Trendsetter: Coca-Cola's Worldwide Interactive Marketing Director, Michael Donnelly, Shares Key Social Media Principles

According to Michael Donnelly, Group Director- Worldwide Interactive Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company, "Coke tracks an average of 5,000 mentions a day and 92% of that online chatter is positive." In an address at last week's ANA Digital & Social Media Conference, he talked about how the 124-year old global enterprise is evolving its communications in the social media space. In fact, creating captivating and compelling content that drives brand awareness and purchase intent is one of the key objectives of The Coca-Cola Company.

Yet, Donnelly admitted that managing this new marketing space requires what he calls "the science of scale." Coca-Cola has 500 brands in 206 countries, so a major part of his job is to create common tools across the enterprise that can be used by marketing people in every part of the world. (Those tools cover such areas as: Social Publish, Social Create, Social Listen, Social Moderate, Social Measure, and Social Recruit.) "How do you manage messages in the city of Istanbul?" he asked. "Build back-end solutions to leverage your existing assets and tap local expertise."

The global interactive marketing group connects with Coca-Cola's 3500 marketing people worldwide. Donnelly underscores that the company is built on a heavy local emphasis. "All experience with our brands is local." However, providing a centralized solution is essential as it avoids working with very disparate results. He outlines, "Our marketers can use a palette of options to leverage the message, and then partner with technology to deliver a local effort."

Coca-Cola is also now well-known for its "Fans First" approach. The company encourages Facebook Fans to create compelling content and celebrate the spirit of the brand. Seven million people are members of the Coca-Cola Facebook Fan Page, initially created by two Coke drinkers, Dusty and Michael, who happen to be an actor and writer. Entertaining content is at the heart of the Facebook project, which, according to Donnelly, is just co-administered by Coca-Cola with their fans.

"This kind of fan-generated work is sincere," says Donnelly. "Sometimes we produce too much branding. The viral aspect of these efforts keeps the brand out there in a fresh way." Certainly, the four-year-old Eepy Bird Partnership between Coke Zero and Mentos is still exploding and is a favorite on YouTube.

Michael Donnelly has a few quick pieces of advice for those companies working to succeed in the social media world:

• Amplify your efforts with common solutions and integration from the start. There is a social solution in everything we do today.
• Optimize functions that already exist. (For example, during Coke's Olympic torch relay, fans could upload their own content from the event.)
• Keep it simple and intuitive—the fewer objectives, the better.
• It's silly to start from zero. (Think Coke's Facebook Fan page populated by 7 million people. Also known as the "Fish Where the Fish Are" principle.)
• Become good friends with legal. (You'll have lots of questions.)
• Be sure to have publicly available online social principles and guidelines
• Treat each new community as if you're entering a new market or a new country.
• Moderation is a must.
• Scale only when you're ready, and then do it right.
• Have an awesome team.