Not only new generations can’t imagine existing without social networks but the old chaps like Santa go online to connect to the audience. Santa prefers YouTube and Twitter these days.  With help of Telefonica’s O2, Santa has created the hashtag #O2santa so that followers can tweet him a message that they’d like read out, and Santa will create personal short video on YouTube.

Photo: a snapshot from the video on YouTube

According to Ad Age, the campaign, created by PR agency Hope & Glory, is running for a week, and wireless provider O2 says that any messages received by December 15 will be delivered in time for Christmas.

Alex Pearmain, head of social media at O2, said in a statement, «We felt that we should create something fun as an integrated aspect of our Christmas digital campaigning — something that gets consumers involved with us and allows 02 to deliver a bit of entertainment during the festive period. Our social-media channels seemed the ideal platform to do this on, and we hope this campaign will help to cut through some of the current consumer gloom and spread some festive cheer.»

On the second day of the campaign, Santa has received thousands of tweets and created 400 personal messages. He has had to brush up on his linguistic skills, after getting requests from non-English speaking tweeters.

In addition, NORAD, the bi-national US-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the US and Canada with help of Google Maps has launched a web site to allow children and families to track Santa on his annual trip from the North Pole to their chimney online.

On NORAD Tracks Santa, you can play holiday games and learn fun facts about NORAD and Santa the entire month of December. On December 24 you can start tracking Santa in real-time on the website using Google Maps, and in 3D with Google Earth. If your phone is handy on Christmas Eve, you can also search for Santa on Google Maps for mobile to track his journey on the go, says Google’s blog.