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How Social Media Work For Coke, Newell Rubbermaid

The Coca-Cola Conversations homepageOutside of Silicon Valley, use of social media is still a relatively new frontier even for large companies, and direct ROI metrics are still being created. Still, social media are paying off in tangible ways in communications and PR, as well as marketing, according to executives from global brands spanning several consumer and B-to-B markets, including Coca-Cola Company, CNN, Newell Rubbermaid, UPS and PR Newswire.

The webcast panel was organized and moderated by Dan Greenfield, principal in Atlanta-based media consultancy Bernaise Source Media and a blogger on social media topics (www.bernaisesource.blog.com). New York-based PR Newswire joined the Atlanta-headquartered global brands as facilitator/sponsor and to offer its perspective as a provider of social media and other digitally based communications solutions.

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At Coca-Cola, social media initiatives are being used for "call to action" messaging and conversations that encourage consumers "to enjoy our beverages in different parts of their lives," reported Coke's director of digital communications, Adam Brown. On the communications/PR side, social media are the "cornerstone," used to facilitate Coke's open engagement with consumers and other key stakeholders and actively "steward" the reputation and perception of the company and its brands, he said.

Coke currently has one company-originated blog, Cocacolaconversations.com, and intends to establish "many" more over time, according to Brown. The existing blog is moderated by Coke historian/archivist Phil Mooney, and focuses on topics related to what Brown terms the company's "lore"-including the brand's history and role in pop culture; anniversaries/benchmarks and recent changes relating to specific brands; brand-related memorabilia and an area for collectors of Coke bottles, signage and other branded items; consumers' stories about the roles Coke plays in their lives; contests and recipes.

From a corporate and individual brand stewardship standpoint, Coca-Cola tracks mentions of the company and its brands and, when appropriate, responds "with transparency," said Brown. Around the world, Coke and its brands get an average of 2,000 blog and 300 Twitter mentions on any given day. Many web users obviously are driven to mentions on social networks via the major search engines, and Coke also ensures that its corporate policies and practices regarding environmental and other social responsibility issues come up in searches of such general terms, he said.

When people use search engines, "we want to make sure that the information is, in many cases, coming from us, with full disclosure," Brown explained. "We're getting our messages out there, and moving from a monologue to a dialogue." While the communications to each of Coke's audiences/customers do reflect their needs, the basic social media tactics used to communicate with consumers and with Coke's hundreds of bottlers and retailers all over the world are "quite similar," he added.

"I'd love to assign a monetary value to what we do" with social media, "but we're not quite there yet," Brown said. However, he stressed that both the blog and the other initiatives are yielding tangible benefits.

Top management established his position two years ago because it recognized the benefits of social media and other digital communications, and while there are potential risks with a branded blog, clearly posted "house rules" and monitoring of user-generated content postings before they go live has minimized this. (Only about a handful of comments have actually had to be edited.) The overall goodwill and positive engagement with consumers have "demonstrated the success and value" of the blog, he added.

Monitoring and engaging in social conversations throughout the Web has demonstrably enhanced Coke's "findability or searchability" metrics, increased traffic to its online properties, and helped mitigate brand risk by enabling Coke to address issues and correct erroneous information quickly and effectively, Brown reported.

Going forward, Brown is looking to further enhance social media's effectiveness by "training and empowering" Coca-Cola staff and other constituencies in the field who are "passionate about our brands and content" to engage actively in conversations and "help us protect our assets, reputation and brands," he said.

Given that a "huge percentage" of beverage purchase decisions are made in the store, the proliferation of mobile devices will "change the whole chemistry" of social media by providing Coke and other marketers with a "brand in the hand" to reach consumers at the right time with the right message, he emphasized.

Highlights from other participants:

  • At Newell Rubbermaid -- whose brands span Rubbermaid home and commercial cleaning/organization/décor products; office products such as Rolodex, Sharpie, Paper Mate and Parker; tools/hardware such as Irwin and Lenox and home/family products from Calphalon, Goody and Graco -- a few brands are actively engaged in social media. Others are watching and learning from the results and internally shared case studies, according to Bert Dumars, VP of e-business and interactive marketing.

