If you are a major brand and you aren’t using social media, well you probably aren’t a major brand. The truth is, to stay competitive brand need to be investing in social media as a way to really extend themselves to their customers. This is 2010 and consumers have options … lots of options. Social media is one way to create unique opportunities to show your customers who you really are and what you and your products stand for. Advertising and cultivating an image is still important, but it’s interacting with your customer base that creates loyal customers. Show them that you care, and you are involved in what they say, think and feel about your products, and they’ll be grateful. The results will be in your profit margins. Like most things, some brands do it better than others. Engaging in social media is about being extremely open, creative, and extending yourself across a wide range of platforms — with depth.
We’ve comprised a list of five brands who are most engaged in social media, and the impressive lengths they’ve gone to when connecting with consumers.
1. Starbucks
Starbucks is on just about every corner in the real world, and that’s the same strategy they’ve taken online as well. When it comes to a web presence Starbucks has made their mark on Twitter, Facebook, YouTubeFoursquare, mobile apps and with their own social network My Starbucks Ideas. They have dominated the social media landscape, creating active and engaging profiles on a variety of platforms. And according to various reports they are the most engaged brand using social media, and for a few years running.
Take a quick look at the coffee giant’s Twitter page, and you’ll see the company has just over 1 million followers. The next thing you’ll notice is there is a lot of conversation going on. Starbucks is keeping busy responding to mentions, apologizing for bad experiences, and just carrying on some interesting conversations with their followers.
Meanwhile on Facebook, more than 15 million people will admit to Liking the brand. And Starbucks is trying to make buying product as integrated and seamless as possible. Take for example the Starbucks Card Facebook application they introduced this past April, and just recently announced that customers could now “Give a Gift” and credit their friends’ cards too.
And that feature is an idea born out of their community site, My Starbucks Idea. The Seattle-based caffeine king wants to know what you want from Starbucks, and they are listening. Here consumers are asked to share their ideas, and let them know what you think of other ideas as well. Discussions are encouraged, and the community votes to see ideas become reality. The “Give a Gift” idea was suggested way back in 2008, and drew more than 42,0000 votes. It may have taken some time for the idea to become a reality, but it shows that Starbucks is listening to their customers.
2. Coca-Cola
Always Coca-Cola. As one of the most universally recognized brands, it’s not surprising that Coca-Cola is the second most engaged brand according to Famecount. Just like Starbucks, Coke is active on Twitter engaging in conversation with its 142,000 followers. Given that it has a world wide following it’s appropriate that many of the tweet are written in many different languages. In addition to it’s overarching brand, each drink it produces also has it’s own Twitter page.
On Facebook its kind of astounding that 14.6 million people Like the soft drink empire, but the company has done a good job of keeping things interesting and interactive. The Page is a hub of all sort of activity, from social good initiatives like Live Positively where fans voted for America’s favorite park to receive a $100,000 grant, posting fan photos, videos, and something called Expedition 206 — 365 days, 206 countries, one mission. “Happiness Ambassadors” traveled the globe looking for happiness. They blogged and posted photos and videos of their travels and fans could vote in polls on things like where they are the most happiest.
And on Coca-Cola’s YouTube channel, the soda company launched “Unlock The Secret,” a viral video campaign featuring Coke’s inventor and Doc Pemberton. By clicking on bottle links in the videos, viewers are taken to the @docpemberton Twitter page, their Ahh Giver app on Facebook that allows users to send a message to a friend delivered in video format by the Coke polar bear, and to Coke’s Smilezier a novel feature that allows you to record the sound of your own laughter and listen to other people as well. All of this ties together Coca-Cola’s brand of happiness, and they’ve done an interesting and original job engaging with consumers online.
3. Oreo
Oh-Oh-Oreo, is the third most engaged brand according to Famecount, and for a brand that’s been around since 1912, racking up 11.7 million Likes on Facebook is a great way to prove that good products have real staying power. For Kraft, makers of the delicious black and white cookie, Facebook outreach has been their main strategy. While other brands are engaged across the board, Oreo hasn’t leveraged Twitter at all yet. So the Oreo Facebook Page is a place to find recipes, photos of fans enjoying the cookie, videos, and games like Twist To Win for a chance to win the Double Stuff Racing League (Shaquille O’Neal, Apolo Ohno, Eli Manning and Venus Williams). The DSRL’s videos are the main focus on Oreo’s YouTube channel, with videos of interview with the athletes, commercials, and behind the scenes footage.
