Starbucks has received accolades and criticisms aplenty for its “My Starbucks Idea” program. My vote? I’m a fan. I’m not even a super-consumer. I’m barely a coffee drinker by most standards. But I appreciate when an organization opens itself up to its public. Starbucks has more Facebook fans than Coca-Cola. That’s quite a feat considering Coke’s history as the world’s greatest brand (yes, we’re Atlantans)!
Keeping tabs on “My Starbucks Idea” is fun. Starbucks knows they can’t make everybody happy – but that’s not the point. The point is active engagement. This concept shows that the Starbucks brand management team understands both the role of the influencer and the power of social media. They know that if you’re going to invest time, energy, and financial resources into social media, you shouldn’t treat it as another box to check off on your marketing or PR “to do” list.
We all know social media is the hot topic right now. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when it comes to developing – and then carrying forward – a social media plan. But it doesn’t have to be so daunting. And that’s what makes “My Starbucks Idea” so great. It’s simple. And it shows they care about what their customers and partners think.
So, how are you using social media to converse with your constituents? Have you identified key influencers in your market (or in the direction you want to move)? Have you successfully engaged them? Is social media an afterthought for your organization or has it been fully embraced?
Starbucks understands that the more individuals they inspire to be brand champions, the more their longevity as a market leader is secured. And their approach to social media fully supports this. If you’re looking for inspiration for your social media strategy (and how it can feed your overall growth strategy), check out what they’re doing. And if you have other examples to share, we’d love to hear them!
Excepting those living in caves and, perhaps, the cryogenically frozen, everyone knows the following Web 2.0 facts:
● Social networking is changing the face of the Internet.
● No site has done more to bring about this change than Facebook.
Smart banks are embracing Facebook as another channel not just for branding, but also in order to transform mere customers into rabid brand advocates.
A recent article in ABA Bank Marketing (“Showing Your Face on Facebook,” September 2009) magazine spelled out how any financial institution can put a best face forward on Facebook.
For banks, a “business page” is the most common way to make a social media debut. Every day more than 8 million Facebook users become business page fans. (A small beverage concern here in our hometown – Coca-Cola – has more than 3.3 million “fans.”)
As with all branding strategies, it’s important to have a strategy:
● Establish content/messaging issues before you start.
● Determine who page administrators will be, and from there commit to freshening your page often, if not daily. (Only Wonder Bread gets stale more quickly than Facebook fan page content.)
Here’s the best part. All of these “become-a-fan” decisions are transmitted across any user’s network. If a new fan is a recent college graduate with more than 1,000 friends – which can be common – your bank achieves some major digital word of mouth.
And CFOs have little to quibble about. After all, this is a low (no?)-cost way to reach a targeted (if not younger) demographic.
What are you waiting for? Create your business page! (And while you’re at it, become a Mindpower fan! We’ve always got something fun to say to our friends …)
It was nine months ago when we published our very first blog post:
Well it looks like you can teach an old dog new tricks! So, here we go: the folks at Mindpower have made a commitment to join in the fun. It seems like everyone is blogging. Well, either they have a blog or are reporting on them. As a matter of fact (according to Technorati as of June 10, 2008) there are now over 112 million (and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media) blogs on the blogosphere. Are they a fad or will they revolutionize communication? Only time will tell, but we do know this, having a blog may not make or break you, but not having one is not good especially if your competition is out there blah blah bloggin’ and telling everyone how they are soooo much better than you. We’ll just wait and see what happens.
We’ve done “okay” I suppose. Some posts are better than others. But I still struggle with purpose. Why do we really have presence? Does Mindpower’s Brain Candy Blog only exist because we’re supposed to? Have we generated any incremental revenue or signed on a new client from our blog? Nope. Not yet. Are we sharing relevant content? Or interesting commentary? Or, like so many folks with blogs, are we simply being boring as hell and entertaining only ourselves?
Do we even need a blog? when there are microblogging options like twitter. Yeah. You betcha: We’re there. And Facebook. (Won’t you become a fan? That would be progress.) And LinkedIn. Yup. We’re there, too.
Don’t get me wrong. Blogs have a place. Many — if not most — of our clients should have a blog! I’m just wondering if we should. It’s akin to the Powerpoint option of spinning logos: just because you can, does not mean you should.
It’s been nine months. (Cosmic blogosphere irony — the birth of our blog?) As I mentioned back in June, I’m still waiting and I’m still watching. I’m not so sure that blogs aren’t a fad. There are so many blogs now, how can anyone ever decide which ones are worth revisiting? Very few days pass when I don’t bookmark or subscribe to a blog, but I can’t say there are more than two or three that I actually visit on a daily, even a weekly basis.
Should we keep blogging? What would interest you? What would keep you coming back? Better yet, if we’re going to take the time to keep on keeping on, how can we make some money? After all, we’re in the middle of a recession.
You may see it it a “real” community but not in a “social” community — for now anyway. Breastfeeding moms and Facebook are dueling about appropriate content. Facebook has been deleting pictures of breastfeeding moms from their pages. After running a piece on the story, the social networking company indicated in a written response to CNN that most images of breastfeeding moms are not removed from their pages. Only those that show a fully exposed breast and that violates Faceboks’s terms and conditions.
As of January 26, more than 190,000 have joined “Hey Facebook, Breast-feeding is not obscene!” with the message to company officials requesting FB to allow breastfeeding pictures, and stop classifying them as obscene! While petitioning, the Facebook group also offers up education resources through website links and suggested reading material.
Most of my Facebook friends are fairly boring so I can’t say I’ve stumbled on too many “obscene” images. However, if in the future I’m bothered by something I see, I simply won’t look or comment.
But, in honor of my boring friends, I would like to pose a couple questions: If you watched the CNN piece, you heard Dmitri Williams, a USC professor indicate Facebook is walking a tough line when “respecting the majority while protecting the minority.” Who’s the majority?
And, what happens when Avert, and international aids charity creates a Facebook group and posts images and videos showing how to appropriately wear a condom?
