Some interesting insights about a big brand’s attitudes to social media have emerged from an advertising event in Cannes. Coca Cola, it seems, has been nervous about embracing user-generated content and social media, and is only now starting to get the hang of it.

That’s an admission by Jonathan Mildenhall, The Coca-Cola Company’s VP of global advertising strategy and creative excellence. The brand watched as a Facebook fan page started by consumers swelled to 4m users, and that helped it understand the point.

He said: “At first we were unsure but we’ve seen another world in the sense of the creative community love for the brand. That has helped build confidence in handing over brands to user-generated content and we’re putting that into a lot of our plans.”

For instance it has been running a competition in Mexico, where users can create and upload ideas for a 60-second TV spot. Voters choose which one will be aired.

“If I’m here [in Cannes] in three years’ time I’ll have user-generated content from all over the world to talk about,” Mildenhall said. “To have consumers genuinely at the heart of our business is something that truly excites me.”

It is early days for social media innovators in Europe, according to Forrester. But marketers are now ramping up their spend as they realise that a shift of power is taking place.  Key constituencies are migrating online. Online audiences are talking about brands and companies honestly and openly with their colleagues.

Forrester analyst Rebecca Jennings argues that European social media markets are immature relative to their US counterparts, but that means there are plenty more opportunities for experimenting and taking leadership roles.

Navigating the changing world of media communications can be confusing. The new rules are that key audiences are now in charge. Using social media tools, they can gather around you; be heard around the world and have a big impact on organisations in a second. The balance of power has shifted.

Customers, analysts and investors are sharing information and news with each other in real-time. Journalists are using Twitter and blogs to source news and information. NGOs are putting up and distributing videos. Established media companies are blogging.

Key audiences can organise themselves quickly and find and spread information. They are challenging old ways of media communications.

So what do you do? Our advice is simple: firstly you need to read blogs and Twitter. Listen to what is being said about you; then begin to talk with your key audiences; engage with them and join the conversation; then start to blog and use Twitter so that you can engage with your key audiences eye-to-eye. Don’t do this because it is a fad but because it is good business.

If you engage then they are most likely to become more satisfied with your company and they will tell their friends, peers and colleagues. It does not make commercial sense to act as if your stakeholders are not there using social media. When they are. It cannot be commercially healthy for your customers to be having conversations about you, without you being there.

Faced with the rise of social media, corporate media teams can no longer rely on the idea that their key audiences will make their way to their web sites or media centres.

People are finding their own paths to news and information. They are subscribing to blogs; they are reading Twitter feeds; they are going to news-sharing sites like Digg or aggregators like IceRocket; and they will use whatever new applications grow in popularity.

Media teams should not see their sites or media centres as destinations or venues that they have to drive traffic to. They should regard themselves as services, pushing out feeds and taking their content out to where their key audiences are. They should be offering their content to relevant networks who can then distribute it further for them.

If you have a press release then you need to act like an internet paperboy and distribute it efficiently to key individuals and sites where you know they will be interested to learn more about what you have to say.