We’ve written a lot here about PepsiCo’s philosophy on social media, a philosophy that starts with using the public’s feedback to not only connect with its customers’ likes and dislikes, but to make better products and to possibly bring about some worthwhile change to the communities where we live. What’s next for PepsiCo’s social brand crusade? Crowd-sourcing the perfect Pepsi mobile application, apparently.

As we’ve detailed here, PepsiCo has an accomplished social media track record. Using its massive following on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube it decided to forgo the expense of a few Super Bowl spots in January to instead fund virtuous civic projects with the Pepsi Refresh Project. Then, keeping an ear out for the concerns of its customers, it reintroduced Mountain Dew to the thirsty UK soda market after a fan created an online petition to bring it back. B. Bonin Bough, PepsiCo’s director of digital and social media, will be discussing at Social Media Influence on June 22 how one of the world’s biggest brands has adopted a consumers-first movement to shake up its global business operations.

True to form, PepsiCo is putting the fate of its new mobile applications in the hands of its fans. The PepsiCo10 contest, launched last week, will select 10 aspiring start-ups and give them all the in-house resources they need to fulfill their app plans for one of PepsiCo’s brands.

Only the future will tell what the start-ups can come up with, but they are sure to draw upon what PepsiCo has already done in the mobile market. It recently released a location-based app called Pepsi Loot, which gives users free iTunes music credits any time they go to a venue that carries Pepsi products. It also just partnered with Foursquare to explore new possibilities with its retailers of maximizing the sale of Pepsi products.

Lest you think this is just social media pixie dust, PepsiCo has begun allocating a portion of its marketing budget to innovative online projects like these. Seth Kaufman, PepsiCo’s director of media strategy and investment, tells Forbes.com:

We separated this money so that we knew we could take some risks. We want to help educate ourselves so that we’re relevant and are on the platforms that matter.

It’s all part of PepsiCo’s philosophy about social media’s role in a company’s brand image. “Social media happens to be one of the communication channels at the heart of this social engagement effort. It is the mechanism we are using to demonstrate the power of the individual, and individual ideas,” Bough told us earlier this year.

Editor’s Note: If you want to learn more about social media best practice and hear PepsiCo’s B. Bonin Bough in person please join us at Social Media Conference, June 22. Members of our LinkedIn Group are eligible for a great discount.