I recently returned from Amsterdam where I attended and presented at Enterprise Social 2.0. What a fabulous experience. The speakers and presentations were first rate. Here are some of the highlights from the gathering.

Ramon DeLeon, Domino’s Pizza (@Ramon_DeLeon). This guy is an amazing presenter with outstanding energy; but beyond his exceptional presentation skills, he shared some wonderful examples of how he has used social media to drive business to his six Chicago stores.

For instance, he told us about a simple, but effective promotion he used to gain exposure for his stores on Facebook. He simply updated his status to say “However many minutes it takes you to respond to this message is the amount you’ll pay for two pizzas.” A woman posted a response on his wall in two minutes and received two pizzas for $2. The benefit for Ramon was that he gained significant awareness / exposure with this promotion by engaging many others in responding and telling their friends about the campaign.

Ramon’s primary goal with social media is to motivate people to tell their friends about his pizza. He wants them to do this via word-of-mouth, Facebook and Twitter, and is a master at creating compelling content and promotions to make this happen. He also understands that “people do business with people they like and trust. Without customers you have no business.” This is a guiding principle for him.

Adam Wallace, Roger Smith Hotel New York (@adwal). In his presentation, Adam focused on showing how they have used social media to generate excitement and enthusiasm for the boutique hotel. One of the key takeaways from his presentation was to make sure the folks on the front line know about their impact on perceptions. For instance, the Roger Smith Hotel became extremely well known with its online followers for its crispy, mouth-watering bacon, but the guy cooking it had no idea. It is important for the people creating the real-world customer experience to understand they will have an impact (good or bad) on what people say on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. Click here to link to an interview with Adam.

Ellen Petry Leanse, Google (@chep2m). Ellen is such an inspiration. She shared interesting information about social media. She also delivered her presentation using Google Wave – Google’s personal communication and collaboration tool – which I had not seen in action. She was able to use the Wave technology to integrate links to articles, videos and more. To learn more about her thoughts on Google Wave, you can click here to link to an interview she conducted wih Remco Janssen (@remcojanssen).

Kees Mulder, Kodak (@keesmulder). Another fantastic presenter was Kees Mulder with Kodak. It was interesting to hear how Kodak has reinvented itself in the digital era and how they’re engaging customers. Kees spoke about a campaign they launched to name a new camera where they asked people to send suggestions via Twitter or by posting a comment on the company blog. The winners of the contest were invited to participate in a special launch event in Las Vegas at 2010 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) (this was an all expense paid trip), received cameras and recognition as the contest winners. Kodak also randomly chose 100 other participants to receive the camera. Needless to say, the campaign was a big success. Kodak gained a lot of free publicity via social networks and mainstream media and also got a winning name (The Kodak Playsport) for its innovative camera.

Participants in the panel discussion I led on damage control in social media included Ramon DeLeon, Ellen Petry Leanse and author Mike Moran. We discussed how companies such as Facebook, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota and Dominos have responded to recent crisis situations and shared best practices before, during and after a disaster.

Other noteworthy presentations and discussions were led by LEGO, L’Oreal, Siemens Swift, Vodafone, Nokia, SAP, Philips and Airbus. The conference organizers KGS put together a winning two days and I feel honored to have had the opportunity to connect with so many world-class leaders.