Five years ago social media was 3% of our total media spend. Today it’s more than 20% and growing fast. ~ Muhtar Kent (Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Coca-Cola Company)

Kudos to Coca-Cola‘s ability to integrate the new while keeping their heritage and brand positioning. Here are just a couple of examples of how Coca-Cola is harnessing social media to it’s advantage The Coca-Cola campaign  titled  “The happiness machine” was a video short, never intended to be aired on traditional broadcast media. It was created over a year ago utilizing the virility of social networks such as YouTube to convey its message of communal caring and assistance for one another. The strength and appeal of the videos are on the impromptu reaction to the people being filmed and by judging by the number of views of the videos, resonates with their consumer base. Coca-Cola again reinforces it’s basic positioning: It’s the real thing! Consumers want to be engaged by the brands they choose and Coca-Cola has demonstrated that real reactions rather then staged, appeal to the social media audience.

This video  has been viewed 4,069,045 times since January of last year and has been liked 13,368 likes on YouTube.

Another example is the campaign that was followed by the “The Coca-Cola Happiness Truck” video which resulted in an international overall good feeling.

This video  has been viewed 1,136,192 times since February this year and has been liked 3,159 likes on YouTube.