Social Media Marketing: How Pepsi Got It Right

Social media marketing campaigns are proving to be goldmines rich with customer engagement and insight that companies wouldn’t likely have otherwise. Companies like PepsiCo are going to extensive lengths to foster this type of collaboration with fans, and the payoff has been big.

The company’s Mountain Dew division is several stages into its DEWmocracy campaign — a plan to launch a new Mountain Dew flavor with the public’s involvement at all levels of the process, and PepsiCo also just launched the Pepsi Refresh Project on January 13th. Rather than spending money on Super Bowl television ads this year, the company is spending $20 million on a social media campaign.

Jay Baer, founder of the social media strategy company Convince & Convert, said brands are realizing they need to market for the long haul. “I do think it’s a good move for Pepsi. I don’t know if every brand can pull it off,” he said.

The Pepsi Refresh Project and the DEWmocracy campaigns are part of a crowdsourcing effort that’s part of the larger PepsiCo plan to more closely integrate consumers with the brand. “Driving consumer interest and engagement takes imagination and often a certain amount of reinvention, so it’s fair to say we’re rethinking everything we do from product development to marketing campaigns across our entire portfolio,” said Bart Casabona, a Mountain Dew spokesman.

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A Closer Look at Mountain Dew’s Social Media Campaign

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The first DEWmocracy campaign launched in 2007. This inaugural DEWmocracy effort let consumers choose Dew’s new flavor, color, name and graphics, and resulted in more than 470,000 people voting and an overall 1 million people taking part in some phase of the process, according to the company’s DEWmocracy media site. The winning new flavor, Voltage, hit store shelves in January 2009.

Brett O’Brien, Mountain Dew’s marketing director, said that for the first campaign a site was built for people to interact with, which made sense at that time.

Fast forward to July 2009, when the second DEWmocracy campaign launched. The multi-stage effort tasks die-hard Mountain Dew fans to narrow seven sodas down to one final new flavor that will become a permanent part of the Mountain Dew family, using social media platforms 12seconds.tv, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in the process.

O’Brien said that with the explosion of social networking, they felt it was best to interact with people where they are.

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Flavor Nations Play a Large Role

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The second iteration of the Mountain Dew campaign is fueled by the 4,000-strong DEW Labs crew, an online community of die-hard fans. The DEW Labs are divided up into three Flavor Nations for the three Mountain Dew soda finalists: Typhoon, WhiteOut and Distortion. Once the three flavors debut in April, the Flavor Nations must talk up their flavor and get people to vote for it to become the permanent new Mountain Dew soda. That one winning new permanent soda flavor will debut on Labor Day, according to the company’s DEWmocracy media site.

O’Brien said the several stages involved are really part of the normal product innovation process. He said if they were going to be totally transparent the whole time in launching a new Mountain Dew flavor, they needed their customers to be there the whole time.

Every part of the campaign involves the fans and the public — from picking flavor names, to voting on the best user-submitted ad campaign.

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How to "Effectively" Use Social Media to Grow Your Business

