Wednesday, March 4, 2009
How Starbucks is Leveraging Facebook
Starbucks is using Facebook not only as a way to build their online community and create an environment for feedback and discussion amongst members, but also as a way to communicate with the public, much like companies do with their corporate web sites. The Starbucks Facebook page contains copies of their advertisements, company information, promotions, an events calendar, and links to other applicable content, which is what you might find at their corporate web site. It's just presented in a more web 2.0 friendly way. Starbucks also has its own Facebook app for "Starbucks Pledge 5" which is their campaign to promote volunteerism amongst its customer base. The idea behind the promotion is that you commit to volunteering 5 hours to a local non-profit/charity and you recieve a free cup of brewed coffee at a Starbucks location. Overall, I thinkStarbucks is using Facebook as a way to reach a younger audience that might not be its core customer base, but perhaps will be in the near future.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
It will be interesting to see how Starbucks fares on Facebook compared to other sites frequented by people in the same demographic group. I saw that it had over 1 million fans--which is a healthy number for sure. The question is what can Starbucks do to further leverage this number. I saw that they have five videos posted (mostly around promotional, social and environmental themes) and rather limited set of discussion threads. So, what can they do to gain value from the social community?
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that there is another group called “Addicted to Starbucks” created by normal Facebook users. This group has over 125,000 members and a very active wall of posts. Though it does not contain video or formal advertising, the members seem to be more interested and involved. It begs the question, should companies attempt to manipulate their image through social networks or simply use organic (user generated) pages as a barometer for the success of marketing campaigns.
ReplyDeleteI just learned that the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, is joining the Board of Directors of Starbucks. I think that Sheryl’s appointment will further solidify Starbucks’ use of Facebook as a communication and loyalty-building tool amongst its fans.
ReplyDelete