Coca-Cola and Unilever have said they plan to use social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube as their main online channels for future marketing campaigns.

Traditionally, brands tend to set up a new website when launching a campaign, but with the growing popularity of social media, companies believe it’s more productive to take their brand to where the audience already is, rather than expect consumers to visit a separate site.

According to a report by New Media Age, Coke will be using Facebook and YouTube to promote its Coke Zero and Fanta brands, during campaigns scheduled to take place later this year.

Prinz Pinakatt, Coca-Cola’s interactive marketing manager for Europe, said: “In some cases some of our campaigns won’t need a coke.com-hosted site. In most cases these will still exist as it’s the most obvious destination for a consumer, but it might only be a page linking to YouTube encouraging people to join the community there.”

Cheryl Calverley, a senior global manager at Unilever UK, said it makes more sense to focus efforts on the place where people are already consuming media, rather than persuading them to leave the environment they’re already in.

She said: “You’ll see fewer brands creating a site for one campaign and then throwing it away. Certainly we won’t do that at Unilever anymore.”