Social media can be a sticky subject for corporations, especially large and ominous ones that have been around since the age of the dinosaurs (that counts as anything dating back to pre-FDR days, by the way).  But social media has become an inexplicably intricate part of our daily lives, touching every aspect of our regular communication, work-related or otherwise.  The cloud has presented some new challenges and opportunities for large corporations to take advantage of social media’s communication revolution, and some are even seeking ways to improve corporate culture within the realms of social media.

eMarketer set down for an interview with premium life insurance company New York Life’s VP, Ken Hittel. Hittel said his social media marketing efforts are the number one lead generator in the company, and revealed some curious aspects of this operation.

“For years, people have assumed, with some justification, that the internet cuts the agent out of the deal. Our strategy has always been to reintermediate, or bring the agent back into the deal. We’ve been very successful at that.”

Hittel continued to detail how company sales agents point marketing efforts to specific cultural markets. He noted his company is occupying the first and second places with the largest Asian and Hispanic demographics with targeting marketing, and that the high paying 70-year-olds market is actually averaging 2.5 times more than offline.

Hittel continues to talk about New York Life’s use of social networking as a way of interacting with customers and generating strategic influence via a sort of personal online approach.

Ken Hittel is not the only one jumping on the corporate social media bandwagon. Social media management platform start-up Hearsay recently announced a new corporate social management product.

IBM in turn  recently revamped its internal social network to support the iPad and RIM’s Blackberry. Apple made a big push to promote the iPad as a business service to take over RIM’s current hold on the market, but also to increase revenue as business apps are making workforces more and more efficient on a larger scale.