Social Media Campaigns
COCA COLA
Coca Cola first started off as a little brand as in its first year, it only sold 25 bottles. Now it is one of the most recognisable brands with its products being consumed at the rate of almost 2 billion drinks per day. Its #ShareACoke campaign quickly became a huge internet sensation as Coca Cola made an effort to connect with its consumers by letting them swap the famous Coca Cola logo with their name (or a funny nickname) and share a bottle with people they care about. Coca Cola selected up to over a thousand popular UK names and printed them on their labels, and made sure no one was left out by giving people a chance to personalise their own labels online. Coca Cola has sold over 150 million personalised bottles and around 76000 virtual cans were shared online.
After releasing lots of Coca Cola bottles with the first "Share a Coke" labels, Coca Cola waited quietly for the first tweets and Facebook posts from their fans asking what is going on with the new labels. In order to engage their audience, Coca Cola studied at which times their Twitter and Facebook fans were most active and after waiting a good amount of time, they finally explained what Share a Coke really was about.
The "Share a Coke" slogan turned out to be a very powerful call to action as it encourages consumers to share their coke rather than keeping it just for themselves, reinforcing the well known phrase: "sharing is caring". It also encouraged customers to not only share their physical coke, but also share their #ShareACoke stories online.
Coca Cola also engaged their audience by connecting with them on a personal level. It felt like personification was a good way to engage with its consumers and therefore created #ShareACoke in order to encourage that. Through personification, consumers could express themselves creatively through telling a story, as well as sharing a coke with a funny label. Coca Cola managed to engage with its consumers in a way that was also promoting their brand subtly; when a consumer shared a name-branded Coke with a relative, they felt like they were honoring them, rather than promoting Coke as a brand.
Coca Cola has made sure its consumers had a way to participate in this campaign. They have released Facebook app called “Ahh Giver” which allows its users to send a personalised message and a free Coke to a Facebook friend.
Coca Cola also made it available so that their consumers could send an SMS with their friends name in order for it to be displayed live on the famous Coca Cola sign which was located at Sydney's King's Cross. The consumer would then receive an MMS with the picture of the chosen friend's name lit up in lights to share online.
It also made sure its consumers were participating by specifically reaching out to their most social media active audience and encouraging them to stay active and giving them full control over the brands creativity. Coca Cola encouraged people to start their own social media conversations about coke without feeling as if they were promoting the Coca Cola company online. Online conversations became a norm encouraged by consumers themselves rather than the brand.
Coca Cola now has 106m likes on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cocacolaGB), and the number keeps growing by almost 8000 fans a month making it the number 1 brand on Facebook. On Twitter, Coca Cola
has managed to get 3.39m followers (https://twitter.com/CocaCola) as well as almost 6 million subscribers on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/user/cocacola). Due to the #ShareACoke campaign, its Facebook page grew by 39% in terms of likes, while the traffic increased by 870%. The campaign also made 998 million impressions on Twitter as well as receiving 235000 tweets and 500000 pictures from a large number of 111000 fans who used the #ShareACoke hashtag.
MOVEMBER
Movember is a foundation made to raise awareness for prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention. Movember means shaving off your facial hair at the start of November and putting down your razor to let it grow out throughout the month. This raises funds for charities like Cancer UK. Movember was founded by two mates - Travis Garone and Luke Slattery - in Australia, 2003.
Movember manages to engage its audience mostly by TV advertisements. Those also get featured on YouTube quite often. This easily engages the audience as many older people may watch TV more often and therefore see it on TV, whereas younger people - who have already dropped TV and have moved on to YouTube - will get engaged by those ads that are placed on the internet.
Movember also engages its audience by partnering up with many huge companies such as PlayStation. After partnering up with them, PlayStation has decided to produce a bunch of controllers that light up. They called it the "Mo-Glow." They've also chosen their most famous character and managed to give him a makeover calling it the "Movember Moustache Makeover." PlayStation has also released an official playlist that includes lots of famous moustached musicians.
Movember also managed to partner up with Google which also results in an engaged audience as this particular project involved on of the most used things on the internet - Google Maps. Google showed its support for Movember by changing it's Google Maps Pegman appearance and adding a little moustache on him. (Pegman - the little orange man which you drag onto a particular place on Google Maps in order to get a street view of the place you've chosen)
Getting involved with Movember is simple as one of the ways to contribute is to fundraise by searching for the closest Movember event. To do that, you simply sign up on the official Movember website.
To participate, you can also support the cause by buying things like T-shirts ot hats from the Shop section on the Movember website. On there you can find stuff from the official Mo collection, as well as some partner collaborations.
Another way of getting involved in Movember is by downloading the official app which allows its users to show off and brag about how much they have raised in total for the cause.
Movember now has 53k total of followers on Twitter (twitter.com/movemberuk) as well as 125k likes on Facebook (www.facebook.com/MovemberUK). It also has got a large number of 80k followers on Instagram (www.instagram.com/movember)
GO SOBER FOR OCTOBER
The #GoSoberForOctober campaign encourages people to put down their alcohol and leave it for 31 days of the month October. This helps raise awareness and funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. The Go Sober for October website allows users to participate in this "Challenge" by signing up and starting raising funds right away.
The campaign managed to engage its audience by using posters and television advertisements. This also includes YouTube ads every now and then which is great for engaging a large number of audience as many teens prefer watching YouTube rather than TV which will make it possible for them to see it and perhaps instead of participating in the challenge, let one of their family members know of it if they haven't heard yet from TV.
Go Sober for October has made #GoSober a hashtag for more engagement on social media. This engaged its audience as the hashtag has been used online throughout many media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
It also engages its audience by having many health and fitness tips on its website. This encouraged audience to participate in the challenge as it gives you tips on how to stay healthy on your sober month of October, as well as tips on how to easily avoid the sweet tooth when avoiding alcohol.
To participate, the easiest way is to sign up on the website and start the challenge. This can either be done by phone or online. Anyone, either visitors or fundraisers can take part.
Another way to participate is to donate to the cause by purchasing T-shirts or wristbands on the official Go Sober shop. This is a great idea for audience participation as by buying a shirt you're not only taking part and donating, but also advertising the cause and may engage a few more to participate.
The Go Sober campaign has thought about everything this year and therefore allowed participants to have a little cheat day by getting a golden ticket online. This allows participants to have a drink for a day and entitles you to a night off from your Go Sober challenge. This can be done by donating a minimum of £15 for yourself or ask a friend to donate for you.
The official Twitter account (https://twitter.com/GoSoberUK) has got more than 1k followers as well as over 2k tweets promoting the challenge. The Go Sober Facebook account (https://www.facebook.com/gosoberuk/) has got more than 177k likes as well as 170k+ followers making it the number 2 most trending social media campaign of 2016.
