Gatorade's Mission Control Manages Their Social Media Marketing

I have been very interested in how Gatorade and its parent, Pepsi, have been engaging in social media marketing.

Pepsi, for the first time in my memory, decided NOT to advertise in the Super Bowl this year. Instead, they put $20 million into social media marketing.

But Pepsi is only one company that is seeing their marketing ROIs climb through the roof as they engage with their customers on social media. Dell has also found gold in social media marketing. Over a two-year stretch, Dell attributes over $3 million in sales to one Twitter account (@delloutlet) and one employee running that account.

The key is that social media is not just another way to machine-gun your product announcements out to the public. Notice how this Dell empoyee (her name is Stefanie) has actual conversations with other people on Twitter. She is friendly, informative, helpful, gets off message a lot, and talks to individuals not masses.

In other words, she acts like she is meeting people at a social event (which she is), not the showroom floor of a used car dealership.

This reminds me of a great quote from Shama Hyder in her new book, The Zen of Social Media Marketing:

“Social media sites are where the people are. Let‟s say there was an expo happening with 250 million attendees, and I offered you a free booth. Would you take it? I sure hope you would. That‟s how many people are using Facebook.”

Let me take her thought a step further. If I did give you this free booth, would you show up? If this expo ran 365 days a year, would you show up to man the booth at least an hour every day?

I guarantee some of your competitors are at their booths every day, all day. Look at Gatorade.

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