Twitter has not been a priority for Beverage brands, accounting for a minor percentage of interactions in L2’s Digital IQ Index®: Beverages. However, the platform can be a tool for connecting with loyal fans.
Starbucks Frappuccino was able to generate the most Twitter engagement of any brand in L2’s Beverages ranking by highlighting positive tweets from fans. The brand posted infrequently relative to its competitors, less than 200 times per week, in contrast to Coca-Cola’s nearly 800 weekly tweets. Yet its early adoption of “featured tweets,” highlighting customer messages and photos at the top of its profile, resulted in a rush of engagement.
Gatorade followed the slightly different but effective tactic of posting frequently about sporting events and athlete brand ambassadors. This steady stream of news allowed the brand to generate comparatively high engagement per follower.
Yet Diet Coke’s success story may be the most extreme. While the brand struggled on other social platforms, it landed a major coup with a tweet in May congratulating brand ambassador Taylor Swift for winning an award named after herself. That single missive garnered more replies than any other brand tweet in 2016 – and accounted for more than half of Diet Coke’s Twitter engagement for the entire year. The moral here? Using Twitter to connect with your fans is good, but using it to reach Taylor Swift fans might be even better.