Analyzing Starbucks' Social Media Strategy and Management Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Starbucks' social media strategy and management. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the importance of social media in modern business and how Starbucks has leveraged it for success, even during economic downturns. The report then delves into Starbucks' introduction, social media presence across various platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, audience targeting, and marketing tactics. It examines how Starbucks engages with its audience, runs effective marketing campaigns, and leverages influencers. Furthermore, the report discusses the ethical considerations, privacy policies, and security measures implemented by Starbucks to protect customer data. It also explores the social media technologies employed by the company to enhance customer experience and maintain its online presence. The report concludes with recommendations for future social media strategies and emphasizes the importance of adapting to technological changes and maintaining ethical practices.

Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT 0
Social Media Strategy and Management

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Executive Summary
In modern times, Social media is an essential part of the business strategy of
organisations. An effective implementation of social media strategy benefits companies by
freely marketing their products worldwide. There are several examples of companies who
remain beneficial even in recession due to their social media strategy. The popularity of
smartphones and internet has created social media strategy as a core part of the business.
Starbucks is an American coffee serving restaurant which is popular for its high
quality and tasty drinks. The company is known for their successful social media strategy
which allows them to remain profitable in recession. The organisation uses different
platforms to establish their social media presence and communicate with their audience.
Starbucks uses social media sites to provide the latest news regarding their products, offers,
and services. They use different technologies to enhance the ordering procedure, such as
online payment through a mobile application. This allows them to enhance their social media
presence and sustains their growth for future.

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Table of Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................1
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Starbucks....................................................................................................................................4
Social Media Presence...............................................................................................................4
Social Media Audience..............................................................................................................6
Social Media Marketing.............................................................................................................7
Ethics, Privacy, and Security.....................................................................................................8
Social Media Technologies........................................................................................................9
Recommendations....................................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................13
List of Figures
Figure 1: Starbucks Popularity on Social Media Sites...............................................................5
Figure 2: Starbucks Twitter Sentiment Analysis.......................................................................6

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Introduction
Social Media is an electronic platform for peoples to communicate through the
internet. It allows users to communicate, share and create new content over the web. The use
of Social media has been increasing rapidly and it is becoming a part of daily life of people.
Various form of social media interaction includes blogs, vlogs, videos sharing sites, chatting
sites and much more. Due to its popularity, the organisation has started to enhance their
presence on social media, which allow them to interact with their customers and expanding
their brand image. In order for success and security over social media, the companies are
required to formulate and implement social media strategies.
This report will discuss the social media strategy implemented by the management of
Starbucks. Further, the report will analyse Starbuck’s presence, audience, marketing policies,
security guidelines, and technologies, on social media. The success and failures of Starbucks
policies on social media will be discussed in the report. Further, some theories of different
market experts will be discussed to enhance a company’s social media presence.

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Starbucks
Starbucks is an American enterprise, founded in 1971. The company operates in
coffees hop industry and it has more than 23,768 outlets worldwide. Starbucks differentiates
itself from its competitors by their quality, taste and considers experience facilities. The
company has revenue of US$21.3 billion in 2016 financial year. Each outlet of the company
serves around 500 customers each day. The corporation has more than 238,000 employees in
its outlets worldwide.
In 2008, after estimating the loss in their organisation, CEO Howard Schultz decided
that company is required to change its policies. According to the book of Schultz (2012), the
company has a high market reputation and their product has significantly high market value,
therefore, Starbucks decided to start social engagement with its customers. The main object
of the company is to enhance its customer’s interaction and maintain a positive relation
between customers and company.
After the CEO’s decision, Starbucks started its Official Facebook page and started
connecting with its audience. Starbucks strategy becomes successful and their social media
appearance benefits the company. The organisation was able to gain profit in a recession
because of their brand value (McNamara & Moore-Mangin 2015).
Social Media Presence
Starbucks has gained huge popularity over social media websites, since their beginning
from Facebook in 2008. Following are the list of social media sites and Starbucks followers
on them (Gallaugher & Ransbotham 2010):
 37.04 million Facebook likes
 15.1 million followers on Instagram
 11.9 million followers on Twitter
 4.8 million followers on Google plus
 318k followers on Pinterest
 140k subscribers on YouTube
These numbers show Starbucks success over social media sites. The company has
successfully implemented the social media strategy for their organisation. The company did

