brands, each product they sell could be considered a “sub-brand” in itself. People don’t seek out General Mills cereal, they just like Cheerios. This kind of fragmentation offers several marketing advantages, according to David Witt, the senior manager of social engagement at General Mills, “but it can be challenging to develop meaningful social capabilities for each [brand], while also providing synergistic platforms for the whole.”

Witt says General Mills provides corporate-wide services like training, guidelines and listening tools, but allows each brand to develop an approach that suits its needs.

While similar segmentation exists for entertainment properties, the overarching brand presence is usually stronger, and the social marketing should be tempered accordingly.

“It’s important to remember that customers still see it as one cohesive brand, even if the reality is a dozen different products managed by different people,” said Matt Gibbs, manager of social media and audience development at Playboy. “Whether it’s Playboy magazine, Playboy.com, Playboy TV, Playboy Radio, Playboy’s Miss Social, or any of our other products, to fans it’s one in the same. Wherever the social media touch point is, Playboy must be consistent.”

Samsung USA, purveyor of a wide range of consumer electronics, tackles segmentation with a hybrid approach. Because the Samsung name is associated across nearly the entire product line, it makes sense to brand the many social departments and people accordingly.

“We have official Samsung USA accounts on Twitter (e.g. @SamsungTweets, @SamsungMobileUS, @SamsungService and @GalaxySsupport),” said Esteban Contreras, the company’s social media manager. “Our social media team is setting the example by including ‘Samsung’ on their Twitter handles (e.g. @SamsungEsteban, @SamsungCos, @SamsungJessica, @SamsungLeah, @SamsungCarla). Everyone that has the ‘Samsung’ name is passionate about Samsung and is committed to add value.”

If you’re in charge of developing your company’s social strategy across multiple properties, think about how the public already perceives these brands and map accordingly.

Empower Everyone

Everyone we spoke with reports that real social media success stems from the personal accounts of empowered employees. Branded corporate blogs and Twitter feeds are important, but a network of connected employees has a social reach that far exceeds a centralized corporate message, no matter how engaging or conversational.

This model raises two primary concerns for companies. How do you empower your staff to be brand advocates, and how do you manage thousands of employees who are “semi-officially” speaking on behalf of your company at any given time?

“At Intel we have a hub and spoke model,” said Ekaterina Walter, a social media strategist for the computer chip manufacturer. “We have a central team — the Social Media Center of Excellence — that sits in the Corporate Marketing Group.” This centralized unit is responsible for empowering and educating all the departments with a social media presence, right down to the individual. “Our goal is to empower any employee who would like to engage in conversation with customers on Intel’s behalf.”

For Best Buy, the most logical social media strategy presented itself naturally. Kelly Groehler, a public relations representative for the electronics retailer, explained that employees had been talking about Best Buy on their social networks well before there was any formal initiative from corporate.

“Our ‘Blue Shirts’ and agents were already doing it,” she said. “Are we worried about this? Do we endorse it and encourage it? We chose the latter because it’s very true to our culture … [W]e sell the technology that makes all of this possible, so we should embrace the reality of how these communications channels are shifting. There’s no better demonstration of having expertise in technology than by being able to show a customer how you actually use it yourself.”

Make Guidelines Clear, and Make Them Public

Another common thread among the companies we spoke with was that clear social guidelines are important, and that making them publicly available on the web is a win for access and transparency. While many policies offer up a heaping dose of common sense, getting an entire company on the same page takes work.

Intel’s social media guidelines are public and have been translated into 35 languages, said Walter. “We also ask [employees] to take a mandatory 30-minute class that goes over some of the key points in our guidelines, legal cautions, examples of what worked and what didn’t work for us previously, etc.”

Dell uses a similar training program for its employees.

“In the last quarter we trained more than 3,000 employees and held ‘unconferences’ with employees in the United States, Europe and China,” said Richard Binhammer of Dell’s communications and outreach team.

Like Intel, corporate heavyweights Dell, Best Buy and Cisco also share their social media policies publicly for ease of access.

