Pepsi Co (New Media and Social Media)

Going into 2012, PepsiCo is launching new strategies and methods in hopes to continue their increased productivity and revenue.  Indra Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo spoke on CNBC this month regarding their latest success, and how they plan on carrying that through into this year. "We want the consumers stomachs not only during lunch and dinner, but from breakfast through dinner." said Ms. Nooyi.   Maintaining the number one beverage business in the industry and increasing market share are the objectives.  PepsiCo is planning to reach these objectives through increasing marketing and advertising spending by 500 - 600 millions dollars.  I am sure Social Media will be playing a major role in this.

Check out a recent video of Indra Nooyi on CNBC below talking about PepsiCo's future strategic outlook.
Pepsico/ CEO Video (Thursday, February 9, 2012)

Personally, I enjoy watching and listening to Ms. Nooyi. She is very sincere, knowledgeable and just an overall great face for an organization.

Now let's talk Social Media! How is PepsiCo doing in the social media game?  PepsiCo has a prominent presence in both Facebook and Twitter. PepsiCo is constantly updating and interacting through these venues with their followers. The PepsiCo page has only about 50,000 likes. However, PepsiCo has various pages concerning individual products such as; Pepsi, Doritos and Quaker Oats. These pages have likes in the millions and are very successful.  Going back to the PepsiCo Facebook page, we can observe many things. There are many links to their other products and the PepsiCo website.
This Facebook page also includes testimonial videos, previous commercials, job opportunities, annual reports, events and consumer relations #'s and links. The page is very interactive and easy to navigate, as it should be!  I enjoy how the operators of the site are very quick to respond to any concern or posts on their page. They even individually thank people for posting on their wall. This would make me happy as a consumer for certain.

Now I also follow PepsiCo on Twitter. The same thing goes here. The Twitter scene is growing rapidly, and people are not afraid to speak their minds. Both good tweets and negative tweets are attended to by operators on the site. This is a very important trait when working with social media. It is a great practice for an organization to find possible problems at the root. So when people take to Twitter to complain, it is vital that someone addressed the problem and gives them some direction. The consumer will appreciate that their voice is being heard.


Here is a YouTube video of a recent 2012 Doritos ad called "Man's Best Friend" that debuted during the Super Bowl.  This is a very funny commercial that caught my attention during the game and had some positive feedback from viewers.  The video already has 2.5 million views on YouTube. This is just another great example of how PepsiCo is using social media markets.

I personally enjoy how PepsiCo is using new media. They are engaging the audience and their prospective consumers.  People follow these organizations such as Pepsi and Doritos because they have an attachment to them. So they show their support by "liking " a page or following the organization on Twitter to see what the organization is up to. The Social media pages allow for two way communication and for people to promote their views on an organization whether it is positive or negative feedback. The organization can then gauge web traffic. They can see who is viewing their pages and who is talking about the organization. There are Facebook analytics that gauge and segment who, what, where and when people are looking at your site. COOL STUFF!

Lastly, PepsiCo's web site is a very interactive and easy to navigate site. There is so much information on the site ranging from all PepsiCo's products to their stock market price all the way to press releases and recent news. The site does a good job addressing their different audiences. There is investor news, company history and corporate social responsibility information throughout the site.

If I was the PR person for PepsiCo I would continue to encourage exactly what the organization is doing right now. The organization seems very transparent and thorough in their reports. The CEO is a great public speaker and she seems very credible to me. The social media campaign seems to also be going smoothly. I would encourage the directors of the site to keep good community relations and answer any questions or concerns promptly.