Pepsi Social Media Marketing Strategy

A look at ths social media marketing strategy of Pepsi

Pepsico is among the two largest brands in the soda beverages industry. It is one of the most iconic and recognizable brands in the industry that has seen a very high level of success through its excellent marketing strategy.

Its emotional branding has helped it grow its popularity and customer loyalty across the globe. More than a billion times a day consumers enjoy products by Pepsico across 200 countries. Pepsico is also known for its several iconic marketing campaigns.

All leading brands are engaging with their customers on social media channels including Pepsi. They are using social media channels to achieve their marketing and sales objectives. Brands like Pepsico are able to increase brand awareness and improve consumer connection through marketing on the social media channels, which helps them boost sales and grow customer loyalty. However, Pepsi does not use social media channels just for promotions and customer engagement but also for sensing its followers’ mood and measuring the pulse of its target audience.

In this post, we will analyze the key social media marketing objectives of Pepsico as well as how the company is achieving its objectives. We will also discuss the key components of Pepsico’s social media marketing strategy and how and why it is successful.

Main social media marketing objectives of Pepsico:

Pepsico tries to achieve several key marketing objectives through its social media marketing efforts. The main objectives it is trying to achieve are as follows:

Strengthen brand awareness: Strengthening brand awareness through active social media presence. Product and brand promotion: Utilization of both paid and unpaid methods to promote the brand and its products. Customer engagement: Engaging customers actively through conversations and interactions along the social media channels. Content marketing: Leveraging high quality and shareable content for marketing. Leveraging influencer partnerships: Leveraging influencers to widen reach. Community building: building a sense of community among fans and followers.

Pepsi’s approach to social media marketing

Pepsi uses a multifaceted approach to social media marketing and leverages a combination of methods to achieve its objectives including content creation, engagement, and brand partnerships to reach a wider audience across the globe. The key components of Pepsico’s social media marketing approach are given below:

Content creation:

Pepsi focuses on the use of visually appealing and innovative campaigns for marketing along social media channels and for creating buzz. It creates high quality content including images and videos to showcase their products in vibrant and engaging settings.

Pepsi’s social media campaigns often incorporate current trends and cultural moments to drive higher engagement. These campaigns are designed to be shareable and generate buzz. Pepsi also leverages user generated content for social media marketing. For example, it encourages users to share their own content with hashtags. It helps create a feeling of community as well as maximize organic reach.

Engagement and Interaction:

Active customer engagement is a key facet of Pepsico’s social media marketing approach. For example, it actively shares well as likes and replies to user generated content which maximizes user loyalty while also creating a feeling of community.

The brand utilizes interactive features such as polls and Q&A sessions on platforms including X and Instagram. This allows Pepsi to maximize participation while also gathering customer feedback. At the same time, it is also able to engage with customers directly which helps maximize user loyalty.

Influencer Partnerships:

To make its social media campaigns more effective, the brand also partners with social media influencers and celebrities. Influencer partnerships and celebrity collaborations allow the brand to widen its reach while also maximizing the credibility of its campaigns. Often these partnerships involve sponsored posts, video collaborations and special event appearances.

Pepsi utilizes popular figures as brand ambassadors to maximize its reach through their popularity and influence for product and brand promotions.

Targeted Advertising:

Pepsi also reaches specific demographics on social media through the use of targeted advertising. It uses ads tailored to user interest and behaviors to reach specific target segments. The brand also runs seasonal campaigns and holiday campaigns or during major events to ensure relevance and timeliness. Targeted advertising is used to maximize reach as well as for real time marketing.

Active Cross Platform Presence:

Pepsi has maintained an active and strong cross platform presence. It has maintained an active presence along major social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. This allows the brand to cater to the needs of different user segments and strategically leverage diverse types of content for marketing and user engagement.

Across all the social media platforms, Pepsi ensures consistent branding and messaging. It ensures a consistent and cohesive brand image.

Utilizing Trends:

Pepsi also utilizes popular trends to maximize user engagement and strengthen brand awareness. Leveraging popular hashtags and social media challenges allows Pepsi to increase visibility and user engagement. For example, it creates branded hashtags and encourages users to participate in trending challenges. The brand also frequently taps into memes and pop culture references to make its content more relatable and shareable.

Building a feeling of community:

Pepsi also uses social media networks for engaging with social causes and initiatives. While it helps in building a positive social image, it also helps get connected with socially conscious consumers. Another key technique that Pepsi employs to gather customer feedback via the social media channels is social listening. It actively listens to consumer feedback on social media to continuously improve its products and services. It demonstrates that Pepsi values customer opinions.

Pepsi has designed a dynamic and engaging social media strategy that is responsive to trends and changing consumer preferences. Its multifaceted approach to social media marketing has helped the company maintain a strong social media presence and foster a strong and vibrant community of loyal followers across various social media networks.

How Pepsi leverages changing trends to boost brand presence on social channels

Now, let’s see how Pepsi has utilized trends in its social media marketing strategy to boost its brand presence and to engage with its customers and followers worldwide.