“The majority of our employees that exist worldwide aren’t necessarily within a corporate setting,” said Groehler of Best Buy. “They’re in the field, they’re working in the stores, they’re connecting with customers … [M]aking the policy public also increases the chances that we’re going to reach more of our employees and that they understand what that policy is.”

Essentially, these guidelines all boil down to the same ethic: Communicating with social media is no different from “chatting over the neighbor’s fence,” to borrow a phrase from Best Buy’s policy. The legal cautions about confidentiality and ethics are the same, whether Twitter exists or not. Beyond that, you simply need to let employees tweet for themselves.

Keeping Your Big Brand Personal

At the end of the day, companies strive to have the same conversations with people that people are having with each other. We have seen varying degrees of success, but our experts shared the tactics that work for their brands.

“There are hundreds of thousands of conversations happening online about Intel, so it would be impossible to reply to them all,” said Walter. But she explained that her team makes every effort to keep the conversation personal. “For example, when I reply to a post on Intel’s Facebook Page, I sign my name at the end so that the person knows who he or she is talking to.”

That initial concept of brand fragmentation touched on above can actually facilitate this aspect of social engagement for large companies, according to Witt of General Mills. “With our brands managing their own presence online, that helps keep the personal touch,” he said.

Prioritization is also crucial, according to Petra Neiger, a social media manager for Cisco.

“We use a number of tools to monitor and manage the many conversations on the social web including Radian6, Cymfony, Sprinklr and Google Alerts,” Neiger said. “These tools help us organize and prioritize the conversations that are happening, as it is impossible and unscalable to participate in all of them.”

Neiger explained that Cisco’s social strategy model includes multiple hubs and spokes, rooted in corporate and which spread throughout every socially enabled department. “This model makes it so we are not trying to funnel every conversation to one person or team. [It makes] things much more manageable. It also makes it so that each group, or account has it’s own style and personal voice based on its contributors.”

And sometimes, it just takes a little social media elbow grease.

“We read every single tweet directed at our accounts and try to respond to as many people as possible,” said Contreras of Samsung USA. “We sometimes reach out to people who may have questions, even if they didn’t directly reach out to us. We also try to surprise people by responding at times they might not expect.”

The Social Media for Business Leaders Series is supported by The Awareness Social Marketing Hub, which builds social marketing software for marketers leveraging multiple social channels to engage with customers, build their brand, and increase revenues. Built upon Awareness’ expertise deploying more than 200 communities and social media projects for the world’s biggest brands including Sony, JetBlue, Kodak, ASOS.com and AIRMiles, The Awareness Social Marketing Hub is a leading enterprise-grade application for marketers struggling with the social media chaos of managing multiple social channels. With the Awareness Social Marketing Hub, marketers are now able to publish, manage and measure across all their social channels from one central location using advanced built-in permissioning, workflow and audit controls.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- Social Media Marketing: 5 Lessons From Business Leaders Who Get It
- 5 Most Engaged Brands in Social Media
- Top 5 Enterprises Using Social Media
- 5 Winning Social Media Campaigns to Learn From
- 15 Twitter Lists for C-Suite Execs to Follow

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, studiovision

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While implementing a successful social media campaign is something to celebrate, longer term, policy-based programs (which may not garner as much immediate publicity) can be even more rewarding.

Here we are highlighting five companies that have enjoyed long term success with their own social media teams and taking a look at some of the measurable returns they have seen as the results of their programs.

Key personnel from within the five companies below (in alphabetical order) have commented on their teams’ successes to offer you an insight into their various processes. Meanwhile, please be sure to let us know in the comments about any other companies that you feel should be recognized for having strong in-house social media teams.

1. Dell

Dell currently enjoys an online presence in more than 160 countries with more than 15,000 online conversations about Dell taking place every day — a stat that makes it one of the most mentioned brands. Dell is proud of its history of online customer communication and claims to have been exchanging info with customers online since the late 1980s.

Dell’s social media activity, as we’d now recognize it, began in earnest in 2006, initially with the Online Community Outreach team (tech support experts that reached out to bloggers with queries), then the debut of the Direct2Dell blog, followed up with rating and reviews added to Dell product pages. Since then the reviews have been made shareable across major social networking platforms including via the Facebook “Tag Team” — a social product finder app.

