This post has been contributed by What Matters Online via CBN

I had the pleasure of chatting briefly today with Gary Hall, president of white-label social media technology maker Pringo.com. Hall, who spurred the online marketing efforts for  Reunion.com for five years, could reasonably be seen as a social media expert, so I was eager to hear what he considered to be the key reasons for the success of Yokahama Tire’s “Eco Treadsetters” site. 

Eco Treadsetters one of what seems to be a growing number of sites which have chosen “green” content as their initial foray into social media world, including Dell’s “ReGeneration” site. (All of the sites I’ve found are based on some form of white-label social media software, too, interestingly enough.)

The site, whose creative comes from Detroit’s PCGCampbell agency, was designed as a short-lived project but seems poised to live on for some indefinitely.  The agency and client realized they had a hit on their hands within only a few months of the site’s launch, Hall says.

With 100+ companies offering white-label social media networking platforms out there, what made Pringo.com stand out for PCGCampbell and  Yokahama?  Well, for one thing, Hall says, the clients liked that Pringo is installable software, not a hosted Web service, which allowed them to put the technology behind a firewall and safely load it with internal data. Other dealmakers were Pringo’s proprietary content management system and capacity for awarding redeemable points to users who contribute to the community.

Sounds like these clients had a big need to build out social networking on their own terms–and shape user interaction pretty purposefully–not that there’s anything wrong with that.  (It must seem fine to users if the site’s a big success.)

Over the next few weeks, look here for more brief check-ins with clients, technology vendors and other intermediaries who are rolling out social media and other cutting-edge social media solutions. I’ve done enough rambling on this blog–time for me to share as much as I can of what other people thing!