Small Businesses Should Replicate Coke's Social Media Expedition

0 Comment(s) | Posted Nov 18, 2009 by Peter Wylie

Peter Wylie

Coca Cola, which has long been social media savvy and boasts one of the largest Facebook fan bases on the site, is launching a very interesting social media campaign called Expedition 206.  The company will send a group of three people to all 206 countries and territories where Coke products are sold. 

The Coke globetrotters will document how people are interacting with the brand worldwide and post the content they create to YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and an Expedition 206 homepage.  

Ad Age said the campaign began in the communications and public relations department at Coke, with the marketing department joining the effort shortly thereafter. 

Most of the large-scale social media efforts I’ve seen have come from huge brands such as Coke, Dell and Ford Motor Company, but I’d really like to see some innovative uses of social media by smaller enterprises.  Most of the smaller businesses I’ve observed have not cultivated a significant social presence yet.

The price of sending three people traveling over the world is clearly not in the budget for small businesses, but these businesses still can develop significant, thoughtful social media campaigns that drive customers to their stores, even if they don’t have Coke’s marketing clout.

All of the sites Coke is using are free to use, so small business owners can and should take advantage of them in marketing efforts.  I definitely could see something akin to Expedition 206 done on a smaller scale in a specific community by innovative brands.  Local interaction and word of mouth recommendations are more compelling than stock national advertising, and younger people are increasingly tuning out mass media advertising campaign.

Small businesses should use the same emerging media utilities as larger organizations to tell their unique stories in their communities.  These tools are cheap, they reach large, targeted audiences and lead to higher conversion rates.

It’s time for small businesses to take social media expeditions of their own, to reap the promotional and operational advantages that social media integration promotes..

- Pete

Filed under: Blog-related, Emerging Media, Old World Changing, Online Communities, Twitter-related