Socrates, Circuit and Spotlight: you may find these sites while searching online, but you won’t be granted access. Unless, that is, you work at General Motors, Intel, or SunTrust Banks; these are intranet sites for those companies’ employees.

Intranets, proprietary social media platforms, mobile apps and rewards programs were on PRSA Connect13’s conference “employee social communications” agenda in New York on Tuesday, where corporate presenters ranging from industry leaders to resurgent companies shared case studies.

The following connection tips and tools aren’t new, but these companies, as well as SAS and IBM, found interesting ways to adapt them for employees.

1. Intranet: Circuit is Intel’s go-to platform, created to help employees follow company news and post related comments. Intel’s corporate initiatives director Melissa McVicker told attendees that employees use their personal pages to enter countdowns to their sabbaticals (which they earn every seven years).

2. Customized social media platforms: SAS maintains The Hub, hosted by SocialCast. Here employees join personal and work groups and give props to peers with a “thanks” feature. They’re also encouraged to submit ideas — and top-rated concepts make their way to R&D. CEO Jim Goodnight posts content, as do many employees. The Hub also serves as a real-time engagement platform: according to SAS internal communications manager Becky Graebe, two employees met, fell for each other and literally got engaged there.

3. Mobile apps: Intel introduced GoMyBenMobile, an app where its engineers and manufacturing employees have easy access to benefits information and company news without needing laptops.

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You’ve probably heard that everyone’s talking about Coca-Cola‘s social media reveal this week. According to the soft drink giant, the fact that more people are discussing its brand on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube doesn’t necessarily mean that more of them are buying Coke products. But maybe “How many people bought a Coke after retweeting a call to action?” is the wrong question to ask.

In an effort to clarify its points and counter the media’s collective freakout, Coke’s SVP of integrated marketing Wendy Clark wrote a blog post arguing that social does, in fact, play a large role in boosting brand perception and audience engagement–which leads to more sales.

Her point, of course, is that the fact that data can’t directly link the number of comments on a Facebook post to the number of people buying Coke does not diminish the value of said content. This kind of “buzz” is only one part of Coke’s extensive branding/PR puzzle, which uses earned, shared, paid and owned media to encourage the brand’s ultimate goal: driving consumers to buy more soda in the long run.

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Chevrolet unveiled its new 2014 Corvette at the Detroit Auto Show on Sunday–and while the new model boasts gas-and-speed-friendly features and an updated look, it remains, without a doubt, a Corvette.

The 2014 model pays homage to its ancestors by reviving the retro Stingray name, but chief engineer Tadge Juechter made clear that this is a car for the 21st century: “We don’t want to do retro…we don’t want to go back and do like some manufacturers [and] go relive the glory days.”

While the Corvette, which celebrates its 60th birthday this year, is not nearly Chevy’s best-selling car (the company barely sold 12,000 last year), the iconic (if impractical) muscle car is an integral part of the company’s branding.

Brian Moody of AutoTrader says, “It’s almost like a rolling billboard for the company, for the attitude of the company [and] the spirit of the company”. He went on to say that the purpose of building a high-performance sports car like the Corvette isn’t actually to sell a lot of Corvettes, but to sell more Impalas and Malibus.

That’s not to say, however, that Chevy isn’t invested in expanding the Corvette-buying market.

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General Motors has dropped another advertising bomb, saying it will no longer advertise during the Super Bowl. CMO Joel Ewanick made the announcement, complaining that the price is too damn high (the going rate is about $3.8 million for a 30-second spot now). GM pulled its $10 million in advertising from Facebook just a couple of days ago.

The company has recently selected a new ad agency and says its re-evaluating its marketing. But “the Super Bowl has become arguably the most effective single platform for auto marketing,” according to Forbes. Not only is the game among the most watched programming for the year, but the clips get added legs through YouTube and other Internet views both before and after the broadcast.

Moreover, they didn’t even make as much of a splash with this announcement because they made it on Facebook IPO Friday.

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Everyone is buzzing about the news that General Motors has pulled its $10 million in advertising from Facebook. The reason cited is the advertising is having “little impact on car purchases.” We’ve never noticed any GM advertising and, when taking into account that GM is the third largest advertiser in the U.S. ($1.8 billion) behind P&G and AT&T, it’s not that big of a spending cut for them. With $872 million in quarterly advertising revenue, its not too critical for Facebook either, though of course, the company would want to hang on to an advertiser.

In the course of its reporting, TechCrunch says sources question whether GM’s ads were “social enough” for the site. In that sense, it does raise the question of whether GM approached its Facebook advertising with the right strategy. It’s curious that GM would think that someone would see a Facebook ad and then run out and buy a car.

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Anyone struggling to understand Generation Y, a.k.a. the millennials, and their relationship to brands has a lot of work ahead of him.

This generation is not defined by technology; it is very open, but distrustful; and it is at the center of a cultural shift. That info is among the findings in a new report by Onesixtyfourth, a New York-based brand consultancy. The sociological findings help explain the worldview of many millennials, defined as young people born between 1980 and1995.

To simplify: they like engaging brands, ones that are fluid and changing, and those that are open and honest with consumers. A brand has to stand for something. It has to own up to its mistakes. And it also has to want to make a difference in the world.

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2011 Cadillac CTS-V

General Motors has chosen The Vox Collective as its 2012 U.S. Hispanic agency after a competitive search. The firm will focus on the Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac brands. [via]

Caribou Coffee has chosen Ruder Finn as its AOR after a competitive search that included Padilla Speer Beardsley and Ogilvy. The coffee company’s previous AOR, Exponent PR, didn’t participate in the search. [via PRWeek]

The first Harlem Arts Festival has chosen House of Success for media and influencer outreach, and partnership development with the Harlem business community. According to a statement from House of Success founder Sakita Holley, the festival will “shift the spotlight” back to Harlem from Brooklyn, which has gotten a lot of arts attention in recent years. [via]

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Chris Preuss has joined Hill & Knowlton as an EVP serving on WPP‘s automotive team in Dearborn, MI.

He was most recently the VP of global comms at General Motors and president of GM’s OnStar subsidiary. He worked with the company as it made its way through bankruptcy and restructuring. While at GM, he also held leadership positions for European communications, comms for Cadillac, among others.

At H&K, he’ll spend most of his time working with WPP on the Ford account, focusing on global product communications.

The 'Catch A Chevy' service was available at all SXSW shows this year.

May sales numbers may have shown a decline of 3.7 percent, but the outlook for many auto makers is positive. Over recent months, we’ve noticed increased signs of PR activity across the auto sector. We asked a few PR experts at auto companies what they’re observing and the role that PR is playing in their businesses.

“People are definitely buying more cars,” says Kyle Bazemore, senior manager of Infiniti product communications. The luxury auto brand recently re-upped its partnership with Amex Publishing, targeting gourmet foodies at a series of events over the next few months.

“Now it’s getting to the point where customers are saying, ‘I need a car,’” he added.

Ways of reaching those consumers have changed due to a number of factors.

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Chris Perry (@cperry248), president of digital communications at Weber Shandwick hosted a Twitter chat today with General Motors‘ Mary Henige (@maryhenige), director of social media and digital comms, titled “The Humanization of Brands and How General Motors is Setting the Pace.” Weber has worked with GM for a decade and on the company’s social media programming for more than five years, the firm tells us.

The title of this story is part of one of Henige’s posts. Check out a few other tidbits from the discussion after the jump.

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