Department store giant Sears is celebrating its first anniversary of Shop Your Way Rewards, through a new user-generated content (UGC) contest that has customers telling us what they would do if they had one billion Sears points to spend.

Participants are asked to create a video explaining what they would do with the one billion points in a funny and creative way. Whether they would be generous, creative or selfish, it all needs to be recorded.

Video submissions can be no longer than 45 seconds and can be entered in one of two different ways. First entrants can visit the contest website at www.billionpoints.com and follow the directions, or they can visit a Sears or Kmart retail location during the select days and have an associate film their answer. (more…)

Summer is the perfect time for road trips and bonding with your family, and Sears has recently made both of these ideas a little more fun with a new nationwide project called Exploring My America.

American residents are being asked to audition from now until August 8, 2010 and follow the online instructions to become one of 21 teams that will participate in one segment of a given road trip route. Submission videos must be no more than three minutes long and must explain why you want to participate in the project, which route you would like to participate in and why, as well as what the trip would mean to you. (more…)

Kenmore knows that some people are simply crazy for cleaning and will go to any extreme to have their laundry or dishes done just right. Hoping to help you take the crazy out of cleaning is Kenmore’s Crazy Cleaning Confessions contest. (more…)

Sears is helping first-time college students get ready to go back to school with the launch of its new social media campaign Campus Ready. With three integrated Facebook tools, students and their families can plan, prepare and price their new dorm rooms.

The Sears Campus Gift Getter is an elaboration of a previous feature on the Sears website. Students can login to their Facebook account or register with the network and set up a wish list of items they need for their new rooms. Friends and families can view those lists and have them shipped to the student. Bigger ticket items can also be purchased by a group with the GiveTogether platform. (more…)

Communications executives are more important than ever, according to the study, “The Rising CCO,” an annual survey conducted by global executive search firm Spencer Stuart and global public relations firm Weber Shandwick with KRC Research. And those executives are calling social media their top ally.

Social media and user-generated content (UGC) have the potential to offer companies greater return on their communications investments, but it can also bring greater risk. Companies are now engaging customers via online communities, UGC contesting, reviews and blogging. (more…)

In a bid to promote its newest models’ debuts at the New York Auto Show, Land Rover has begun seeding hashtags on billboards, taxi TVs and other out-of-home venues.

A hashtag is a word used within a tweet on Twitter that make it easier to follow an ongoing conversation via online searches.

Land Rover has begun using the social media platform in its marketing by paying a Twitter ad network, Twittad, to spread the word among its heavily followed users. Compensated users, have all wallpapered their Twitter profiles with Land Rover branding and are using the hashtag #LRNY. (more…)

Reality Digital has announced it is launching a turn-key social media platform for small to medium size businesses. The new self-service platform called Reality Digital Harmony will allow businesses with limited budgets to take advantage of online social media.

The Harmony platform will make it possible for organizations to use user-generated content (UGC) to grow their networks. Social networking functions available include online video upload and playback, UGC sharing, blogging, and events and forums. The Harmony platform allows a business to choose functions that will create the type of community that works for it. (more…)