Introduction; Purpose: Pepsi way of using another avenue in selling their brand product to the public. The Pepsi Refresh Project obligated to make $20M in grants toward social innovation projects selected and voted by the public underneath the signature “refreshing ideas that change the world. ” Completed in a 10-month time, Pepsi earned 400 grants from $5,000 to $250,000, the funding creativity started from school dance to pet cause programs, one young teenager came up with the idea to install Plexiglas windshields for an aerodynamic and fuel efficient school bus. Smart.
The motivation, Pepsi brands with social media plus innovative minds with multitude sourced philanthropy. The company believed it could successfully build brand wellbeing, knowledge, liking, and desiring through the socially inclined individuals, the social media campaign rather than the traditional channels of brand advertising used for generation. Unique program that benefited for Pepsi Refresh Project was “pet causes” the date of Refresh Project launched. Actor Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon made a guest appearance on the Today NBC’s show to get votes on behalf of their pet cause.
Funding The Pepsi brand disbursed an over-all of $114M on the media here in the U. S 2010. The corporation organized its enormous internal and external marketing also their PR group, counting at the minimum six advertising agencies, to implement the Pepsi Refresh Project. Social Media Marketing has become exceedingly popular among businesses of all sizes Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. “The Pepsi Refresh Project: Viral Marketing” 2
Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media. Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access.
Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns Advantages and disadvantages of Social Media Marketing Social Media Platforms Facebook and Twitter are the social media platforms most commonly used for marketing. Facebook offers the option of creating a fan page for a company or product, while Twitter makes use of 140-character posts that users follow.
Blogs are online journals written by users, which can be influential in spreading news and information. YouTube is a repository for podcasts and video clips, with a viewership of millions around the globe. Social bookmarking sites such as Del. icio. us and Digg enable users to share links to information with friends and followers. Some sites offer display advertising options, but the majority are simply a method of sharing information with others. Advantages The main advantage of social media marketing is cost-related.
The majority of social media sites are free to access, create a profile and post information. The advantage of reaching your targeted market for little or no cash investment is substantial, and the audience wanting your information voluntarily joins or follows you. Pay-per-click advertisements on sites such as Facebook are “geo-targeted” according to specific criteria, to reach the correct audience. The viral nature of social media means that each person who reads your posts has the capability to spread the news “The Pepsi Refresh Project: Viral Marketing” 3 arther within his own network, so information can reach a large number of people in a short time. Disadvantages Updating your social media accounts takes time and effort. A senior person with knowledge about the company and products should handle your social media presence, and the cost in time means the media is not completely free. It is ongoing work to find new angles about your products continually and to post and re-post information. The information is only visible for a short time before newer posts replace it.
In addition, publishing obvious advertising copy is unacceptable in the social media world, therefore you must present the information in the form of conversation or you will lose followers. Risks Social media marketing carries several risks. Unless you have someone check your social media accounts several times a day, disgruntled customers or employees can publish negative comments that are not always removable. For example, every post on Twitter is public and you have no control over what people say. Bad news can go viral as easily as good news and can do your business irreparable harm.
IT governance group the Information Systems Audit and Control Association released a report in June 2010 ranking viruses and malware, brand hijacking, lack of control over corporate content, unrealistic customer expectations and non-compliance with record management regulations as the top five risks of social media. Learning from customers: Companies have quickly learned that social media works: 39 percent of companies we’ve surveyed already use social-media services as their primary digital tool to reach customers, and that percentage is expected to rise to 47 percent within the next four years. Fueling this growth is a growing list of success stories from mainstream companies:
PepsiCo has used social networks to gather customer insights via its DEWmocracy promotions, which have led to the creation of new varieties of its Mountain Dew brand. Since 2008, the company has sold more than 36 million cases of them. “The Pepsi Refresh Project: Viral Marketing” 3 Other businesses that have used Social Media Marketing to their advantage Eighteen months before Ford reentered the US subcompact-car market with its Fiesta model; it began a broad marketing campaign called the Fiesta Movement.
A major element involved giving 100 social-media influencers a European model of the car, having them complete “missions,” and asking them to document their experiences on various social channels. Videos related to the Fiesta campaign generated 6. 5 million views on YouTube, and Ford received 50,000 requests for information about the vehicle, primarily from non-Ford drivers. When it finally became available to the public, in late 2010, some 10,000 cars sold in the first six days. Levi Strauss has used social media to offer location-specific deals.
In one instance, direct interactions with just 400 consumers led 1,600 people to turn up at the company’s stores— an example of social media’s word-of-mouth effect What impact Social Media will have business over the next decade The latter part of this past decade is proof of the unyielding power social media networks have on talent management. Since inception in a Harvard dorm room only 6 years ago, Facebook has grown to more than 400 million users worldwide. To put this figure in perspective, that’s more than the population of the United States and Canada combined!
Even more remarkable, the fastest growing age bracket of active Facebook users is 35 – 49 year olds, highly contributing members of the workforce1. Add Twitter, LinkedIn, Ning and the countless other social networks, and you have a powerful talent acquisition tool. Skills Required: EXIHIBIT AND DEMONSTRATE PASSION This is perhaps universal for any job but here it specifically means – when looking for social media jobs it is a good idea to have a good social media presence. Show them by doing what they would ask you to do. “The Pepsi Refresh Project: Viral Marketing” 5
KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS AND TOOLS This of course is a no brainer but believe me some of the recruiters find it highly irritating when they have interviewed quite a few candidates for an intern or entry level positions and the candidates were not able to talk about any social media platforms other than Facebook and Twitter! There’s much more to social media that the applications you generally use to chat with friends – research in-depth about what new social media has to offer. ANALYTICAL SKILLS Your analytical skills are in top demand for a social media job.
Analytical skill is the ability to visualize, articulate, and solve both complex and uncomplicated problems and concepts, and make decisions that make sense based on available information. Such skills include demonstration of the ability to apply logical thinking to gathering and analyzing information, designing and testing solutions to problems, and formulating plans. (Wikipedia) WRITING AND CONTENT MANAGEMENT SKILLS Content has, is and will continue to be the KING! And is one of most in-demand skills for a social media position be it entry level or at a senior level.
What can you do to get up to speed on your writing and content management skills now? It’s a requirement for any social media position and while you’re at it get read y to spruce up your skills on content management tools or software that most industries use. MARKETING SKILLS Most of the social media jobs are customer focused, customer interaction and support based. And to meet customer support demands and effective interaction skills you must work on your people skills, marketing skills and present some examples when asked for during an interview. “The Pepsi Refresh Project: Viral Marketing” 6
One of the best ways to get going on developing your marketing skills is to work backwards, write which tells about how good you were at marketing an idea to someone. Now do exactly that for an honest story or a testimonial. Conclusion Corporate Philanthropy The Pepsi intent was not a corporate philanthropy effort. Rather it was spending brand dollars funds in conviction when you use brand dollars to obtain consumers ideas in changing the worlds view point, then the consumers win, and the brand wins, and the public wins. A win-win-win to Pepsi Refresh brand and the community “The Pepsi Refresh Project: Viral Marketing” 7
