My Starbucks Idea...Better Promotion!

Like it our not, social media  is here. Corporatation are now entering the world of social media. The corporate world, full of boundaries and rules, is entering a hemisphere where there are no boundaries. Starbucks uses more "traditional" social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, but have added an innovated new social media platform called My Starbucks Idea.

This site encourages users to submit their ideas for Starbucks under the subheading product, experience and involvement. You can see the  ideas that others have already posted under the view ideas section.

There is also a voting system in place, where you can give ideas a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down". This encourages user interaction and prompts the visitor to check back frequently. You can also see Ideas in Action, which shows that Starbucks is using ideas posted on the site. 

Great idea, right? Free information and ideas for Starbucks, using customer feedback. Customers and Starbucks get what they want. 

Except no one I spoke to in my class had any idea about the program. As a regular Starbucks visitor, I have never seen any in-store promotion of "My Starbucks Idea". One of my classmates who is employed at Starbucks also had never heard of the program.Quite distressing considering my Humber PR class is social media savvy, with all of us having personal blogs and using Twitter on a regular, if not daily basis.

This shows that while Starbucks is using social media, they are not using social media platforms to promote the "My Starbucks Idea" concept. They are also alienating those who are not social media savvy from participating in this program. This idea news in-store promotion and a greater reach if it hopes to succeed. 

For instance check out this promo video posted on youtube that takes boredom to the next level...

This is just one small part of a wider commentary on My Starbucks Idea...my colleagues Jeff, Anna, Zofia, Sarah and Auravelia have different perspective to share, so browe their blogs, offer comments and opinions and let see if we can't beat Starbucks in our use of social media!