Coca-Cola. It’s a name known all around the world. But how did a simple soda created in the 1880’s rise to the super star brand we know and love today?
Coca-Cola has always been a distinguished brand no matter the decade and has created ads that were not only tolerated by the public but beloved. Take the infamous polar bear:
And who could forget the famous Christmas ads with Coca-Cola Santa?
One major key to Coca-Cola’s success has been their visual branding. They’re ads are often pictures that work to evoke emotion through little to no words. Coca-Cola also has kept a steady consistency through the decades in their logo use. Though they refresh their look from time to time, the iconic swirling “C” and bold red color are distinguished indicators of the brand.
As modern times have demanded more and more from companies to stay relevant among a large amount of competition, Coca-Cola has worked to stay on top as a brand giant in all aspects of social media. Kevin Shively of The Simple Measured Blog agrees that building an audience for such a large brand is not a challenge in the social-sphere, it is to connect and and keep a cohesive brand image throughout the multiple platforms.
On Instagram and YouTube, Coca-cola keeps to what they are best at: creating an experience or story through visuals. They are also sure to keep their Twitter content quite visual as well with nearly every post containing an image, often even the same images shown on Instagram keeping it consistent. Coca-cola has created multiple Twitter accounts, with their main account boasting 3.28 million followers. The sub-accounts have purposes of their own to support the brand. One sub-account, with 853,000 followers, pictures them as humanitarians and philanthropists giving back to the world through donation and volunteerism. This is a smart tactic in today’s market since so many individuals have begun to distrust big businesses. By showing the company’s giving side, it shows a positive nature to the company’s values.
Another element to Coca-Cola’s social media success is the level of engagement they are able to achieve. Across all the Twitter accounts Coca-Cola is frequently posting thousands of tweets to infiltrate their follower’s feeds. Simply Measured finds this has created hundreds of thousands of engagements and billions of impressions.
This plays additionally into Coca-Cola’s success of crowd-sourcing content. Shively of Simply Measured says:
“Coca-Cola runs campaigns to engage its audience and generate content that they can share. This is one of my favorite social tactics. Not only are you engaging your current audience and making them a very real part of your brand experience, you’re creating a collection of advocates. I’d bet good money that every single person in this video will Retweet/share/mention this video to their audience, who may not follow Coca-Cola yet.”
Coca-Cola has essentially created an fan club of dedicated customers who advocate for their product because of their feeling on inclusion with the brand.
But if there is one area of media large corporations like Coca-Cola have leveraged to audience in engagements, it’s sports. A perfect example of this is the official Coca-Cola NASCAR Twitter page. The brand has linked up with a popularized event that draws it’s own fandom to improve it’s SEO and exposure. Even the Rio Olympics and Paralympics had sponsorship from Coca-Cola. The ad pictured here was posted, presumably, on location in Rio. Twitter user has engaged with the brand and spread their message of partnership with the Olympics further to her followers and others who may search #rio2016.
Whether they are creating the engagement with bold, visual branding or offering their audience to provide content, Coca-Cola has mastered social media use across multiple platforms.