Social Media Battle: Who is doing better Pepsi or Coke?

In 2019, it is estimated that there will be around 2.77 billion social media users around the globe, that is why many companies are turning to social media marketing to promote their brand and engage with customers. When it comes to purchasing products and services, social media influences consumers almost as much as television ads and continues to trend upward. But to be successful in social media, businesses should invest effort and time to know which social media platforms to use, which content to share, and how to measure success. One of the best ways to know these information is to analyze their social media competitors because according to James Gurd's blog, he posted "Competitor analysis for social media strategies" last July 21st, 2017. He mentioned, "It’s important to know what other organisations in your market are doing on social media, to give you context for the current role social plays in customer communication. The aim of competitor analysis is to learn from the state of play and identify strategic opportunities." So I looked for business rivalries that I can compare or analyze how they use social media to promote their products, and I found Pepsi and Coke, two of America's most iconic companies. The rivalry between Coca-Cola and Pepsi is legendary. The brands have been fighting each other for more than a century and the feud was termed “Cola wars”. Each employed numerous advertising and marketing campaigns to outdo the other.

Social Media Platforms 

In Jill Bowers' blog post on August 3rd, 2017, entitled "Social Media for Business: A Marketer's Guide", he said that "Facebook is the biggest social network on the web, both in terms of name recognition and total number of users. With nearly 2 billion active users, Facebook is a great medium for connecting people from all over the world with your business." He also said, "Twitter averages about 328 million active users worldwide and is one of the top 10 websites in the United States. Because of its wide reach, this platform is not only a great way to market your business, but also an effective channel for handling customer service." That's why Pepsi and Coke are using these platforms to reach customers.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola's Facebook

Pepsi has a huge Facebook fan following with more than 37 million users. But the industry looks more in favor of Coca-Cola as we can look at its Facebook fan page with fan following of a gigantic 106 million fans.

The most recent update on Pepsi’s Facebook page is National Football League players ad. The video worked in the favor of the Pepsi brand and it quite user engaging with 6.8K views. Their social team posts once or twice per day with the general focus being on the brand’s association with National Football League players and a very good singer, James Arthur. The idea is to promote Pepsi as an exciting, youthful brand that people associate with music, sports, and entertainment, so its feed is littered with hashtags such as #PepsiFootball,  #TheFunDoesntEndZone,  #TheyWinYouScore,  #VMA, and  #BestNewArtist.

Coca-Cola’s Facebook Page is mostly run by its fans. By posting very little of its own updates, it is letting the fans do the talking. The company asks people to send in pictures of the places they drink Coke and poses questions such as, “What’s your favorite time of day to enjoy an ice-cold Coca-Cola?,” receiving thousands of likes and comments. Coca-Cola is one of the foremost companies that understands the need to abandon traditional advertising on social media sites in exchange for fan engagement. Asking for fans’ opinions, videos, stories and photos is endearing and shows that the company cares.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola's Twitter

Pepsi has 3.1  million followers and they have been using Twitter since December 2008. When you scroll through their Twitter feed, you'll finds lots of photos and videos of young people, especially young musicians. Most of the feeds have very few number of shares likes, and comments.  Their tweets are just the same images and videos that they have posted on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Coke has  been using Twitter since March 2009 with 3.4 million followers. They are only giving emphasize to the hashtag #ShareaCoke. Share a Coke is a multi-national marketing which debrands the traditional Coke logo, replacing "Coca-Cola" from one side of a bottle with the phrase "Share a Coke with" followed by a person's name. Because of this tactic, Coke was able to make consumers to participate and create online media content using the hashtag. You will see a lot of photos and stories shared by consumers with #ShareaCoke. Coke gained roughly 25 million extra Facebook followers as a result of the campaign.

Connect with Customers

Perhaps the most obvious factor in Coke’s dominance over Pepsi is the fact that it connected better with their consumers. Coke's strategy makes target audience to engage via different platforms, creates lots of excitement, fun and happiness around the brand.

Sources:

http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7832-social-media-for-business.html

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/100715/what-makes-share-coke-campaign-so-successful.asp

https://contently.com/strategist/2012/03/15/coca-cola-facebook-strategy/