Starbucks Update - They're Listening!

Quick update and congrats to the Starbucks team. Within hours of announcing the new community site for soliciting online feedback, the votes started flooding in...and Starbucks is actually responding!

If you look at their top ranked ideas, many are flagged as "Under Review". And several people throughout the organization have publicly commented on the responses (with refreshing very little hint of any corporate-speak).



Should we expect that all of these ideas will get implemented?
No.

Should we expect that SOME of these ideas will get implemented, and quickly?
Yes.

Will Starbucks get some serious pushback if they don't follow up with their customers?
Absolutely.

And have they done a good job thus far with their responses?
Yes.


What does this mean for other businesses?
The challenge with social media is that it's all about pacing yourself and running the marathon, not blasting out of the gate at full speed for a quick sprint. Time will tell if they are committed to this for the long haul, but so far they're off to a strong start.

Links:
MyStarbucksIdea
Starbucks' Top Ideas
Official Responses from SBUX Idea Partners:

Starbucks To Customers: We Want YOUR Ideas

In the midst of a falling stock price and renewed efforts from CEO Howard Schultz to prop up the world's largest premium coffee company, Starbucks has taken a page out of Dell's social media playbook and launched the MyStarbucksIdea website.


MarektingProf: Starbucks Launches Its Version of Dell's Ideastorm

As they pulled out of the "Dell Hell" maelstrom, Dell launched "IdeaStorm" as a means to collect feedback from the community at large and funnel these ideas, critiques, and suggestions into their product development mix. It's been a hugely popular asset for Dell, and Starbucks is now going after something similar for themselves.

MyStarbucksIdea

Registered Starbucks users can log in and submit their ideas, vote on the ideas of others, and see progress updates on those ideas that have been officially chosen. They're also staffing this with self-proclaimed "Idea Partners", or subject matter experts across various aspects of the company.

So far, they're (a) listening to customers, and (b) staffing around the initiative to ensure they're being responsive to these ideas.

Looks like someone in Legal definitely spent some time working through the language around the site; in response to the FAQ question which ideas will actually get picked:

"Everyone helps decide by voting. Ideas posted to the "Popular Ideas" section of the website (determined by using an algorithm based on number of points, number of comments and recency of post) will be considered, but our Idea Partners may also choose ideas simply because they think they’re promising."

Notice everyone "helps decide" and that Popular Ideas "will be considered, but [Starbucks] may also choose ideas simply because they think they're promising."

So in one sense it's a legal out to say that Starbucks is not solidly committing to the most popular idea that the community votes on, but perhaps this is a calculated measure to ensure that the idea is in line with their brand marketing strategy. But then again, isn't the point of all of this about altering the course of your brand strategy to meet the needs of your community?

What does this mean for other businesses?

I'm pretty optimistic about how this will develop for Starbucks, and I can't overstate their point about "Idea Partners." These offerings can have some pretty dramatic implications for businesses (positive and negative), but you need someone at the helm to steer the ship.

It's safe to assume they're be some storms ahead and some uncharted waters (going back to the "storm" analogy from Dell's IdeaStorm), but it's not just about monitoring for negative comments and being proactive in responding the to criticisms out there. It's also about genuinely listening and then finding ways to react and respond to build your relationship with your community, and to grow your business in the meantime.

Mt Dew and "Choose Your Own Adventure" Online Video Mashup

Pepsi's done some interesting things online to build engagement with their legion of caffeinated Mountain Dew fans (and in the spirit of full disclosure, I'll come right out and say that I remember many a night as a teen drinking obscene amounts of it). Last November they launched an online casual game "Dewmocracy"; co-produced by Forest Whitaker, the game ended up bringing in over 600k unique visitors with average viewing times nearly topping 30 minutes.

But now they're making another online-only move, launching a 5-part action adventure serial that enables users to choose where they want the next episode to go (for those fans out there of Choose Your Own Adventure, this will sound somewhat familiar).

http://tinyurl.com/35rokx

How are they doing this?

Are they shooting multiple versions of the film, then aggregating votes and debuting the next episode based on popular demand?

Does this mean that rather than leaving most footage on the cutting room floor, they're actually polishing off each variation so it's ready for prime-time at the click of a mouse?

And will the buzz around this offset the production costs of doing so?

Pepsi execs claim this will be cheaper than the traditional :30 spot. I'll be curious to watch how this unfolds and to hear if it gives Pepsi the kind of engagement they're looking for from their fans.

What could this mean for other businesses?

