Tallying Coca Cola's social ROI !

For the recent weeks, my posts have rotated around the subject of social media and the way organizations actualize Enterprise 2.0 methods. This week I will be talking about the Return of Investment (ROI) in the case of the popular Coca cola through the use of  social media and technology. Measuring the return of investment (ROI) from social networking advertisers is pretty complicated, yet not impossible! (Wise, 2014). You could track customers to perceive how social networking has an impact on the sales. (Wise, 2014)

 (Coca-Cola, 2014)

Brief Overview of Coca Cola’s Enterprise 2.0 Methods:

Coca Cola was right on time to exploit social media, as it turned out to be an exceptionally brilliant move. According to a striking claim made by Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, in a Wall Street Journal, Coke's degree of profitability from Facebook publicizing beat its ROI from TV! (Neff, 2014). The advertisement incorporated a six-minute online Ridley Scott video broken into 30-second ads exhibited on prime-time TV. Coke furthermore utilized Facebook show ads connected to videos that played for 3 days when people logged out. The results, reported by Facebook and affirmed by Coca-Cola, were without a doubt amazing! (Neff, 2014) Take a look at this video which sums up Coca Cola's social media approach. (Coca Cola, France, 2014)

ROI of Coca Cola, Tangible and Intangible Benefits:

CocaCola credits its high ROI to both tangible and intangible benefits. The intangible benefits distinguished by the company incorporate “Social Customer - Corporate pride of Coca Cola”. If Coke becomes popular and gets shared by happy customers across social media channels, it can become a point of pride for the organisation. 

"If Coca-Cola were to lose all of its production-related assets in a disaster, the company would survive. By contrast, if all consumers were to have a sudden lapse of memory and forget everything related to Coca-Cola, the company would go out of business".-Coca-Cola Executive. (Workbrands, 2013)

Other intangible benefits are “Connecting with People”. Engaging consumers is the current brand building exercise which Coke has adopted. Building relationships and credibility with future customers, audiences and clients is one of the greatest tangible benefits of going social. Coke has always been positioned as a thought leader in its industrial sector. Thanks again to social media.

 (Coca Cola on twitter, 2014)

Here we see an example of customer engagement, Coke has done a great job in responding to twitter followers. (Simply Measured, 2014)

When you match social networking efforts to income creation or profit, then tangible benefits get to be much much clearer. Each euro used on Facebook gave back 2.74 euros plus increased Coke sales to a great extent. That was 3.6 times better than the ROI ascribed to TV ads. Altogether, 27% of incremental sales originated from Facebook, at only 2% of the cost! (Facebook for Business, 2014)

(Coca Cola, ROI Facebook, 2014)

Strengths of Coca Cola’s ROI approach:

The biggest strengths of Coca Cola was its deep ROI approach. It was ascertained that Facebook would drive 2.3X more sales than TV. (Facebook for Business, 2014) Any other ordinary ROI approach would have suggested avoiding TV ads looking at the poor ROI numbers, but Coke’s ROI measurement was so strong that their calculations predict the benefits of combining both TV and Facebook. Coke figured 35% of the TV and Facebook impact is due to a synergy effect between the two media and therefore devised that the actual impact of using TV and Facebook in combination is 54% higher than would be expected from their individual impact alone. (Facebook for Business, 2014) 

Weaknesses of Coca Cola’s ROI approach:

Coca cola does have some weaknesses though. Their website does not much content. The website was declared dead, by the Coke marketing team in November 2013. (Social Media Audit | measure for impact - ROI, KPI, 2014) Research has been put in to redesign the new website from 2012, but not much difference has been witnessed as of yet. The content if improved can add to more customers and hence to the ROI. Therefore this must be included in their ROI Approach. The website must also enable the customers to comment, as this feature is disabled in their websites at the moment. (Social Media Audit | measure for impact - ROI, KPI, 2014) When they have enjoyed the benefits of Facebook, its surprising that they have not incorporated facebook's comments strategy on their website. They have just introduced a digital magazine digital magazine which is very good. Similarly if the website is made interesting it can definitely add to the ROI in a much more positive manner.

REFERENCES

Coca Cola on twitter. (2014). Retrieved from http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/05/22/lessons-from-coca-colas-social-media-strategy-cohesive-campaigns-and-creative-content/

Coca Cola, ROI Facebook. (2014). Retrieved from https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/success/cocacola

Coca Cola, France,. (2014). Engaging Customers. Retrieved from https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/success/cocacola#

Coca-Cola. (2014). Coca-Cola. Retrieved from https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/success/cocacola

Facebook for Business. (2014). Coca-Cola. Retrieved 25 September 2014, from https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/success/cocacola

Neff, J. (2014). Yes, Facebook Ads Can Be More Effective Than TV. In France.. Adage.com. Retrieved 25 September 2014, from http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-roi-beat-tv-france/292055/

Simply Measured. (2014). Lessons from Coca-Cola’s Social Media Strategy: Cohesive Campaigns and Creative Content | Simply Measured. Retrieved 25 September 2014, from http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/05/22/lessons-from-coca-colas-social-media-strategy-cohesive-campaigns-and-creative-content/

Social Media Audit | measure for impact - ROI, KPI. (2014). Buzz marketing fails Coca-Cola. Retrieved 25 September 2014, from http://commetrics.com/articles/how-to-create-better-engagement-1/

Wise, D. (2014). Cracking the Social Media ROI Measurement Code. Paceco.com. Retrieved 25 September 2014, from http://www.paceco.com/cracking-social-media-roi-measurement-code/

Workbrands. (2013). What brand success will do for you | Workbrands. Retrieved 25 September 2014, from http://www.workbrands.co.uk/insight-post/what-brand-success-will-do-for-you/