Author: Casey Hibbard

The Big 4-0. For most, turning 40 inspires something big.

For Danny Brown, it wasn’t a sports car, Vegas trip or marathon run. He was inspired to set a different challenge for himself—to bring people together and raise money for worthy causes.  And the response was very unexpected...

To celebrate his 40th, Brown and his wife spent a few days at Niagara Falls. Taking a break at a local café, they noticed an elderly woman come in by herself and order ice cream.

Brown wondered about her story.

After he and his wife headed home, Brown

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"Be yourself."  It's one of the rules of social media. If you're blogging, tweeting or Facebooking for business, be real—or you won't be followed.

Yet, how do you pull off "authentic" while maintaining the company brand message?

It's tough enough for a small business. What if you're #2 on Business Week's best global brands list, with nearly 400,000 employees across 170 countries?

At IBM, it's about losing control.

"We don't have a corporate blog or a corporate Twitter ID because we want the 'IBMers' in aggregate to be the corporate

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Imagine marveling at Peru's Machu Picchu ruins, and a guy nearby asks if you'll take his picture. But it's not just him; he's proudly holding a paper cutout of a smiling tomato.

What, exactly, inspired this traveler to carry a cartoon tomato to one of the wonders of the world?

In a word, fun.

He's just one of nearly 140 people who vacationed with the tomato, named "Sweetie." These fans of the restaurant Souplantation, or Sweet Tomatoes in some markets, were enthusiastically participating in the chain's latest social media promotion,

Continue Reading about Fun Social Media Promos Feed Souplantation Customer Frenzy →