You have to be of a certain age (able to recall the early 1980s) to remember the advertising slogan “Coke Is It!” You can be any age to appreciate the standards that this global soft drink icon has established in social media.
By many measures, the Coca-Cola social media presence is the largest and best in the world. The company has more than 51 million followers on Facebook and according to Wendy Clark, Coca-Cola’s Senior Vice President of Integrated Marketing Communications and Capabilities, 15,000 tweets a day roll through the company’s Twitter account.
In my mind, that’s not what makes Coca-Cola a leader, though. Spamming any social media channel with a tsunami of activity isn’t a particularly sophisticated (or smart) strategy in and of itself. Many companies (and celebrities) play that game (poorly). No, Coke is a leader in my mind because of how the company authentically and transparently engages in social media, thus producing that great volume of activity.
This is clear from this interview snippet of Clark chatting with Fortune senior editor Pattie Sellers at the recent Most Powerful Women Summit sponsored by the magazine.
In this interview, Clark shares two characteristics of Coke’s social media strategy that are worthy of emulation whether you sell soda pop or soda ash.
First, be shareworthy. In Clark’s definition, this means stepping into the social media conversation with content that is compelling enough that whoever receives it, turns around and shares it again. While you or I may find 51 million Facebook followers an Olympian accomplishment, to Clark, that’s just a start. To her, the ultimate Coke audience (potentially the entire Facebook universe), is just one “share” away if the company’s 51 million Facebook faithful like Coke’s content.
Second, Clark says corporate entities must be human in their social media conversations. Her digital team has coined a term to represent their goal in social media content: “Flawsome.” It’s a unique enough concept that when Clark first shares it in the interview, you can tell Sellers thinks she’s made a mistake, that she really didn’t mean to suggest that a huge corporate brand should make any kind of mistakes in anything. But that’s exactly what the Coke lady means.
Clark explains that social media users “really aren’t interested in having a relationship with a corporate monolith…Consumers don’t want to see your corporate veneer.” Hence the Coke digital team’s focus on awesome content that is human (in other words, authentic enough to seem flawed in the way of your average human conversation in the real world).
You can observe Clark’s great example of the difference between corporate speak and great social media conversation near the end of the two and a half minute interview clip.
For my purposes, Clark’s interview and Coke’s approach to social media validates what we at WordWrite have been doing with our clients for several years – focusing on the great story that our clients have to share, on being authentic, being fluent in sharing the story, and being vigilant in “reading” our clients’ audiences, in other words, evaluating their responses to any conversation and adapting our approach in a way that creates continued dialogue, conversation, and ultimately, a relationship. (You can learn more about how we do this and download some free tools to help you get started at this link.)
In this regard, it’s clear that Coca-Cola gets it. One way of looking at it is that this corporate monolith sells mass quantities of sugared, flavored water. But to anyone who loves the company (and its many products and brands), Coke is much more than that.
It’s an incredible credit to those responsible that Coca-Cola has authentically and transparently embraced social media so well that millions of people around the world engage with a flavored water provider tens of thousands of times a day, with passion and enthusiasm. You might call it a “flawsome” success.
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Paul Furiga is president and CEO of WordWrite Communications. You can find him on Twitter @paulfuriga.