We're not all ready to turn our business into a full-blown production video, or negotiate with a host of web portals to get placement for a user-chosen content offering, but this case study begs the question of responsiveness.

How responsive are you to customer feedback?

And what are you willing to do to act on that feedback?

It's one thing to ask for someone's opinion on which show they liked, and it's another thing to turn around and deliver on that expectation without batting an eyelash. We all know that it's far more complex behind-the-scenes, and these actions often require considerable up-front planning to quickly turn around and respond (it's safe to say that this kind of lightning turnaround must be planned into your customer service strategy from early on...true responsiveness is NOT simply bolted on after the fact).

Think about how you collect your feedback, and then how quickly you can ACT on that feedback. If it's all about turning casual customers into loyalist, a little pre-planning can go a long way (and finding cost-effective ways to offer customers choose your service delivered the way THEY want it is even better)!

AOL Scoops up Bebo for $850 million

This marks the second official M&A I've seen in the social media space this year (Prospero's acquisition by Mzinga being the first):

http://tinyurl.com/33mg92

It's natural to see a rash of acquisitions in the social networking vendor space like Prospero, given the number of vendors in this space. What makes Bebo stand out is that AOL now gets a huge global site and subscriber base (Bebo is #1 in UK, Ireland, and New Zealand and Bebo claims over 40 million global users) that they can leverage as a strong social media foundation to build beyond prior successes with AOL Instant Messaging.

Perhaps most importantly, this move also gives AOL additional advertising possibilities, something they'll need based on yesterday's announcement that Google has closed its deal to buy DoubleClick. This means that Google will now drive the text AND the banner ads you see; it's safe to assume that companies like AOL and Yahoo will have their hands full in this arena. Display advertising is one area where Google has historically lagged behind Yahoo, so it will be interesting to see what this does to their overall performance and to the advertising space in general.

Here's to an ever-changing web landscape!

McDonalds' New Internal Blog Initiative

According to Brandweek, McDonalds is now looking to a blogging solution to solve the age-old question:

How do you get feedback quickly from the troops on the ground to the team in the white tower?

http://www.brandweek.com/bw/news/recent_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003723126

This move takes the Golden Arches to a new level, encompassing 15,000 locations in the US and Canada, supports English, Spanish, and French languages, and is open to every employee (not just official content about the company, but also more human-interest or personal stories as well). HQ will hopefully position themselves to be responsive enough to the feedback from the front lines, and are presumably using this data to drive better decision making around promotions, products, and other initiatives.

It’s also interesting to note that McDonalds reported record year-over-year sales growth for in-store sales, and that this feature is looked to as a way to continue that strong growth by improving internal communications. Not sure if we’d ever see this information, but it would be great to see a case study a year from now on what this program has been able to do for them (did it help vet new product offerings> Did they figure out new operational efficiencies? Were they able to gain insight on local promotions that were successful and transform them into a broader initiative?).

Given that this is an internal move, McDonalds is sidestepping some of the worries and potential pitfalls that blogging can expose companies to:

What if someone says something bad about our company?

What if we get sued for libel?

What if our competitors uncover trade secrets?

Going internal is a good first step before going live to the public. It helps show you what blogging means, what it requires to create great content (often underestimated), and depending on where the blog is targeted it can be a great way to get some feedback and ideas from across the company that otherwise may never have bubbled to the surface.

In McDonalds’ case, though, their Corporate Social Responsibility division had been blogging since January 2006.

Check out their first post:
http://csr.blogs.mcdonalds.com/default.asp?item=124518

They really struggled initially with the best way to use this medium. When you read the comments, you can see the mix of congratulations and criticisms, but most importantly you can also see that no one from McDonalds ever responded to the initial comments:

Lack of personal voice from the author
No way to contact the author
No response to questions posed to the author
Worse still: ...YOUR COMMENT WILL NOT BE DISPLAYED ON THE BLOG UNLESS IT IS APPROVED BY THE AUTHOR."

Not exactly an auspicious start or in line with social media best practices, but establishing this medium and openly embracing this world is definitely a start. Well known blogger Shel Israel posted a great open letter to McDonalds' blog author Bob Langert, about what steps McDonalds could take to make better use of this medium:

http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2006/02/mcdonalds_blogg.html

From the article and to McDonalds' credit, Langert proactively sought out Shel as his biggest critic and solicted feedback on how to make things better. Another great move, but no public comments were ever posted from McDonalds about this, so it's questionable how much this advice was taken to heart. They seemed to have forgotten the fact that blogs are all about conversations to spark debates and new ideas, not veiled PR moments that are positioned to be something they’re really not.

