Unilever – maker of everything from Lipton tea to Dove soap – is diving deeper into the world of social media marketing, creating bespoke social networks where consumers can engage with the brand, or even help tweak the formula.As New Media Age reports, it’s part of a larger move in the industry to shift away from focus groups and more to “invite-only online communities to gain greater understanding of consumer opinions.”

David Cousino, consumer marketing director at Unilever, summed up the winning approach succinctly:

There are two ways of doing it. You could wait for something to go wrong and then use the community to fix it, but why not leverage the creative ability in the community that’s already out there?

Coca-Cola is behind the most visible of customer-focused brand-building exercises with its Vitaminwater softdrink, asking Facebook fans to help choose the new flavor. In allowing fans to play drinks mixologists, Vitaminwater nearly doubled its Facebook fan base in the span of just a few months. And they can lay claim to having participated in a new softdrink launch.