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iContact recently decided to pair up National Championship football teams to analyze how they were performing with regard to social media usage. The study took a close look at the social media strategies being used by a number of the teams' players and were further highlighted to enable businesses to learn effective social media strategies which help them build their brand and client base.

In a release, Jeff Revoy, chief marketing and product officer at iContact said, “While the traditional Big Game pastime has been to watch television commercials, the massive consumer adoption of social media is driving this new phenomenon called the Social Bowl. Businesses and marketers can learn from the players how social media can effectively drive brand awareness.”

iContact examined the overall number of Twitter (News - Alert) followers and tweets for players on the Giants and Patriots and used these statistics to evaluate how the teams faced off in the 2012 “Social Bowl”.  Only players who started for both teams during their respective championship games on January 22, 2012 were considered.

Some of the key strategies from this study are highlighted to enable small businesses to take full advantage of social media and build their brand. The strategies include Man-to-Man, where one can take advantage of Twitter to show the personality behind your brand. Remember to be authentic, share your knowledge with your followers and make lasting connections; Blitz, you must learn how to build your brand while you're on the go. Send quick 140-character tweets to promote sales, advertise new inventory and connect with followers when you're away from the office and finally Zone, you must cover more areas than just your business. Mobilize your followers with tweets about other causes, ideas and interests.

If you would like to see which team and players dominated on the social media front as well as get an in-depth view of all the results, please go to blog.icontact.com.

In other news, social media strategies used in Republican presidential candidate campaigns can be applied by small businesses to enhance their digital marketing efforts, according to a recent study by global social media and email marketing company, iContact.