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not post regularly; instead, they plan their posts. According to Engagement db (2009) report,
Starbucks comes under Mavens category. Maven’s category includes those companies which
engaged on more than seven social platforms with their audience. They maintain a
significantly high level of interaction throughout different websites. The companies under
Mavens category implement the social media strategy as a core part of their business model.
Starbucks deeply engaged with their customers who help them outshine its competitor’s
growth. The Mavens companies sustain their growth in spite of slow market conditions.
According to Naguilar (2015), the company uses their social media presence to
provide services to their customers and society. Starbucks done an agreement with RED, a
charity dedicated to the battle against Aids in Africa, which allow them to raise awareness
towards aids and collected money for the charity. The company uses their social media to
raise awareness and collect money, for example, they enter into an agreement with
Foursquare to donate $1 dollar for each Starbucks mention over the site. They raise more than
$250,000 for the charity.
Figure 1: Starbucks Popularity on Social Media Sites

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(Source: Gardner n.d)
Social Media Audience
According to Auerbach (2016), the management of Starbucks has smartly
implemented their social media strategy to target a high number of audiences. With the
introducing of Starbuck’s pumpkin spice latte (PSL) in 2003, it has been declared as the drink
of the fall. The drink has attracted a large number of cults following through different
platforms. Starbucks primary consumers consist of hip men and women aged in-between 25
to 40, who are willing to pay extra money for a specialty drink. These special drinks amount
to 75 percent of company’s sales. Starbucks uses this opportunity to start a campaign on
social media that is focused on its target audience.
According to the paper of Kaplan & Haenlein (2010), the company did not focus on
converting traditional coffee drinkers into Starbucks lovers, instead of their approach to its
target audience. This strategy worked for Starbucks since the company has sold more than
200 million PSL in previous 13 years. Just like Red Bull, the company markets their products
as a part of people’s lifestyle, which is something people can enjoy with their loved ones. The
organisation uses social media post to tell their audience regarding new offers and discounts
provided in stores. The company also mentions or retweet a person’s post if they do
something special for Starbucks, which enhance the customer’s loyalty for the company.
Figure 2: Starbucks Twitter Sentiment Analysis

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(Source: Bell 2013)
Social Media Marketing
The research of Hoffman & Fodor (2010) provided that, Starbucks advertise their
products in off-line markets but the company’s main focus is on their online marketing
strategy. Starbucks maintains a hip approach while marketing their products on social media
sites. The photos posted by the company on its social media sites maintain a minimalistic
approach. Huff (2014) provided that, instead of pushing the products, the customers feel the
need to purchase one. Starbucks has created a unique brand around the company which
inspires peoples to post the pictures of their Starbucks drinks on social media sites. Starbucks
social media marketing consists of following points:
1. Reliability: The Company shows enthusiasm towards its products, same as its
customers. They share just the content which is reliable and relatable for its
customers. They use gifs, memes and other fun things to relate to their customers.
2. Customer Satisfaction through Social Media: According to the research of Evans
(2010), they spread their brand awareness and service customers through social media
sites. The company uses its social media networks to get feedback from its customers
and solve their quarries.
3. Campaigns: The Company initiates new campaigns for marketing their products, each
season of the year. They focus their campaign at the non-profit part of the
organisation by providing charitable services to peoples. The campaigns started by
Starbucks include Meet Me at Starbucks, PSL, and Non-profit campaigns. These
campaigns provide the information regarding Starbucks values and mission to its
customers, and they focus on giving back to the society.
4. Influencers: The Company has a huge marketing budget, which allows them to work
with many industry influencers in their marketing schemes. Starbucks created a video
with Youtuber Rosanna Pansino which has more than 10 million views on the
platform. Many popular personalities also like to upload their picture with Starbucks
drinks such s Katy Perry, Mila Kunis, and Miley Cyrus.
5. Product development: The Company focuses their prime attention towards developing
high-quality products, according to their customer’s requirements. The organisation
uses a different platform to tell their customers regarding the latest news and updates
in their product line (Kaplan & Haenlein 2011).

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Ethics, Privacy, and Security
Starbucks uses various online platforms, mobile application and online payment
services to enhance the facilities of its customers. Using these services has several
disadvantages as well. According to the research of Lackey & Minta (2012), the company
collects personal data of its customers which can be leaked through hackers, such as account
details and personal information. The company is required to provide a high quality of
service to its customers for their privacy and security. Starbucks is worlds 35th most valuable
brand according to Forbes; therefore they are required to maintain ethical behaviour by their
employees and organisation.
The privacy policy implemented by the company is clearly explained by the
organisation. According to Gonzalez (2014), they did not collect any personal information of
its customers without their permission. The information collected by the company includes
bank information, name, password, phone number and other personal details. The
organisation uses this information to enhance the experience of its customers (Starbucks
2017).
Starbucks uses physical, managerial and technical safety measures to decrease the
threat of loss, abuse, unlawful access, alteration and disclosure of customer’s data. According
to Jungck & Rahman (2011), the company encrypts their client’s data, though implying
Secure Sockets Layers procedure, while transferring it to their website and mobile
application. The company also provide the same treatment to their employees. They maintain
healthy work environment at their outlets and provide better facilities to their employees.
Starbucks believes that applying ethical business principles are necessary for
organisation’s growth. The company’s mission and values help them protect their unique
culture and reputation, through implementing ethical principle in social media model. The
organisation's managerial staffs are dedicated to ethical management and operating business
with integrity. Following are the key principles in Starbucks ethical approach (Starbucks
2017):
 All the Starbucks outlets comply with local rules and regulations while conducting
their business. Each outlet has a strong procedure for security and safety of workers.
The company maintains a high standard in quality of their product and services, by
using only high quality of ingredients in their products.

