It’s also why, if you are in the refreshments industry, you should be using social media to help push and advertise yourself better. This has become a well-worn path for drinks companies in recent years, and it’s easy to see why it’s such a vital part of modern business marketing.

Take Malibu, for example. The popular spirit is one of the most commonly drunk spirits in clubs and pubs around the world. However, they still make the most of the power of social media to build up over 40,000 followers on Twitter – and over 2.3m fans on Facebook. They do some excellent social media work, and ran their hugely successful Because Summer advertising campaign this year – it was a massive success for them.

Across the summer, they put across all manner of video edits and campaign videos, backed up by top music from the likes of Major Lazer. They found a way to use social media to make themselves really relevant, and stood out with all manner of awesome recipes, cocktail ideas and more.

Malibu knows to do social media correctly in the drinks industry. Here are some other examples of great social media use in the drinks industry – and clear reasons why you can use social media to make your company move even higher up the ladder and overall ranking.

Selling Your Story

Part of getting people to cool down with a drink of your choice is to help them see the story behind your drink. It has to be organic, authentic and pretty damn believable. When you see a beer company online, their story is often told in a few stories.

They tell you the city it’s brewed in, the year it started and how the drink itself came to be. That’s pretty impressive, and it should go some way to making sure you can get a better understanding of why having a story is so good. Take the epic Fosters Beer story they have the other year: the one with Ralph Foster pouring the pint, waiting nervously for the recipient to tell him what he thought.

It’s these little story clippings that go along so well on social media. Telling people how long your blend of beverage has been enjoyed for is always a good way to build some real hype about the drinks that you produce. If you want to make people want to pick up a bottle of the good stuff, then you have to let them behind the curtain and see what makes the drink so special: it has to be more than the taste.

Getting Topical

One of the best reasons why you should be using social media, though, is that it allows you to get topical. Let’s say a major change happens in the industry, and you would like to cover that change with your company. You could create a cool news story that is based around a major news story, then using it to help advertise your drinks at just the right moment.

Obviously, it means making sure that you can gauge the mood appropriately. If you were to try and news-jack on a natural disaster, you’ll make it a PR nightmare. If you cash in on things like festivals and major (positive) events worldwide, you can really make sure that you get noticed among the spree of feel-good factor around that particular item.

By making sure that you can use the power of tending news to stand out, you are much more likely to help make your drinks company stand out. It’s a useful tactic and is one of the best reasons why being on social media is such a benefit to your business: it makes you stand out for a topical reason in a deeply competitive industry. The scale of social media can be seen using tools such as the internet in real-time tool from Online-shopping.ie, it shows just how vast social media is today and why, as a drinks company you should be using this plentiful resource.

Talking to your audience

One of the biggest problems with more traditional advertising platforms out there is that, often, you feel like you are talking at your audience instead of talking to them. It becomes too forced and punchy: social media allows for more authentic, genuine engagement. This is why drinks companies love to use social media so much: they can engage, they can promote and they can communicate.

From dropping a social media follower a free case of your drinks because they get X retweets on a Twitter tweet about your company to sending someone an awesome promo gift because it was their birthday, you can talk to your audience and show you are more than just another drinks company.

It also allows you to use social media to do one of the most powerful things social media allows: crowd-sourcing opinion. Thinking of releasing a new flavor? Then drop a poll on social media: ask the people who buy your drinks in the first place to make the decision!

Take a look at companies like Vita Coco; they do an absolute clinic on Twitter interaction. They respond with regularity to their viewers on social media, and throw in a touch of personality that is sorely lacking from their competitors. Remember that every message that you send out on social media has the chance to make a huge impact – for better or for worse.

Working with a social media guru can help you to make the right decisions for your drink companies social media advertising, though. Any good brand knows how to talk to its customers, and should find it easy to make themselves come across as fun and exciting. If you want to make your drinks company burst with excitement instead of go flat, be sure to consider using social media: it’s among your most powerful tools.

What is the nature of influence marketing and how to deal with it?

Influence marketing is a relatively new kind of marketing which provides the collaboration with some particular blogger or opinion leader. This type of marketing has become very popular amidst beverages brands, as the main purpose of it is a personal influence by someone trusted to create the positive opinion about the brand amidst thousands of followers.

