Biggest Social Media Fail Ever

I've written recently about some failed social media activities, including the lack of public announcements by ski hill Sunshine Village during an HR and PR crisis, and negative reaction on Twitter to a new chicken product from Domino's Pizza.

Now comes a story from The Ad Contrarian about Pepsi's recent forays into Social Media. Specifically, that they have failed spectacularly in terms of keeping Pepsi's share of the cola market.

Pepsi recently cut back significantly on their traditional advertising spending, and took that chunk of change over to the social media side. It's likely the largest allocation of money to social media by any company so far. There were some good statistics including 3.5 million 'likes' on the Pepsi Facebook page and 60,000 Twitter followers.

But the one stat that matters most - sales - looks grim. For the first time ever, Pepsi slipped from 2nd to 3rd on the list of most-consumed soft drinks. Do you know what drink moved up the board to take 2nd place behind Coke? Why, Diet Coke, of course.

Overall losses to Pepsi's bottom dollar is estimated to be somewhere between $350 million and $500 million dollars.

So, while social media is certainly a large part of strategic communications going forward, there can apparently be too much of it, and not enough traditional. The trick is to find the right balance.

Read the entire article here.