More Than Coffee: Starbucks’ Social Media Presence Analysis Shimeng Tong Background In 1971, the first Starbucks was founded in Seattle, Washington. The founders originally intended their company to sell roasted whole coffee beans and coffee-making equipment. Presently, Starbucks operates 23,450 locations worldwide, including 12,937 in the United States, 2,118 in China, and 1,430 in Canada. With 191,000 employees from all over the world, Starbucks’ gross revenue was 19.16 billion US dollars during 2015. Starbucks’ motto is: “To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time.” Except providing daily necessities and creating spaces for people to hang out, Starbucks is also trying to develop its brand into a pop icon/culture. Instead of persuading customers to purchase its product, Starbucks wants customers to like the concepts, life style, and spirit it advocated.
Company
Starbucks
CEO
Howard Schultz
Location
Seattle, Washington
Industry
Retail Coffee & Restaurant
Product
Coffees, beverages, foods, coffee beans, and accessories
Employee
191,000 Employees
Revenue
19.16 Billion USD (Gross Revenue from 2015) Table 1. Company Background
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History of Entry into Social Media From the beginning, Starbucks was a big fan of technology. Back in 2005, Starbucks already started marketing its Yahoo! Personals site, and it also had a custom channel in iTunes. Starbucks joined Twitter in November 2006, and this account was mainly used to connect with customers. The content contained customer service, answer questions, and retweet customers’ feelings or feedbacks. In July 2008, Starbucks launched its forum called MyStarbucksidea.com. This online community encouraged customers to submit their ideas for new products, flavors, and suggestions for better service. By 2011, over 100,000 ideas were submitted onto this forum, and about 100 ideas were really implemented by Starbucks (Perepu, 2013). The Facebook public page was created in November 2008, and Starbucks’ first step was to merge the already existed fan pages into this official account. On this page, Starbucks didn’t sell any products, but used it to update new products, services, and activities for its customer. As of August 2012, an interactive game called “Pumpkin Spice Latte” was launched on Facebook page, which attracted a lot of cyber attentions.
Public Media Profile Starbucks has official accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest. Unlike many other companies, Starbucks doesn’t have any sibling account based on locations or subsidiary brands (like “Starbucks Georgetown”). Which avoided confusing customers, and made sure all the messages are delivered efficiently. Starbucks uses different platforms for different purposes, so its customers would know where to go when need different types of information. I chose the most popular 4 social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube) to conduct my observation with. Facebook is used
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to post some social announcements (Post pictures and links). Instagram is used to develop its brand image as a pop icon (Photos with fashion style). Twitter is used to interact with customers directly (Answer questions and retweet from customers). YouTube is used to advertise its brand culture and unique life style (Recipes, documentaries, and emotional commercials).
Social Media
Follower
Link
Facebook
36 M
https://www.facebook.com/starbucks
Twitter
11.7 M
https://twitter.com/starbucks
Instagram
8.5 M
https://www.instagram.com/starbucks
YouTube
93 K
https://www.youtube.com/starbucks
Google+
4M
https://plus.google.com/+starbucks
Pinterest
249K
https://www.pinterest.com/starbucks
LinkedIn
685 K
https://www.linkedin.com/company/starbucks
Table 2. Public Media Profiles
Key Challenges During the past 2 months, a lot of customers were leaving comments under Starbucks’ Facebook and Twitter account complaining about the newly updated Rewards System. Starbucks posted many pictures and videos to promote this updated system, it even created the hashtag #StarbucksRewards. This new Rewards System was supposed to make the APP interface easier to use and to provide customer better experience. But according to the complaining comments, new system mistakenly erased the points Starbucks members stored in the previous version of Rewards System, and people were angry about it. Starbucks replied to each comment patiently, and came up with a solution applies to every member: Make a purchase by May 2nd, and get an extra year of gold membership for free. Personally, I think it’s a quick and efficient reaction.
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Shimeng Tong
CCTP 745
Online Observation & Coding Strategy The observation period was from March 1st to April 24th, and observation subjects include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. Based on weekly units, I needed to calculate the frequency of posts, classify the posts by medium types, and monitor the conversations between Starbucks and customers. I also took factors like tone of the message and purpose of the post into account for more detailed coding record. Most importantly, I observed: What are the comments about? How did Starbucks reply to them? How quick the replies are? This observation process was very interesting, because I had to view all these content as a customer, then analysis the intentions behind them as a communication professional. Which lead me to a bunch of details I used to ignore when I uses social media in my daily life.
