Our current marketing age is one of interactivity and customer personalization. The Internet, unlike the other media, gives the audience overwhelming control of what they see and how they interact. Savvy marketers understand their audience and incorporate campaigns that capitalize of the medium’s user-end control. Chase Bank is one recent example – they gave their customers the power to determine into which hands $5 million would be given.

Some businesses are hesitant to embrace social media. Others, like Chase, are aggressively and proactively creating opportunities to engage customers. In a campaign that ended last week, Chase engaged its customers by bridging the gap between corporate responsibility and social media. Through their online banking website, Chase encouraged customers to select deserving charities within their individual communities.

In no other era would Chase have been able to launch a nationwide campaign in which its customers could directly vote for their charity of choice. And with relative ease! The nature of the Facebook social platform was the perfect tool to not only host the voting, but to promote the cause throughout multiple local communities simultaneously.

There’s no doubt Chase was eager to find creative ways to establish a stronger relationship with the millions of customers who joined from the Washington Mutual family earlier this year. As Americans continue to feel the pinch on their pocketbooks and worthwhile causes are experiencing declines in donations, this was an ideal way to make an impact directly on the lives of those who recently joined the banking family.

Clearly there are many creative applications for the use of social media. Corporate responsibility is just one of the many components of your brand’s values and beliefs that can effectively be communicated via social media networks.

What are you currently doing that makes a difference? How can you get your customers involved in your outreach, giving them a hand in the impact you make in your community every day?

It’s probably time to consider how social media can make your cause greater, while attracting new customers and forging a stronger relationship with your current ones.