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Abstract
This paper explores social media marketing, its functions and best practices. By examining
uses and gratifications theory and the groundswell, this paper analyzes how to best use
social media. Two campaigns of beverage giant Coca-Cola is examined and analyzed.
Expedition 206 followed three bloggers on their mission to find happiness on a trip around
the world, and 24-Hour Session with Maroon 5 examines an interactive song-writing session
with the pop band Maroon 5.

Introduction

Social media is a driving force in the field of communication and marketing and is only
getting larger. This phenomenon is changing the way marketing has been done in years past.
Instant feedback and connecting first hand with your audience are only two of the benefits.
This paper will showcase a large corporation utilizing various social media platforms that
can serve as a model for future organizations.

Coca-Cola is a well-respected brand in the food and beverage industry and has been known
for its high sales and community involvement. The company is actively involved in several
social media platforms and their engagement can help serve as the foundation for a social
media marketing plan.

Background of Coca-Cola
The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest beverage company and is the leading producer
and marketer of soft drinks. Today, Coca-Cola is consumed throughout the world at the rate
of more than 600 million times per day and this figure is continuing to rise. However, Coca-
Cola is not the sort of company to live on its past glories; instead it looks to the future as a
challenge and constantly seeks new markets and ways of increasing its market share in areas
where it currently has a strong presence. It is the world's largest producer and distributor of
syrups and concentrates for soft drinks. Products developed by the Company are sold through
bottlers, fountain wholesalers and distributors around the globe.

Social Media
Social media is an imperative public relations and marketing tool for companies to utilize in
their business practices. It allows companies to have more of a relationship with their
customers and acts as another means of information. However, since it cannot be regulated,
users are free to post what they please about the company, whether it is good, bad or ugly.
Social media is developing rapidly and there are new platforms daily, making it necessary for
companies to not only be familiar with those platforms, but also know how to reach the
consumer through them.





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Coca-Cola and Social Media

In general, company is very supportive of buying media within those realms. Its like fishing
where the fish are. Social media is where their consumers are at the moment. Theres no
better way to amplify companys message. If youre building a major campaign and putting
a lot of time and energy into enabling social and interactive aspects, you have to make sure
people know about it.

Company strategy is to be everywhere their consumers are, but as a member of the
community. Thats not to say that they think theres anything wrong with big billboards in
Times Square or Super Bowl commercials. Theres a time and a place for that. Within the
social media marketing realm, their approach is to be a strong member of the community
thats enabling consumers to celebrate manifestations of the brand.

Snapshot of Social Media

Coca-Cola is active on numerous social media platforms. On the companys website, there
are direct links to take the viewer to each social networking site the company is involved
with. Once a viewer travels to any of those pages, there are links and buttons to direct the
viewer to other Coca-Cola social media pages. Currently the homepage has buttons that link
viewers to Coca-Colas profiles on Flickr, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.



Fans, Friends and Followers

Flickr: 116 sets of photos
Twitter: 248,953 followers
26,422 tweets
65,813 following

Facebook: 24,595,148 likes
12,731 photos

YouTube: Joined January 1, 2006
25,897 subscribers
18,740,566 total upload views
5,197,822 channel views

Posts on Twitter and Facebook are conversational, engaging and rarely have a promotional
feel. Interaction via YouTube is daily, new videos are updated frequently. Flickr photos are
updated at events Coca-Cola holds or sponsors, the most recent being the 24-hour session
with Maroon 5. On Facebook, Coca-Cola attempts to lessen the effects of the unregulated
nature of the groundswell by establishing House Rules for those wishing to interact with
Coca-Cola on the page:



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The Coca-Cola Co. launched a social media initiative in January 2010, dubbed Expedition
206. This social media push sent three bloggers on an all expense paid trip to 206 countries,
or as many as they could visit in a year. The number 206 is significant because Coca-Cola
products are sold in 206 countries. The goal of the campaign was to uncover what makes
people happy as part of Coca-Colas Open Happiness campaign.
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Expedition 206
involved blogging, posting videos to YouTube and posting updates on Twitter. Part of the
campaign involved the team taking part in events such as the Winter Olympics in Vancouver
and meeting locals in various countries. The main goal of the campaign was not to have the
Coca-Cola brand front and center, but rather to focus on optimism and joy, the attributes of
what Coca-Cola is about.

