Yesterday evening, the Coca-Cola Twitter account reached out to me and expressed interest in using one of my tweets. Coke, a giant in both the beverage world and the social media world, wanted to use one of my tweets?

Yesterday, Coca-Cola reached out to me about using one of my tweets.

Umm, yes please!

Oh my, this could be good. But why would they want to use one of my tweets?…

Did they want to use my content for a brand new marketing campaign? Did they want to put one of my 140-character gems on a billboard? Did they just want to retweet my tweet to the company’s 3.3 million followers?

Unfortunately it wasn’t so glamorous. I had to direct message Coke with my consent to allow them to use my tweet. It was in this private conversation that they let me know their intentions for using my social media post.

Coca-Cola only wanted to use my tweet for “internal” purposes.

B-O-R-I-N-G. It turned out Coke only wanted to use my tweet for an “internal video.” To translate that for you, it means that the only “engagement” my tweet will be getting is on a Powerpoint slide viewed by about 12 people on the Coca-Cola marketing team. But in all honesty, although I had a glimmer of hope that Coke would actually use my tweet for something cool, I knew better.

You see, no company (unless you are Dominos) is going to use anything critical a consumer said/wrote/posted/ for the general public to see. Yep, the tweet that Coke asked my permission to use was a snarky comment I made about the new name given to one of its products.

I can’t blame Coke for not wanting to use my tweet for something a bit more prominent.

I think it is the worst name change in soft drinks since Mr. Pibb became Pibb Extra. To me, adding “Sugar” at the end of Coke Zero gives the wrong impression. When I read it, I notice the first two words (Coke Zero) followed by the last word (Sugar). Thus, to me, it is as if Coca-Cola is saying the drink is calorie-free (Coke Zero) with sugar added.

But my biggest complaint with the name was written right within the tweet. Why add a word to the name of diet soft drink? Especially a word that conjures up a lot of negativity to people who drink diet soda in the first place. Less is more.

Before I sign off, let me at least give Coca-Cola a little credit. I appreciate the fact that the company asked my permission to use my tweet even though just screen capturing it and using it “internally” for a dozen people to see would have been a lot easier. If I was a jerk, I would have asked for some free product in return. However, I thought better of it…they probably would have sent me Coke Zero Sugar. Don’t Blink.