Coca-Cola: A social media case study / we are social

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Coca-Cola: A social media case study

by Robin Grant in News on 9 July 2009 at 16:58

Following on from our Best Buy social media case study back in May, I thought it worth looking at what the FMCG giant Coca-Cola are up to in social media.

Last month in Cannes, Jonathan Mildenhall, Coca-Cola’s VP of global advertising strategy, admitted the multi-national corporation had been slow to embrace social media and historically, they did make some mistakes. However, if you scratch the surface a little, they’re doing some interesting things.

In April they created a new office of digital communications and social media within its public affairs and communications department, giving Adam Brown, digital communications director, and Anne Carelli, digital communications manager, oversight of corporate digital and social media communications efforts.

It’s worth watching Adam speak about Coca-Cola’s social media strategy at the recent BlogWell New York conference (start 50 secs in):

You can also see Adam’s slides here.

Coca-Cola Conversations is the blog Adam mentions, check out the Coca-Cola Facebook page, and for a UK perspective it’s worth looking at this article about ‘Let’s get together’ and the Coke Zone blog.

Update: Adam has kindly tweeted me to point out that Coke are on Twitter too. I especially like the fact that they’re being very conversational, even with their arch-rivals Pepsi:

Update 2: Coke’s new social media policy

tagged: case study, Coca-Cola, conversation, Facebook, listening, presentations, social media, social media marketing, Twitter

Charlie Treadwell

Social Media certification, that's a great idea!

stewartatkins

Useful aid to support pitching social media especially to the skeptical or tose just not too aware...

glindfordsmith

I am not sure Coca Cola really needs social media, though (although it definitely could and would not hurt). After all, I cannot imagine that I know any Americans that have never bought or drank soda from a 2-liter bottle, but I would be hard pressed to find someone that could actually quantify a liter of gasoline.

Samina

10 by 6 by 10 tactic- I want to know more! There must be a really fine line with having representatives, I wonder if they're ever seen as being bias towards Coca Cola. I think coke is a great social object- there's so much you can do around it. I was watching the Coke Library advert and found myself brainstorming ways they could build on it. At the moment the Facebook fan page has 3,657,067 fans, how do they choose and create social content that appeals to everyone? Do they have an idea of demographics? I guess I'm just curious to know how it changes by market.