The outcome of the campaign resulted in 650 million media contacts and billions of
individuals involved both online and offline. The program created more visibility for the
Coca-Cola brand in key markets like China. In some countries, this campaign was their
first interaction with social media itself. Overall, the companys goal was to increase the
use of this marketing tool across the globe.

Coca-Cola and Maroon 5 set out to make music history by bringing band and fans together
to write a song in 24 hours via social media. It was promoted across Facebook and Twitter
along with help from bloggers across 20 countries. All tweets were posted on a 3D
interactive wall in the studio. Limitations of the event include spammers, inappropriate
messages and Internet browsers crashing. As stated above, a downfall of participating in the
groundswell is that it cannot be controlled.

More than 350,000 views were logged onto the Coca-Cola live stream throughout the
duration of the session and more than 25,000 fans tweeted their ideas and messages of
support to @cocacola using the hashtag #withMaroon5 to the band in the studio.











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In both social media marketing campaigns, Coca-Cola followed best practices. They were
human, knew what they wanted out of each campaign, listened to fans and followers and
responded and paced their content so they were not overwhelming them. They injected
themselves into the conversation, got feedback in real time, knew the audience and the
platforms and created a user-centric experience.

By creating the buzz, Coca-Cola gave fans, friends and followers a reason to visit their sites.
In essence, the company created a need for users to search the sites for information
regarding campaign status and progress. Users benefitted from visiting the sites and
communicating with Coca-Cola and Maroon 5 by feeling as if they had formed a relationship
and were part of something unique.


Opportunities & Challenges

Effective use of social media brought great opportunities for Coca-Cola according to the
above campaign success. Moving with fast-paced developments in online technology and
interaction tools helped to enhance Coca-Cola brand, boost the profile and even created new
business. It is now easier than ever for company to:
Directly target customers with marketing campaigns
Promote new products or services
Build brand awareness
Personally interact with existing and potential customers
Measure referrals from your social media activity to sales

There are so many social media tools and platforms it can be hard to know where to begin.
Some of the main challenges that Coca-Cola faced during implementation of the above
campaigns:
Achieve marketing goals by using social media
Time to be devoted to social media
The most effective platforms to use


Conclusion

Coca-Colas social media presence and engagement with consumers can serve as a model for
large organizations to follow. This paper explored social media and featured practices of
Coca-Cola. The uses and gratifications theory was observed, as well as the theory of the
groundswell. Best practices for communicating on social media as well as strategies for
successful viral marketing campaigns were also examined and then analyzed by looking at
Coca-Colas social media presence and involvement with two social media campaigns.


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Future analysis that can be conducted could be a detailed description of Coca-Colas
presence on a daily basis, and not just large campaigns. Only one day is analyzed in this
paper, but more would be beneficial. This analysis could help predict trends like when the
most users are active on social media and if that is the best time to reach them, when users
have the most complaints or issues regarding a product and if the company is responding.


References & Bibliography

Bachfischer, N. (2011). Expedition 206: First Results of Coca Colas biggest Social
Media Project. Aquarius Digital Potential Blog. Retrieved April 11, 2011.

Coca-Cola, Corporate. (2011, March 1). One Band. 24 Hours. A Brand New Song
Inspired By Fans across the World. The Coca-Cola Company.

Cook, D. (2011, April 4). Maroon 5s Is Anybody Out There Released As Free
Download in Partnership with Coca-Cola. M is for Music. Retrieved April 11, 2011.

Fredricksen, C. (2009, December 30). Four Social Case Studies from Coca-Cola
The eMarketer Blog. EMarketer. Retrieved April 11, 2011.

Kirkby, J., & Marsden, P. (2006). Viral Marketing. Connected Marketing (pp. 87-
107).

Warren, C. (2009, November 17). Inside Coca-Colas Social Media Strategy and
Happiness Ambassador Program. Mashable. Retrieved April 11, 2011

Zmuda, N. (2009, November 17). Digital: Behind Coca-Colas Biggest Social-Media
Push Yet | Digital - Advertising Age. AdAge Digital. Retrieved April 11, 2011.