In the summer of 2007, Dell joined the world of Twitter, with just one example being its @DellOutlet account offering Twitter-only special deals.

In addition to the specific activity outlined above, Dell sees social media as integral to the day-to-day activities of its employees all around the world. Interested employees can attend Dell’s “Social Media and Communities University” to help them better represent the brand online.

The Success Story

As far as social commerce goes, Dell has received more than 170,000 customer ratings and reviews on Dell.com across 62 countries, while its main Facebook Page has more than 360,000 fans.

The most headline-grabbing example of Dell’s social media program netting real-world results is its @DellOutlet Twitter account. Currently enjoying more than 1.5 million followers, Dell revealed late last year that it had generated $6.5 million in revenue, a figure that we can only assume has grown since.

Less easily measured success comes as a result of using feedback to improve Dell’s products in the future.

“The online conversations offer great opportunities for us to listen, learn and engage — we use what we learn to innovate and integrate technology that provides solutions our customers want,” says Kerry Bridge, head of digital media communications, EMEA and global public sector at Dell.

So, Why Has Dell Been Successful?

“Listening to our customers has always been at the heart of what we do,” says Bridge. “Dell’s heritage of direct customer connections and online leadership are the seeds of our drive to be a social media success.”

2. Ford

The social media team at Ford is spread across a number of departments. With six people across the company dedicated to social media, there are another 20 or so for whom social media is part of their wider roles. Ford’s social media push began in mid-2008 when it joined Twitter and the customer service department started a Social Media Action & Response Team (SMART), which monitors the online space for opportunities to help customers.

Now Ford can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, Scribd, Plancast and Upcoming, among others. In addition, TheFordStory.com is where Ford “insiders” can get more information and view user-generated content as featured in the “Your Stories,” “Ford on Blogs,” and “Your Ideas” sections.

The Success Story

Ford currently has more than half a million followers across Twitter and Facebook. A campaign-based example of recent social media success is the promotion for the 2011 Ford Explorer, which netted a number-one trending topic on Twitter, a number-two Google trend, and vehicle orders that were more than double what had been projected.

“We’re committed to the ‘always on’ mode, which means that we need to abandon the traditional ‘launch and leave’ approach that we previously used,” says Scott Monty, the head of social media at the motor company, who can be credited for much of Ford’s social activity.

“By taking the time to build a relationship with our fans by sharing not only our story but other people’s stories, we therefore gain awareness, trust and loyalty so that when they do make a purchase decision, we’re top of mind.”

So, Why Has Ford Been Successful?

“We’re successful for a few reasons: The first is that Ford has a strong business plan, great products and a commitment to a better world, and that is apparent in everything the company does. When we get to share that, it’s completely authentic,” says Monty.

“The second is, we realize that we have to constantly innovate and to give back to our community, as a way to reward them for spending their valuable time with us. And the third is that we realize that in humanizing Ford, it’s just as important to connect our customers and fans with each other as it is to connect them with Ford employees, because they’re more likely to believe what other people have to say about Ford.”

3. Intel

Intel has been involved in the social media space since 2004, beginning with blogs, before creating the Intel Social Media Center of Excellence two years ago. With three team members initially, this year the team has grown to seven and maintains a presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, as well as running company blogs.

The Success Story

Intel’s “Social Media Guidelines” is one of the best known corporate policies around. During the past two years, the company has trained more than 1,000 “social media practitioners,” in order to help them “succeed globally by enabling with information, tools, latest and greatest best-known practices, playbooks, strategic direction” and more.

“We consistently monitor and listen to the conversations on the web, trying to address as much of the questions and issues as we can,” says Ekaterina Walter, social media strategist at Intel.

“It is important for us to have presence on social networking sites where our customers can engage in a dialogue with us and get a 1:1 attention.”

Walter tells us Intel has been especially successful in engaging on Facebook in the past year. “We have achieved about 10% to 15% monthly organic fan growth on average, which is considered the highest organic growth you can get. We are now up to over 240K fans (over 90% of which were acquired organically).”