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Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Follower
36 M
11.7 M
8.5 M
93 K
Frequency of Posts
Twice a week
1-3 tweets daily
Almost daily
Update every 2 days, serials are posted together
Content Medium
14 Pics 2 Links 1 Video
62 Pics 22 Links 3 Videos 3 Pure Text
43 Pics (9 reposts) 2 Videos
11 Commercials 23 Documentaries 7 Instructions 9 Recipes
Tone
Genuine
Fun & Casual
In Style
Interesting & Emotional
Purpose
Formal announcement, public image, and customer service
Promote products, interactive with customers
Build up brand culture
Company spirit, lifestyle, behind the scene
Average Likes
100K
5K
200K
N/A
1K
1K
500 - 7K
N/A
Within 1 - 8 hours
Within 1 - 8 hours
No Reply
N/A
Complains, questions
Complains, small questions
Appreciations
N/A
Average Comments Response to Audience Motivation of Audience Contribution
Table 3. Observation Results
Results Analysis Since Starbucks’ Facebook has the most followers, it treats this page very seriously. Posts on Facebook were key points summary of all the 3 platforms, and it only posts twice a week to avoid bother the followers.
Starbucks
uses
this
platform
to
make
formal
announcements, to provide customers services, and to maintain its public face. When replies to customers’ comments and questions, it
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tries to be as clear as possible. For possible replies, Starbucks will attach relavent links for more details. Twitter, as the most instant social media, is the main channel Starbucks used to interact with customers, it replies to 10 to 50 tweets everyday. Besides, Starbucks delivers its promotional messages in a fun and entertaining way (like cool gifs). Which not only promoted the products, but also triggered customers’ interests. Surprisingly, Starbucks replies to any kind of questions really quick (from real questions to tips and recommendations). And it even replies to customers in their mother tongue. As a daily necessity, Starbuck operates its Instagram account as if it’s a fashion brand. Since the targeted audiences are college students, young professionals, and white collars, the popular brand culture made Starbucks a cool thing among young people. It provides customers coffee recommendations based on weather, feeling, and emotion together with a nicely taken photo. Most of the other photos are about daily moments with coffee, which makes Starbucks something you need under any kind of environment. By blending this pop coffee culture into daily life, Starbucks is becoming a fashion icon that represents optimistic, bold, and happy. YouTube is the main stage to display this company’s creativity. Besides commercials, recipes, and APP instructions, Starbucks also uploaded many behind scene documentaries. Such as the story of its employee, the story of the coffee farm where all the coffee beans were
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produced, and the story of a new store in other country. Starbucks tries to show customers the emotional side of its company culture, as well as the lifestyle and optimistic attitude it advocates.
Personal Experience I commented on one of Starbucks’ tweet on April 18th on whether there’s a choice limitation on the free coffee during the member’s birthday. Starbucks replied me within 30 minutes with a clear answer, and this tweet was liked by other customers who also had the same question. I think Starbucks is very clear about what kind of role its Twitter account is playing, which is instant interaction and problem solving. Since Starbucks sell not only coffees, but also services. It’s important that Starbucks keeps the same service standard towards online customers. And I believe the way it replies to “any topic” immediately will increase customers’ trustiness, attract more potential customers with this positive public image on social media, and may even beat-off its competitors.
Complexity Theory This theory explains that a company shouldn’t stay the same all the time, it needs to embrace the changes and adapt to the new environment surrounds it. Since the future is unpredictable, a wise company needs be able to cope with situations of uncertainty, get involved with dynamics networks of interactions, and upgrade itself to a better condition (Grobman, 2005).
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As far as I’m concerned, Instagram’s occurrence actually catalyzed the development of Starbucks’ pop coffee culture. Because Instagram made sharing instant square photo with various filters popular, especially younger generation. At that time, Starbucks didn’t stick with status quo by cropping the existed posters into square photos and post them. Instead, Starbucks went along with Instagram’s style, and localized all its photos to adapt this new platform. Beyond expectation, these casual, filtered, and inspiring photos became new icons of Starbucks’ young culture. Which made Starbuck’s coffee a fashion item, tons of Instagram users uploaded their selfies with a cup of Starbucks’ beverage. For a long time, this was a trend, and represents you are not out of style. Until today, when you look at Starbucks’ Instagram page, you won’t think those photos with coffee are advertisements, because they are just part of the Instagram artworks, just like everyone else’s upload. Just a little prettier.
