Coca-Cola develops a content strategy in order to double sales by 2020 and redefine their business. The Problem: The Coca-Cola Company is a global beverage producer. Even though the brand is globally known and extremely successful, it has set its sights on doubling its business by 2020. It also noted two key changes in the market: consumers were creating an ever-increasing amount of brand content, and technology had empowered them as never before to shape the brand. CocaCola decided that it needed to harness the power of content marketing in order to engage consumers. The Solution: In order to meet their goal of doubling the size of their business by 2020, Coca-Cola created a multifaceted content strategy based on two key content pillars: liquid and linked. Liquid embodies the notion that our networked and connected world enables ideas to spread rapidly liquid ideas are those that capture the imagination and cannot be controlled once they are put out in the world. While liquid ideas are creative, they are grounded in a linked strategy. Linked makes sure that ideas are always centered on the core brand story and experience in other words, liquid ideas must reflect positively on the Coca-Cola brand. It also means that all the brand channels should be coherent and unified. The Outcome: Rather than focusing on traditional advertising, Coca-Cola has thrown its weight behind a global content strategy to meet its rather ambitious goals. It identified that audiences are now largely in control of the brand, and that it is more important to have an open conversation with them than to broadcast advertising at them. Coca-Colas content marketing plan is based on three core elements: Storytelling: As part of the liquid principle, Coca-Cola has recognized the power of storytelling. Stories create an emotional connection, connect people and spread ideas, which leads to conversations. In dynamic storytelling, a brand idea is released to the audience and picked up in various conversations and channels. One of Coca-Colas key brand stories is living positively and showing how the brand makes the world a better place. This content idea also forms part of the company values, showing the importance of aligning business and content objectives. Each sub-brand has a big-picture content plan that outlines key elements of the story and how they will be disseminated. Consumer-generated content: Consumer-generated content forms a cornerstone of the content strategy. Brand stories encourage consumer reactions and engagement (and are often created by the consumers themselves). The worldwide distribution of creativity and technology means that consumers have greater power than ever before to create and drive brand stories, which leads to emotional connections. Coca-Cola actively encourages fans to act and react to the stories. Unified brand experience: Finally, Coca-Cola puts a lot of emphasis on creating a unified, coherent and accessible brand experience. While there are many stories to be told about the brand, it is still necessary to filter and edit these to ensure that they speak to the brands key values. By focusing on content excellence, Coca-Cola is creating value and engagement, not merely noise. Maintaining this means that the brand must communicate effectively with staff around the world. In keeping with the linked principle, these ideas will always be linked to business data and business objectives to solve problems. Content on the web will spread regardless of whether a brand is involved or not but Coca-Cola has picked up that they can steer the story themselves. By engaging proactively, building powerful, viral brand stories and giving consumers some control over how the brand is expressed, they can steer the conversation to their benefit this is the true power of content marketing.

c) How do you decide what new forms of social media content your brand needs?