Hashtags and social media challenges:

PepsiMoji Campaign: To leverage the popularity of emojis, Pepsi launched its PepsiMoji campaign. It created customer Pepsi themed emojis and encouraged its followers to share their own emojis in various creative styles on social media channels.

SayItWithPepsi: The SayItWithPepsi campaign encouraged users to share their experiences using the hashtag. As a part of this campaign, Pepsi printed emojis on their bottles and cans. BY tapping into the emoji trend, this campaign made the brand more relatable and fun for the millennial followers.

Memes and Pop Culture

Memes are quite popular across all social media channels including the leading channels like Facebook, X etc as well as other content sharing websites like Reddit and Quora. Pepsi often incorporates trending memes into its social media content. These humorous and trending memes allow Pepsi to connect with the younger audience and stay relevant in online conversations.

Apart from that , Pepsi often uses references from movies, music and TV shows in its social media campaigns. For example, by partnering with the famous TV show Stranger Things, Pepsi was able to connect with the fans of the show. It launched show themed cans and related social media content that successfully resonated with the show’s fans.

Influencer Partnerships and Celebrity Endorsements:

Cardi B and the “Okurrr” Trend: Pepsi collaborated with Cardi B for its Super Bowl ad, leveraging her popular catchphrase “Okurrr.” The campaign extended to social media networks where Cardi B engaged with fans using the hashtag #PepsiMoreThanOk.

Beyoncé and the Pepsi Artistry Project: Pepsi has also leveraged Beyonce’s popularity to generate social media buzz. It partnered with Pepsi on the Pepsi Artistry Project. The project included exclusive content and behind-the-scenes footage that was shared across social media platforms

Interactive content and user participation

PepsiChallenge: Pepsi revived the classic Pepsi challenge giving it a modern twist. It encouraged users to take part in taste tests and share their experience on the social media channels with the hashtag. The main aim of this campaign was to encourage user participation and drive engagement while also leveraging the trend of interactive and experiential marketing.

TikTok Challenges: Pepsi has also used TikTok actively for brand promotions and user engagement. It has launched various challenges on TikTok that encourage users to create and share content. For example, the #PepsiChallenge on TikTok involved dance challenges and creative videos. Its main aim was to tap into TikTok’s trend-driven culture.

Real time marketing and current events:

Super Bowl Halftime Show: Pepsi sponsors the Super Bowl Halftime Show, It uses the event to create and promote real-time marketing content. The brand engages with fans on social media by sharing exclusive behind-the-scenes content, live tweets, and interactive polls during the event.

Holiday-Themed Campaigns: Pepsi also creates and shares themed content during holidays and special occasions. For example, it created spooky-themed posts during Halloween and ran campaigns encouraging users to share their own Halloween experiences with Pepsi products.

Viral Videos and Content

Pepsi MAX and the Jeff Gordon Test Drive: Pepsi MAX created a viral video featuring NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon taking a car salesman on a thrilling test drive. The video was a hit on social media and was viewed millions of times. It also generated a lot of favorable buzz for Pepsi successfully.

“Uncle Drew” Series: Pepsi’s “Uncle Drew” series featured NBA star Kyrie Irving as an elderly man in disguise schooling young basketball players. The video became a viral hit. The series was shared extensively on social media, leading to a full-length feature film.

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)

Pepsi AR Filters: Pepsi has created AR filters for platforms like Instagram and Snapchat. These filters allow the followers to engage with the brand in fun and immersive ways. Most often these filters are aligned with current trends and encourage users to share their own experiences.

Interactive VR Campaigns: The virtual reality trend has been growing and Pepsi has not missed to tap into this resource either. It has experimented with VR campaigns to provide immersive experiences, such as virtual concerts or behind-the-scenes tours.

Pepsi has leveraged these trends to keep its social media marketing fresh, engaging and aligned with current consumer preferences. Now, let’s take a look at the social media accounts of Pepsi. One thing that becomes clear at the first look into Pepsi’s social media accounts is that rather than promoting aggressively and posting heavily, Pepsi’s approach is much more restrained when it comes to social media use for marketing and customer engagement. While it does not seem to be using Facebook proactively, it does engage users along X and Instagram as well as LinkedIn more actively. Despite that, the number of posts on most social media networks is limited to a few a week and it appears Pepsi has not made any update on its Facebook account for a few years.

Facebook:

Pepsi has 36 million followers on Facebook. However, the company does not use this social network proactively. Over the past few years, its number of posts on Facebook has remained zero. Some years ago, it ran campaigns on Facebook but not any more.

X:

Pepsi has 3 million followers on X and posts more regularly on this platform compared to Facebook. It uses this platform to maximize customer engagement and run social media campaigns. For example, it is running a #GrillsNightOutSweepstakes contest on X right now.

Instagram:

Instagram is also a favorite promotional and user engagement channel for Pepsi where it posts engaging visual content regularly including images, videos, memes etc.

YouTube:

Pepsi has around 955K followers on YouTube. The brand uses this social media channel for user engagement and for driving brand awareness higher.

LinkedIn:

Pepsi also posts regularly on LinkedIn. The focus of its LinkedIn strategy is on social responsibility and organizational culture. Its LinkedIn account has 8 million followers.