Media Richness Theory Media Richness Theory explained that different type of media delivers information with different level of efficiency, and the richness of a medium will define the quality of our communication. The richer a medium is, the more effective the personal communication is. On the contrary, the leaner, the slower. But media richness works differently under different situation. For example, the color and texture of coffee beans may be better delivered through photo or video, but the taste of coffee beans may be more accessible through text description. According to Daft and Lengel’s Media Richness Theory, Starbucks made the right decision in posting recipe instruction videos on YouTube and SnapChat, instead of posting texts or photos of a plain recipe. Because the purpose of a recipe is to teach the audience how to make a new food/drink, it contains interactive communication, text and picture are static mediums that won’t
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interact with the audience continuously. By visualizing the recipe into videos, audience would be able to see the moving instructions and follow them step-by-step. Besides, videos of yummy foods will trigger audience’s appetite, which levels up the intended promotional messages. Interestingly enough, in all the recipe videos on YouTube, there’s no sign of Starbucks. Only in the end, it shows up 1912 Pike’s logo (1912 Pike is the name of Starbucks coffee beans).
Diffusion of Innovation Diffusion of Innovations Theory explains how new ideas or products become widely adopted within a group of people after a period of time. The time an innovation takes to be adopted depends on its special features, which are relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability. There are also some personal influences besides the innovation itself. The innovation-decision process is an important five-phased period where change agents and opinion leaders are very important, who could change adopters’ opinion about the technology easily. Also, Everett Rogers, who published this theory in 1962, divided adopters into five categories: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards (Rogers, 2013). Starbucks posted a bunch of tips and suggestions about its new smartphone APP on Twitter, detailed instruction videos were also uploaded to its YouTube page. Besides, Starbucks also made many posts mentioning the exclusive benefits only from the APP. In this case, Starbucks plays as the Change Agent. Because it act as links between the agency that seeks to introduce the new technology into the online community. By retweeting some positive feedbacks from users who recently used this APP, other customers will treat these users as Opinion Leaders. In this way, Starbucks was able to expand the adopters from Early Adopters to Early Majorities.
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Recommendations After observing Starbucks’ social media presence and analyzing the online data, there are few suggestions could be applied to this company. First, synchronizing announcements among all platforms. Taking Starbucks Reward System as an example, if the system bug and compensation were posted on all platforms, Starbucks won’t need to make those similar replies towards the same concern. Second, using specific hashtags. From my observation, Starbucks uses hashtags in all of its posts anytime. Since it created too many different hashtags for different products, activities, and festivals, it’s really confusing to the audience. I suggest Starbucks focusing on one particular hashtag within a specific time period, so customers would be clear with which hashtag they should use, and how does this activity works. Third, post YouTube videos on facebook and Twitter with direct links. The current situations is Starbucks upload the same video to all three different platforms, and from the data, the YouTube page is definitely been ignored. If all the videos are YouTube links, they will promote the recognition of this platform, and even attract customers to check out the other videos on its YouTube page. Fourth, try to avoid same posts on different platforms. I found out Twitter posted several photos directly comes from Instagram. But there’s no reason Starbucks should do so, because each platform should have different functions, and as loyal followers, no one wants to see the same thing on different places again and again. Last but not the least, operate social media in similar routines. I noticed Starbucks used to retweet the photo tweets from its customers in January and February, but I never seen any more retweets during my observation in March and April. It will be frustrating to customers who are actually interested in this topic, also will make Starbucks’ public image very unorganized. Keep posting under the same routines every now and then will increase the stability of all the social media platforms.
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Reflections What I learned from this project is Starbucks’ biggest successful is not how good it is at persuade people to buy its coffee, but how unconsciously it made people start to like this brand and the brand culture that fits customer’s life value. When the customers are not just care about the coffee, but start to collect different collections of Starbucks coffee mugs and run to taste the limited holiday flavor as early as possible, this company is successful. Since social media is the stage where everyone could be famous for 15 minutes, people’s attentions online could be shifted anytime. In order to receive more recognition, a company must know what it could provide to its customers and make them feel connected. Starbucks achieved it, by providing its customers comfortableness and endless happiness with its coffee, or its pop coffee culture.
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Perepu, I. (2013). “Starbucks: Brewing Customers Experience Through Social Media”. Retrieved from http://www.bu.edu/goglobal/a/goglobal_courses/tm648/spain/starbucks.pdf Grobman, Gary M. "Complexity Theory: A New Way To Look At Organizational Change." Public Administration Quarterly (2005): 350. Daft, R.L.; Lengel, R.H. (1986). "Organizational Information Requirements, Media Richness And Structural Design". Management Science 32 (5): 554– 571.doi:10.1287/mnsc.32.5.554 Workman, Michael; Kahnweiler, William; Bommer, William (2003-10-01). "The Effects Of Cognitive Style And Media Richness On Commitment To Telework And Virtual Teams". Journal of Vocational Behavior. Special Issue on Technology and Careers 63 (2): 199–219. doi:10.1016/S0001-8791(03)00041-1 Rogers, Everett (16 August 2003). Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-5823-4.
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