You may be of the opinion that Starbucks are taking over the world, with new franchises popping up overnight; defiantly in the face of the clusters of card shops that still dominate our town centres. I’m looking @ you Hallmark…
They appear to be taking over the Twittersphere too… with over 870,000 followers and an extremely active Tweeter called Brad. Brad gets it - there is always discussion and retweets bouncing back and forth between Starbucks and its many ears.
It’s evident that this is social media in motion and Starbucks rewards it’s followers with tip offs for free samples and goodies as indicated above.
They are also brave enough to create a brand identity through what music they are listening to and promote this at the top of the nowplaying hashtag. Even this simple action got the update retweeted 20 times and exposes the brand’s online presence to a wider audience again.
Starbucks are also quick to make it worthwhile following them. There are no endless banal updates but instead opportunities only for their Twitter following - ’a Tweetup.’
“Hello Twitter friends, we’d love to have you over for a visit! On Wednesday, April 28, we are hosting a Tweet Up at our headquarters building in Seattle. Every month we have a special event where we roast a fresh batch of coffee, gather around to celebrate the coffee and of course drink it too.”
Whatever your thoughts on the Starbucks brand, (and their coffee) you cannot argue that they have embraced Twitter and created a positive brand identity with a very popular following.
The promotion of offline exclusive events to their following and understanding the relevance of capturing hashtag space is key to this.
What have I learned from this?
- don’t be afraid to add some personality and create a brand identity! Your followers might like to see behind the twitter profile
- don’t just post banal offerings to your followers - give them something worth retweeting to their friends
- be creative - think how can you use twitter to drive business offline
