As part of our research group, we are publishing a few overviews of interesting companies in the social media space.

Altimeter Group is not a marketing company, rather a research/consultancy company (Powerpoint company). Think Boston Consulting or Bain mixed with Gartner or Forrester, focus is “Social Business” which includes social media aimed towards customers but also includes how organizations are internally organized and how information is shared within a company. In some cases this can mean using social media tools internally, but it can also mean creating whole new org charts for large organizations.

Their model is essentially as follows: produce a large number of free report’s which are then use to leverage engagements in advisory, speaking or strategy.

For advisory, this is be the classic consulting job. Called in to provide research and outside eyes on a project. Classically consulting in large organizations to displace blame. i.e. idea fails well expert consultants said it would work.

For speaking, past topics include:

• Hot or Not: Deciding Which Disruptive Technologies Matter
• Creating a Coherent Social Strategy
• The Future of Social Networks
• Convincing Your Curmudgeon — Getting Executive Buy-In for Your Social

For strategy, Altimeter has published on:

• Get Engaged With Your Customers (or Employees)
• Recruiting an Unpaid Army for Word of Mouth
• The Customer of the Future
• Developing a Mobile Strategy for the Whole Customer Lifecycle
• Developing — and Investing — in a Social CRM Strategy
• Rethinking Innovation in Your Enterprise Strategy
• It’s the People Stupid: Designing a Social Experience
• Funding an Enterprise Strategy
• Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist
• Developing a Scalable Social Strategy

Some great reports here:

http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/reports
http://www.altimetergroup.com/research/webinars

All altimeter reports are released under  a creative commons license so you can pull their slides and use them in your own presentations as long as you give them credit.