Starbucks Social Media Initiative

Interesting news in Social Media: Starbucks also garnered a piece of this space with the launch of a new Social Media website

With the launch of the website, came the criticisms that generated lot of buzz in the blogosphere – as was expected and was wished for! Noise in blogosphere is always welcomed by the companies, but it should be positive buzz!

MyStarbucksIdea website is a copy of Dell’s Ideastorm. The look and feel of the two sites is similar, and there Starbucks gets its first negative point - Dell’s “Post, Promote, Discuss, See”……became “Share, Vote, Discuss, See” for Starbucks. Wow..!! How innovative a company can be!!! Duh...

It also seems Starbucks didn’t do their homework before venturing into Social Media space. Do they even know what are their customers talking about? Are they aware of the pain points of the customers? Do they even know what kind of buzz is in the blogsophere?

The first step before venturing into Social Media is to know what your customers are saying on the Internet, as they are your target audience and also your “brand ambassadors”. It’s important to know “who” is spreading a wrong word about your brand and it’s equally essential to identify your “happy customers” – as they can spread a word about you.

It’s important to identify “influencers” and strike a deal with them. Appreciate them for their work and collaborate with them to design your interactive website, as s/he exactly knows your customers and can help in design your campaign that would highlight the venture of the company in Social Media domain.

Suggestions for Starbucks:
· MyStarbucksIdea website doesn’t really hook me to the website. I found it quite lame as it was not interactive (the way I define it). It would have been better if they had a live CCR, who you could talk to; or have a chat portal where its customers could “connect”
· I forgot my password, as well as my username and I just don’t know how to recover that – how stupid of them to ask me for my username; just my email id should have been sufficient to retrieve my username as well as my password. Bottom line :Email id should be an alternate login id
· Nothing beats customer’s voice: The website should have a section on customer experience. This would generate more traffic to their website – ask your customers to share their stories/memorable moment/experience at Starbucks, and publish the post of one customer every week – reward that story! As easy as that…!!!
· Customers are asking for w-fi – most comments revolve around free wi-fi, give it to them, maybe at select stores to start with, but an action is needed at this hour – early the better
· There needs to marketing of the Social Media venture - not many people are aware of this initiative

Hopefully, Startbucks would get better over time, as bloggers are poring in information on the company, and if the company works towards implementing those ideas – they would be generating “happy and loyal” customers.