Back from Berlin @iStrategy2010, a social media strategy event that was jam packed with awesome speakers, brilliant digital marketers and lots of great insightful actionable insights. For those who couldn’t make it you can find a couple of the iStrategy presentations/workshops on Slideshare.

One of my favourite speakers at the event Michael Donnely, Group Director, Worldwide Interactive Marketing at The Coca-Cola Company presented “Coke’s ‘fans first’ approach in social communities“.

Their approach is refreshing (no pun intended) – they look at each new community (FaceBook, Flickr, Twitter etc) as a new country – listening first before taking their brand there.

They have 3000 marketeers feed their social media campaigns, with localised content, lots of moderation and multiple online listening posts (Michael mentioned they are currently in talks with Radian6) following conversations, interesting user generated content (UGC) which they then promote (with permission) on their digital marketing channels.

The video below was found and promoted on Coke’s Open Happiness site – UGC content like this is every marketers dream – not many brands are as loved as Coke’s, imagine walking into work and finding these video clips awaiting you in your listening posts – Wow!

Maybe its’ time to read LoveMarks again?

Michael raised the point about Coke’s homepage not being their real home page – it is Google, Twitter, Facebook etc – this is a taken for many of the big brands but there are still businesses missing this point and with real time upon us this is a lost opportunity…

On the day of the presentation Coke were about to pass the ’5million Fan milestone’ on their Facebook Fan Page. It’s now at 5,018,071 fans. I love the use of their branding/the big red button call to action….Who wouldn’t click this?

On Click – Coke are about to take the ‘fan’ on an experience with lots of great viral loops baked into the application – social media marketing at it’s best…

The biggest takeaway from Michael’s talk was to move away from campaigns to constant engagement. The graphic below best represents what this means – I’ll leave you with that thought…

Thanks to @Anssimakela, @Roen, @Patrickveenhoff, @Hanssmellinckx, @CraigHepburn, @Ronna, @Brettdbennett, @Petite_a, @WayneGibbins, @Angel189, @NickWallen, @GeertBesten, @DanielKraft and all the great people at @iStrategy2010 for sharing your tweets/insights throughout the event.

Digital Strategists Resources:

• Coca Cola’s online social media guidelines.
• Coke’s ‘fans first’ approach in social communities (Downloadable Presentation)
• 14 Instant Landing Page Upgrades (inc The Big Red Button).
• GreenOrange Blog – Moving Away From Traditional Campaigns (An extended view on this topic).