So, Why Has Intel Been Successful?

“Intel is a pioneer in the social media space. We were one of the first to come out with the Social Media Guidelines and one of the first to adapt to this seismic shift to social and train our marketers around the world through the robust university-like training program,” says Walter.

“Our success can be attributed to the strong executive support and to passionate grassroots/social media practitioners within Intel, among other things.”

4. JetBlue

JetBlue’s social media stratagem comes under its Corporate Communications department, which it describes as “the clearinghouse for all communications.” The company’s big push for social media engagement started in the spring of 2007 and it says it regularly looks to its customers for guidance as to what they’d like JetBlue’s role to be within the social media arena.

A corporate communications employee oversees a working group of subject matter experts from a variety of departments spanning communications, marketing, TrueBlue customer commitment and operations who engage directly with customers when opportunity arises. JetBlue has a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube as well as maintaining the BlueTales blog.

The Success Story

JetBlue’s Twitter presence is the jewel in its social media crown. JetBlue started a Twitter account back in 2007 and now boasts 1.6 million followers. This success has seen the company launch a separate account — Cheeps — which is used to push promotional fares. JetBlue says this second Twitter account “has proven successful as a dedicated social media channel.”

“We have come to realize that Twitter is an excellent tool not just for pushing information out, but perhaps more importantly, for taking information in,” says Allison Steinberg, an e-communications analyst for the airline.

“We are able to use Twitter to take a general pulse of our customer base as well to identify breaking news items that may not have made it down the pipeline yet internally or via mainstream outlets. This helps us to stay on top of customer service items and respond to things in a timely and efficient manner.”

So, Why Has JetBlue Been Successful?

“Social media has been hugely successful for us because we understand that communication is a two-way street,” says Steinberg. “We consider the social media tools available to us to be our eyes and ears, in addition to serving as a mouthpiece for our brand.”

5. Vodafone

Vodafone’s social media team was formed around 19 months ago. It has since grown from the original three staff members to 15 and includes online PR and social media specialists and customer care and acquisitions.

Because Vodafone doesn’t treat social media as a stand-alone channel, the activity spreads from the obvious branded channels, which include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube to all major online forums, tech and consumer blogs and more recently location-based platforms like Foursquare.

The Success Story

Vodafone currently has more than 18,000 followers on Twitter, 210,000 fans on Facebook and another 116,000 on its non-profit Vodafone Foundation “World of Difference” Page.

A recent example of success for a specific project comes in with Vodafone-backed @documentally’s challenge to travel the length of the UK utilizing only a PAYG SIM card and an iPhone. The trip resulted in 4 million impressions on Twitter alone, which Jakub Hrabovsky, head of web relations, says “demonstrates the endless possibilities and sheer power of social media.”

However, Vodafone’s in-house social media team is committed to everyday actions, as well as the splashy stuff. “Whilst our social media activities peak around launches and major campaigns, we consistently offer superb customer service across all of our channels including our eForum with an incredibly high percentage of customer inquiry resolutions,” says Hrabovsky.

“Twitter, due to its fast-paced nature, has been the most successful channel for us with almost 100% of inquiries resolved, with incoming traffic at over 5,000 customer inquiries per month at busiest times.”

So, Why Has Vodafone Been Successful?

“The major driver for our success has been the consistent commitment to social media and online channels overall, as simple as it may sound,” says Hrabovsky.

“Another reason is the ability and willingness to listen to our customers, our honest and credible interaction with online audiences and determination to explore new platforms as well as speed of reaction.”

The Social Media Marketing Series is supported by Webtrends Apps, which lets you quickly create and publish Facebook, iPhone, iPad, and Android apps. Learn more about it here or keep up with all Webtrends Social products by following their blog.

More Social Media Marketing Resources from Mashable:

- Social Media Marketing: 5 Lessons From Business Leaders Who Get It
- Top 5 Enterprises Using Social Media
- Social Media Marketing 101: In-House Team, Agency or Consultant?
- 5 Big Social Media Questions from Small Business Owners
- How Businesses Are Unleashing Their Employees’ Social Media Potential

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