Nike’s “Write the Future” World Cup ad was uploaded to YouTube on May 20, has been viewed more than 14 million times and given Nike the viral cachet as buzz-winner. Nike, neither a World Cup sponsor nor partner of FIFA, has raised ambush marketing to an art form at this year's event.

Adidas has focused its efforts on Facebook, where it is tapping sports stars from categories other than soccer – like auto racer Dale Earnhardt Jr., NFL’s Reggie Bush, and NBA’s Dwight Howard. Baseball’s B.J. Upton and Earnhardt Jr. are hosting trivia contests, appearing in videos and handling commentary duties, too.

"We'll tap the U.S. sports fans' passion and get them to engage with the World Cup via athletes they relate to," says Molly Maixner, brand marketing manager for Adidas soccer.

Coca-Cola’s global TV campaign features Cameroonian soccer player Roger Milla as a lure to its YouTube channel, instead of pushing them to the corporate website.  "Consumers want to stay in their preferred channels. Instead of pulling people to where we are, we're going where they are," says Prinz Pinakatt, the beverage giant’s interactive marketing manager.

In addition to promoting its “Longest Celebration” video with Milla, Coke’s YouTube page, which connects neatly to MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, (the just-sold) Bebo, Hi5 and iGoogle, is inviting goal-celebration videos and has received 5,000 submissions so far.

First-time sponsor Visa emphasizes fan participation with its YouTube “Go Fans” campaign campaign. Instead of TV spots, the campaign promotes a sweepstakes to entice users to upload videos in support of team favorites in the style of  announcer Andres Cantor's now iconic "goooal!" call.  

Anheuser-Busch’s reality webisode, "Bud House,” features 32 ‘super fans’ from all 32 World Cup countries living together in a house in Cape Town  posting throughout the tournament. When a team loses – that Bud ‘super fan’ goes home. Budweiser global VP Jason Warner calls it “social media one-on-one.”  

Another big social media trend during this World Cup is location-based services. Microsoft’s Bing is leveraging Foursquare to award badges to fans at soccer bars in select U.S. cities. A geo-location app guides fans to the bar’s location via online guide Thrillist. "We saw a void in a city like New York where there are so many country-themed bars and a mix of people,” said Aaron Lilly, Microsoft’s senior marketing communications executive.

One intriguing sidebar amidst the tweeting, poking, friending, buzzing, sharing, checking in, and liking during this World Cup: team players from Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Holland, Germany, Argentina and England are forbidden to tweet during matches, primarily due to concerns about odds-makers and bookies following their tweets.

Sheila Shayon is a senior media executive with 25+ years in television and new media including expertise in programming, production, broadband, start-up models, creative and branding strategies, digital content and social networking. Shayon has worked for HBO, Time Warner Cable and Wisdom Television. She graduated Magna Cum Laude, University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication. Currently, as President/Founder of Third Eye Media, a New York-based multimedia production company, Shayon works with online brands to combine editorial content and social networking applications.