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 The company maintain a fair competition against its computers by not discussing
policies or prices, not doing any illegal agreements, and not breaching any
regulations, over the social media platforms.
 Starbucks focuses on preserving the environment and its resources. The company
prefers to use the non-recyclable product while servicing to their customers. The
operating inside the organisation focuses on decreasing the waste of ingredients. They
invest in different environmental programs to enhance their contribution in the
environmental reservation. The company involved with their online audience to
enhance their role in environmental preservation. Starbucks introduces different
online campaigns, such as Non-profit campaign, to give people information about
environmental preservation.
Social Media Technologies
According to the paper of Chau & Banerjee (2013), Starbucks constantly introduce new
campaigns and offers, which help them maintaining their social media status. The company
has adopted several new policies to provide better facilities to its customers. The organisation
uses social media platforms to advertise their new services. Social media technologies change
rapidly and it is hard for companies to maintain their services according to them. According
to Watts (2015), Starbucks try their best to implement modern technology in their social
media model. Following are some of the examples:
1. Mobile payment: According to Trainor (2012), following the successful trend of
ordering and payment through mobile devices, Starbucks introduced their own mobile
booking and payment application. They rolled out the application in North America,
London, Toronto and Canada. The application allows Starbucks customers to order
their drinks in advance through the mobile application and pick their order from the
selected locations. This helps them to eliminate the lines for booking and creating
coffee-to-go extra convenient. This enhances the efficiency of operations and frees up
the employees time.
2. New Partnerships: The Company celebrates with other service providers to enhance
the services of its customers. They celebrate with Spotify and Apple Music, to
provide customers better sounding environment and offers them their gift vouchers
through social media websites. Free give away and discounts increase the online
follower of the company.

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3. Online Tools: Starbucks use different tools such as Google Alerts, Facebook Insights,
and HootSuite, to monitor various market trends in the coffee industry. The company
monitor terms such as coffee, Frappuccino, pumpkin spice and macchiato, and use
such trends to launch new hashtags such as #CoffeeCraze and encourage their
consumers to post their pictures with their drinks. The best picture earns a Starbucks
gift card at the end of the week. This motivates consumers to post more regarding
Starbucks which is beneficial for company marketing.
4. Free Wi-Fi: All the stores of Starbucks provide free Wi-Fi to their customers and
allow them to conduct their meeting in the store. When customers connect to their
free Wi-Fi, they are greeted with a home page which allows them to share their
location on Foursquare (a social media platform to share locations), and every
customer who shares its location gets a Starbucks gift card. The company also donate
$1 with each Foursquare check-in to RED, an aids fighting organisation. This way the
online presence of Starbucks increases with each user.
Recommendations
After analysing the Starbucks social media strategy and presence, there are few more
concepts that Starbucks can apply in their strategy. This recommendation will allow the
company to enhance their social media presence even more and maintain their positive
relationship with customers. According to the paper of Tong (2016), following are few
recommendations for Starbucks social media strategy:
 Firstly the company can synchronise their social media posts throughout different
platforms. For example, if the rule and policies regarding offers were updated over all
the platforms, the company won’t require providing answer to the quarries of different
customers.
 The second recommendation is regarding using hashtags by the company. While
posting the latest news or photo, the company uses various hashtags. The number of
hashtags is too many which is hard for customers to track. Using similar hashtags and
maintain consistency between hashtags of different products allow the organisation to
connect with their organisation with efficiency.
 The third recommendation is regarding setting a fixed routine for posting over
different social media platforms. The company retweets its customer’s photos and
posts in January and February, but in March and April, the company did not do the

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same. A consistency in posts will allow the company to enhance their relationship
with their customers.
 Last but not the least; Starbucks should enhance their response time over social
media. In a picture uploaded by Douglas Karr (2015) over twitter regarding the
filthiness of Starbucks restaurant, get a response after few hours, this shows that
company did not care about their customer's services. The company should avoid late
response since it can cost bad publicity to the company.