Influencers can speak about products in different ways and on the different social media. They have an impact on people’s decision on what to eat, what to drink, which hotel to choose, where to go and along those lines. That’s why it is crucial for brands to pick the right influencer who can be associated with the style of the brand.

What are the advantages of influence marketing to beverage brands?

It was defined, that the collaboration with opinion leaders has three main advantages: it helps during the decision-making process, builds the positive image of the brand and speaks to the right audience.

1. The impact on decision making. A few years ago when a customer was going to purchase something, he (she) took into account the advertising he saw, the popularity of the brand and it’s image on the market. Now things changed. In the age of Marketing 3.0, which focuses on personal values, the opinion of every individual count. Customers are more likely to trust some real people rather than the brands. That’s why a cool opinion leader drinking Coca-Cola will cause a better effect on sales, than the TV advertising of the company.
2. Builds the positive image of the brand. When the new brand enters the market, it is crucial for the future development to create a positive opinion among the target audience. Also, for the brands that are already popular, it’s important to take care of the reputation and to evolve the brand’s name. In both cases, the influencers marketing can be used.
3. Speaking to the right audience. Every opinion leader has the whole army of his (her) followers, ready to perceive valuable information about the products or services. As said before, the collaboration with the influencer should be built on the common values, personal style and a specific area of interests. For example, the natural smoothies brand would rather work with the vegetarians or sportswomen, who are mostly interested in such products. Therefore, their audience is likely to have the similar lifestyle.

How do opinion leaders influence the beverages market

Today, with the new beverage brands raising on the market every day, catching the attention of a potential customer isn’t that simple. Much less persuading him (her) to buy the product. That’s why collaboration with bloggers and opinion leaders have become a new trend used by many beverage companies. We studied some examples of such collaboration and highlighted the most interesting below.

Coca-cola #ThisOnesFor

Recently the Coca-Cola invited 14 Instagram bloggers to participate in the Instagram campaign #ThisOnesFor, focused on raising the popularity of classic Coke drink in Western Europe. The opinion leaders created 22 posts during this campaign, and in every post, they mentioned the person they would share the Coke with.

Peet’s Coffee at Coachella

The brand of coffee called Peet’s used in their campaign Coachella festival as an opportunity for promotion of cold coffee. The brand invited millennial bloggers that have a different lifestyle and, therefore, different followers to show that their cold coffee suits every lifestyle.

Heineken at Coachella

Similar to Peet’s coffee, the Heineken was aimed to promote their beer amidst millennials. So they created the whole house at Coachella with their own musical performances and free beer for guests. For this campaign, Heineken invited the whole range of millennial Instagram bloggers.

Absolut vodka

When launching the Absolut Elyx, the Absolut brand set a range of VIP parties for opinion leaders of different types and industries: business executives, musicians, social media bloggers, etc. After every party, the influencers gave feedback about the new drink and created buzz over it.

So, how to use influencer marketing effectively and what impact can an influencer have on the marketing strategy as a whole?

Influencers are the new celebrities, and they promote nearly everything – from food and drinks to car services. That’s why beverage companies have started to collaborate with bloggers and opinion leaders years ago. How do they do it?

There are several ways to collaborate with an opinion leader during the marketing campaign:

1. A company can invite a particular blogger for direct collaboration in terms of some marketing campaign. Such a strategy will create the valid message sent to a particular audience in the real-time (for example, post with a photo of the product);
2. Brands can collaborate with opinion leaders through events. In this case, the message to the audience will be sent afterword (for example, post with a review on some event);
3. The company can invite a blogger to become the brand’s ambassador. In this case, an influencer will post relevant information about the brand, host events and create a positive image of the company during a longer period.

These are the main ways to collaborate with an influencer. But there can be much more of them created in terms of the marketing strategy. Depending on the purpose of the marketing strategy, a company can choose only a couple of macro bloggers with the defined audience to collaborate with or to cooperate with macro and microbloggers, host events for influencers, buy the “review posts” etc.

Nevertheless, being one of the most effective promotion methods in the 2018 year, influencer marketing cannot be neglected.