Kraft Foods: How Oreo Learned to Fish Where the Fish Are, presented by Beth Reilly from GasPedal on Vimeo.
4. Skittles
Skittles may also sound a little weird to be making this list, but they have an amazing online presence, starting with their website — a vibrant landing page that invites you to “Experience The Rainbow” and scroll down the page. First you are met with a really strange four minute commercial featuring a intellectually-challenged fellow rambling about the little candy piece of the rainbow, and the option vote if liked it or hated it. Moving further down the page, fans are asked to upload photos and videos if they think they’re funnier than the rainbow. Keep scrolling and you’ll find fan photos and picture posted, and you’ll be asking yourself why you kept scrolling, but you probably aren’t part of the “rainbro” demographic Skittles is trying to reach with their site. On another site, Share Skittles, YouTube videos of fans eating skittles are posted.
While Skittles hasn’t quite figured out how to leverage Twitter, logging just over 6,000 followers, and producing some really weird tweets, over 11 million likes show they managed to figured out how to make use of Facebook. Features like Mob The Rainbow, another strange but really innovative effort that strives to bring fans together to create something big. The first mob was a massive outpouring of Valentine’s Day greeting to a person who doesn’t get much love — a parking enforcement officer. Fans were asked to either make a card on the site or get the address and send one on their own — 43,037 sent cards. Since the launch of Mob The Rainbow last year, fans have completed three mobs, with a fourth one to “crash” an 85-year-old grandmother’s birthday party currently underway. It’s an brilliant way to engage their audience with social good and keep their quirky image alive.
5. Red Bull
Red Bull is a brand that is associated with a lot of things — late night last minute studying, late night partying, way too early morning meetings or classes, and the ability to keep you awake during the day. With 9.9 million Likes on Facebook, it probably not just because the Austrian company is your sweet savior from the long hours of the day, but rather because it offers a really cool and interactive Facebook Page that appeals to it’s core audience. The Procrastination Station, featured on their Games page, offers high quality, engaging and interactive procrastination, like a soapbox car racing game, rock, paper, scissors, and fans can listen to “Drunkish Dials” — drunk recordings of Red Bull drinkers who called the company’s toll free number. Yep, that’s what happens if you leave them a ridiculous drunken message, they’ll put it online.
Plus, they’ve run creative contests like 2009’s Red Bull Stash, where the company hid Energy Shots all over the country, and posted clues on their Facebook wall. It was the company’s way of saying thank you to fans when they hit the 1 million mark. Currently the company has teamed up with an San Francisco Giants player Tim Lincecum, to create an ongoing scavenger hunt for 11 autographed baseballs hidden in the street of San Fran. A picture of each baseball has been uploaded at a specific location and the first fan to arrive and check in with Facebook Places and the password “San Francisco’s Got Wings” wins the coveted ball.
And as the sponsor of a ton of sporting events and athletes Red Bull’s website is the place for fans to see exactly what they are sponsoring. With videos, interviews, photos, games and a feature called “Holy Shit” featuring short, extremely high quality videos of amazing moments in extreme sports.
The company has also done an impressive job on the mobile front with motor-sports game Red Bull X-Fighters, access to their web TV channel with behind-the-scenes footage of daring stunts, with the Red Bull TV app, and Red Bull BPM an app that turns your iPhone into a complete DJ set-up. All these apps are great extensions of the brands core product, creating apps that compliment the consumer’s lifestyle goes a long way.
The Social Media for Business Leaders Series is supported by The Awareness Social Marketing Hub, which builds social marketing software for marketers leveraging multiple social channels to engage with customers, build their brand, and increase revenues. Built upon Awareness’ expertise deploying more than 200 communities and social media projects for the world’s biggest brands including Sony, JetBlue, Kodak, ASOS.com and AIRMiles, The Awareness Social Marketing Hub is a leading enterprise-grade application for marketers struggling with the social media chaos of managing multiple social channels. With the Awareness Social Marketing Hub, marketers are now able to publish, manage and measure across all their social channels from one central location using advanced built-in permissioning, workflow and audit controls.
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