For example, for baby products (diapers, strollers, playpens etc.) brand Graco, engagement with consumers through blogs, Twitter and ratings sharing capabilities helps "humanize" the brand by conveying that those who produce and market the products "are parents, too," he said.

Graco executives spent months (nine, actually) "gestating" a blog by not only observing "mommy blogs," but meeting with these bloggers face-to-face and learning about what they did and did not want. "As a result, when we launched, we had already built a level of trust - and without trust, there is no 'social' to social media," Dumars said.

Dumars noted that the company's industrial customers are less interested in social media. "You have to know what your customers want first," he said - adding that once an audience is ready for it, it's critical to be sure that your web sites will meet expectations before you start driving people there with social media. "If your site looks poor-quality, people will think your brands are poor-quality," he warned.

The company monitors the results of social media and other digital and traditional channels to see how they work alone and together, but needs to get better at this, Dumas said. Down the road, he foresees using social media-generated content, such as product ratings, as well as video and mobile, for reach at point of sale, which is a major sales driver for Newell Rubbermaid.

  • For UPS, social media are "critical" to managing brand reputation, including "informing news and discussions," said manager of corporate relations Debbie Curtis-Magley. "We're very mindful of the conversations, particularly around key issues for us," she said. "We don't just provide useful information [about UPS services]; we convey the values and the culture of our company."

Her area shares what it learns from social media (including insights on the "tonality" of brand-related conversations and service enhancement ideas gleaned from UGC) with other departments and solicits their perspectives in return, Curtis-Magley reported. Areas including marketing, legal and customer service are "realizing the impacts and opportunities created by social media," she said, adding that it is a low-cost way to expand both marketing and communications reach using internal expertise and resources.

Much of UPS' focus is obviously B-to-B, where specific service needs are customers' main content interest, and the company collaborates with its franchisees in shaping social media efforts. But it also uses social media for consumer communications and marketing reach when appropriate. For example, in launching its Delivery Intercept service last year, UPS created both B-to-B and consumer awareness by creating a MySpace page and using YouTube for a video contest. "We definitely built interest and awareness," she reported: UPS received over 1 million customer requests to use the service, and exceeded its launch revenue goals.

  • Social media are "vitally important" to CNN for several reasons, including increasing consumer awareness of the network's offerings (such as live access to key events on the web, as well as TV) and being able to respond to issues or questions raised by other journalists or the public about its coverage and journalists, according to the director of public relations, Jennifer Martin.

Social media also enable instant feedback invaluable for a media company. For instance, during the 2004 presidential debates, moderators Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper were fed consumer reactions during the event and able to adjust their directions and tone accordingly, Martin said.

Social media provide CNN with great flexibility to tailor its communications and conversations with its diverse audiences, including other journalists and the bloggers who are now viewed as journalists by the public, she added. CNN executives have been interviewed on influential news blogs, and the results have been positive both for external perception and generating enthusiasm among staff, Martin said.

Martin advised others in PR and marketing not to be intimidated by the sheer number of blogs and other social media channels. "You can cherry pick" to have specific conversations and communicate specific messages to individual audiences, she said. "You don't have to pitch 300 blogs. In fact, it's probably more powerful to pitch the influential ones within a certain segment."

"Our rules for all at CNN whenever we're engaging in social media are that our two primary focuses are transparency and authenticity," Martin stressed. "And being brief is also important."

  • PR Newswire's director of emerging media, Michael Pranikoff, also emphasized the importance of knowing your audience's needs and interests in guiding social media content and targeting. He noted, for instance, that one tech company has excellent results with "geeky videos about topics like chips" directed at a few, influential bloggers in its market. The numbers of views may be relatively small, but "they know that these bloggers are getting the right 100 or whatever number of views," he said.
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