This week I attended the Society for New Communications Research conference in Boston. It was inspiring to see how some companies are working within the parameters and cultures of social media. They are flexible enough to bend their business perspective to accommodate the participatory aspects of the specific social platform they chose.

For example, Dell Outlet was one of several featured case studies. They have a profile on the microblogging site Twitter where they send tweets (short, 140-character messages on Twitter) about Dell super promotions, which are constantly changing. There are 379 people following Dell Outlet, looking to capture their next big bargain.

Immediately upon hearing this, I got the idea for creating a profile on Twitter called Santa Cause. Santa Cause will share with holiday gift buyers links to retailers who also provide a portion of their revenues to charities. See, it’s a gift that gives twice.

The elves at Provident Partners — Kirsten, Mike and me — will be tweeting away till Dec. 24. We also invite your help in this spur of the moment social media experiment. So if you know of retailers that give a portion of their revenues to charities, put their link in the comment section on this post and one of the elves will get it to Santa Cause to tweet.

Or if you are on Twitter, send a direct message to Santa Cause with the link, and tweet your followers to keep an eye on Santa Cause.

Here is a quick sample of a few of the list items. You can find a running list of Santa Cause’s Twitter posts at Santa Cause Twitter HQ.

–”Buy a gorgeous, green glass paperweight and 50 cups of food will be donated http://tinyurl.com/2bdab6”

–”Buy your doggie some treats for the holidays, with the proceeds going to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital http://tinyurl.com/ypn9yq ”

–”Oh Mama Cause I just found a good place to stuff my bag for the big ride. http://tinyurl.com/33c4bk It’s part of GreaterGood Network stores”