Case Study: Starbucks Social Media Strategy – Cross Promotion & Sharing Customer experiences

Starbucks, the premium coffee chain that competes with a unique selling proposition rather comfort and luxury rather than convenient quick service concept has built a significant social media presence across various social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc. The company has millions of fans and followers on the social networks and Starbucks uses social media not only to advertise its offerings but also occasionally drives customers to various stores located across the globe through promotional offerings. The Starbucks Facebook Page was created in 2008, with a total fan count of around 17,544,417 and 36,359,483 likes and Starbucks Twitter page has more than 18,300 tweets and 58 million followers. Apart from Facebook and Twitter Facebook social media strategy is built around their company web site and additional social platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube, and My Starbucks Ideas. On Instagram the company has 400 posts and more than 2.1 million followers. Starbucks has more than a million followers and posts content every few days with nearly all of it taken from its Facebook page and Twitter feed.

One of the most important for Starbucks social media success can be attributed to the fact that the fans and followers of the company can easily post the pictures, videos, tweets and status updates on the various social networking sites. Company actively encourages to share the in store experiences of the customers and also talk about their coffee and also promotes the customer stories on its social network pages which has encouraged the customer to build a long term relationship with the company and the company also benefited from the active consumer following on the social networking sites. Starbucks also is very active on the image based social networking sites like Pinterest and Instagram, where customers share their Starbucks moments—whether it be the return of a favorite holiday drink or just an artsy coffee cup shot. Customers along with their happy moments also share the promotional offers and new product launches too. Starbucks promotional programs include My Starbucks Rewards, personalized "signature" drinks, and localized store experiences. Social cross-promotion has been gaining prominence in the digital world and the company uses this strategy well as when Starbucks takes a photo, it shares it on Instagram, posts it to Facebook, tweets it on Twitter, pins it on Pinterest.

Starbucks has over the years built a strong loyal customer base of coffee drinkers who are not bothered about price but like the company’s unique selling proposition of good coffee, quality service, and a nice environment to hang around. Along with focusing on high quality coffee and customer service the company also works on many charitable initiatives. A team of five people manage the company’s social media presence and the company is sticking to principle of more customer created content rather than the company creating and posting the content on the social networking sites. Starbucks also understands the fact that each social networking site has its own unique set of users and the company needs to reach the users with appropriate content which can be done by encouraging their customers to share their experience actively through pictures, videos, posts, status updates and comments. This strategy has helped the company dominate the social media space and rank among the top companies in terms of social media presence.