Their CSR blog is a great tale of how you can take the plunge, but you must ensure you're ready to respond publicly to feedback that will arise AND that you're being completely transparent. I'm not sure what fanfare this was launched with, but the fact that there were only 26 comments on the first blog -- coupled with the policy about posts being approved -- makes you wonder how much openness we're actually seeing. Hopefully this new internal program will yield better results.

Top 5 Things to Say about Toshiba's Social Media Q&A Site

I came across an interesting Toshiba-sponsored social media site this week:

http://laptopexperts.federatedmedia.net/





Toshiba offers an "Ask the Experts" Q&A-type website, enabling visitors to pose questions about laptops and get answers from a team of accomplished bloggers throughout the industry. This offering is not limited to questions about Toshiba models only, but includes questions about competitors like HP and Compaq to provide the best service to the site's customers.

Each week, a third-party "expert blogger" answers questions to ensure responses (this is run by a small network of professional bloggers working behind-the-scenes that are NOT Toshiba employees). Other site visitors can also post their own responses directly.

While Toshiba hasn't said anything about how successful this venture is, there's several points worth noting:

1.) Toshiba has limited their content management requirements. It's similar to a message board in that site visitors can ask questions and get responses. It's unique because Toshiba doesn't have to directly answer any of these questions. Instead, they’ve contracted with a team of bloggers across the industry to post responses. Toshiba can (and hopefully will) respond to key questions to better establish themselves as experts in this space, but this is obviously their way to get started while minimizing required resources.

2.) Third-party blogger responses give customers straight answers and builds trust. This is open to all laptops (not just Toshiba), so the answers posted are clearly around solving customer problems throughout the laptop world, not a veiled sales pitch on why customers should buy Toshiba products. Again, this is clearly a branding initiative for Toshiba, not an additional sales channel.

3.) Customer can ask questions from different destinations. Besides asking questions on the website directly, Toshiba has extended their reach by creating banner ads for their ad distribution network, pointing users with questions on other websites back to Toshiba’s site.

4.) Participating in social media can begin by bringing together the right experts and your customers to solve real-world problems. Provided they're giving honest and timely answers, Toshiba adds value by bringing together two different groups to solve tactical problems, and therefore improving their brand's perception in the marketplace. Toshiba’s perception can be further bolstered as Toshiba begins contributing responses directly (in addition to posts from their blogging community), but they've shown that when starting this initiative, there are ways to easily test the waters before jumping into the deep end.

5.) Most importantly, this follows the #1 social media best practice for beginners: Listen, then contribute. Toshiba presumably saw this as a low-risk opportunity to get into this space and gauge the nature of customer questions BEFORE investing significant internal resources. As a bonus, this also positions Toshiba to respond when there are issues about Toshiba products, ensuring they can respond on their own terms and on their own turf, rather than letting these conversations happen without their ability to respond and turning a support call headache into a great marketing moment.

Enjoy!

Seth

Even Spielberg Gets His Own a Social Network!

Social networking is about to get another major Hollywood endorsement. Several inside sources have confirmed that Steven Spielberg is poised to launch a new social network, but interestingly enough this venture is NOT dedicated to monsters of the big-screen box office variety.

According to TechCrunch:

"The focus will be on users who’ve had or who are interested in sharing paranormal and extraterrestrial experiences. The new social network may also have original video content investigating alleged ghost and UFO stories."

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/03/steven-spielbergs-ghost-town/

When you think about it, this has all the makings of a great social network:

Rabid fan base
Opportunities for members to discover those like them and network with each other
Multimedia (as users will presumably upload videos testimonials of themselves and their experiences as Spielberg takes a page out of his own Survivors of the Shoah playbook)

And knowing who's behind the helm, you can safely assume that there will be features above and beyond a message board of abductees trading images of mutilated cows.

It will be interesting to see how much visible participation you'll get from Spielberg himself, which, of course, would be the crowning achievement when it comes to launching a successful niche community.

This is definitely one to watch out for!

Uhaul Update - Mobile Advertising for Reviews!

I was recently sent this photo from Bazaarvoice, which was taken back in September 2005 by their co-founder Brant Barton.



This takes the idea of seeding review content in an offline world and kicks it up a notch. Usually you can find reviews repurposed via in-store placement (Wal-Mart) or in circulars/catalogs (Best Buy), but adding the mobile element takes it to a whole new level!