By Patrick Daugherty The rise of social media has been quite remarkable in the last 5 years. Sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, My Space and more recently Twitter have established their value to empower social networking and are here to stay. So much so that entrepreneurs have flocked in mass to use them as another way to market the products and services their business provides. Shortly thereafter there was a flood of instructional social media "secrets" being marketed which has in turn trained many internet marketers how to unintentionally to tarnish the system. Unfortunately, many of those individuals are now jumping on the social media bandwagon with the desire to gain as many in their network as possible for the purpose of shoving their marketing down their throats. Many are using social media but far less are using it effectively, which prompting the writing of this article. The Cause & Affect What originally made these sites so unique was that it allowed others to connect together and routinely share information that appealed to the common interest. Those connected were then compelled to comment and share often since the dialogue appealed to them. Instead of one way communication, this enabled two way conversations. This is even more the case with the emergence of Twitter. These were intended to be considered "safe" places to interact on-line, away from spam emails and unsolicited pop-up windows. Social Media is not intended to be the place where someone continuously hammers their network trying to hustle their products. The"I Made 45K in 30 days!" and "New Business Opportunity In Pre-Launch. Jump Aboard!" do not bring value nor do they motivate the recipient want to do anything other than delete it upon viewing the headline. Making matters even worse is the rotating automation software which automatically sends these messages out every 30 minutes everyday. The issue is that no one is behind the keyboard sending anything of value and as a result, no one is listening. Be Affective: Brand Yourself As An Asset The best way to use social media to grow your business is to provide value, which is to say; connect, listen and give. Social Media Guru Chris Brogan the author of "Trust Agents" verbalized it well when he said "Give and provide value. Connect those that can help each others business. Be on the elbow of every deal being made. Give, give and give some more. It'll always come back to you. If you don't get that, then you'll never be a trust agent". The point is that if you want to gain viable connections that will funnel traffic to your site or customers to your business you need to be seen as an asset in meeting their needs. That takes asking and listening. The beauty of social media is that you don't necessarily have to be the smartest person in the room to do that. You just need to be connected with the expert and put them together to mutually meet their business need. You can also find purpose if you refer them to internet sources of information that can meet that need as well. It Doesn't Take A Large Network: Quality Over Quantity Many talk about the tens-of-thousands of connections needed in order to get your message out and benefit your business. That is true if no one is listening and you're only getting a response-rate equal to that of a mass mailer or telemarketing call. You see, it's not necessarily about the number but rather about the quality of those potential internet business relationships that matter. It comes down to how well you've branded yourself and as a result, how much you can leverage that solid reputation to be able to help others and in turn help reach your goals as well. It takes far fewer social media connections if they are people that know you well enough to refer others to you or recommend you to their tight knit group. It also takes far less if you are more discrete about those that you connect with. Find out before hand if they are a spammer or if they fit your prospect/customer demographic or the profile of someone with a like mind. When they see a message you've sent, you want them to sit forward and read through it because they know you're a trusted source and have sent something that will help them. Remember, your goal is not to purely "get more people" but rather to forge an electronic business relationship that is solid enough for that person to recommend you to someone else. Application Now make no mistake, I'm not saying that you have to take a long time to do cultivate your branding or reputation. Just a personal message every once in a while which can be something as basic as: "Since I know some key people in your industry, I would feel comfortable referring you to anyone if you let me know what you need. So I was wondering what challenges you're facing this week? Is there any way I help your business be more successful?". I've had people come back with "I just wrote a blog post and was wondering if you could read and comment on it". What's incredible is that if you start, it tends to be contagious. When your connection hears of someone that has a need, you want them to think of you and tell them, "hey, I know a person who might be able to help you out, let me put you two together". Now you've empowered that connection to feel like they brought value to their network and helped someone too. Conclusion Always bear in mind that no one appreciates being regarded merely as a number and everyone places value on being asked questions and listened to. So take a slice of time out of your day to be more deliberate with who you connect with and how you are developing your personal brand. Cultivate a network that you can leverage because, like any relationship it takes an investment before you can assume to ask for something in return. You'll find that as soon as you do, they'll welcome the chance to return the favor. It's what social media was intended to be. R. Patrick Daugherty The Biz Coach Check out: http://TheBizcoachBlog.com Get free coaching and resources for your business from "The Biz Coach" at: http://Learn2Earnitnow.biz Mr. Daugherty is known for having a passion for coaching business executives and entrepreneurs in the art of identifying, attracting and retaining top talent while effectively communicating, mentoring and coaching them to reach their personal and professional goals. Over his 15 year career he has been fortunate enough to have consulted and coached leaders in a wide range of industries from international technology firms and large insurance conglomerates to numerous staffing & recruiting firms as well as state & local policy makers and grass roots organizations. He is now utilizing that wealth of experience to help entrepreneurs of small and home-based business. Patrick is married to his beautiful wife Diane and live with their three children in central Pennsylvania. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patrick_Daugherty Learn more on branding with social media at http://FootprintStrategies.com