Social Media Audit Assignment

Introduction

Starbucks Corporation

Starbucks motto
Inspiring and nurturing the human spirit -- one person, one cup, and one
neighborhood at a time
Starbucks corporation is an American coffee company which initially started as small coffee store
in Seattle, Washington situated in USA in 1971. It was founded by three partners jerry Baldwin,
Zev Siegl, Gordon Bowker they used to study together in the university of San Francisco where
they were inspired by the Alfred Peet by whom they learned how to roast beans.

They first open their stores in USA, they impress people by their unique way of coffee making
and their service they were liked by the people. Starbucks first started as serving hot beverages
but in the later decade they also started serving cold beverages using expresso machines for
efficiency.

The company business was taking one step up each day, Starbucks as a company were
growing so fast that from 1971 to 1990 they were at 84 locations nationwide. In 1996,
Starbucks open their first ever store outside the United States in the capital of
Japan(Tokyo) raising the total number of stores to 1015.They didnt stop here from 1987 to
2007 Starbucks opened an average of two new locations daily. Now the Starbucks
Corporation has become the largest coffee-house company with 20,891 stores worldwide
covering 62 countries. Uniqueness and promoting their products on social media can be
said as their reasons for their success. Starbucks evolve the coffee making over the years.
Starbucks initially started as selling coffees with few refreshments but as of now they offer
over 300 products in their store, merchandises, gift cards, brewing accessories and books.
Methodology
Starbucks is a big brand name in the industry of food and constantly update their customers
through social media. I started my research by just google the word Starbucks which take me
to the Starbucks official site(www.starbucks.com) ,which is an amazing website created by them
.It has every information regarding Starbucks.

After visiting their websites, I went to the Wikipedia which contains every facts and figures about
Starbucks. I use social media quite a bit so on every social media site which I use I search for
Starbucks and I find their official account. Starbucks are social media friendly brand they have
their accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Google +,Twitter ,Pinterest .They usually post videos on
their YouTube channel too. One of things that I find interesting while researching the
methodologies of Starbucks on social media that Starbucks have their several accounts on the
same platform of social media but with different country after their brand name. Starbucks is
such a huge brand but however Starbucks didnt assign any celebrity brand ambassador to
promote their brand. Starbucks also spend a lot less on paid advertisements instead they make
effective use of social media for promoting.

Results
The results were quite amazing after auditing their social media interaction with the people. Their
original website includes everything whether it is the history of the Starbucks, their blogs how
they hire , gift cards ,menu of their unique tea and coffee , and most important their online store
where you can buy their merchandises and the other products related to coffee.

Linked in used by the Starbucks to show the career opportunities and job postings to offer as well
as they often use linked in account to share their store locations. They do have a group on Flickr
but their use is limited however they posted some good picture related to the brand

Starbucks mainly uses twitter for showing their latest products to their customers and promote
them. By tweeting they also encourage people to tag them while posting their pictures related
to brand and on face book and Instagram they do the same thing to interact with the people.
Sometimes they also announce some promotions, store openings on these social media
platforms.

Though this brand is loved in 60+ countries, One of the mutual things that I observe in these
social media sites that Starbucks has number of accounts on these sites distinguishes by the
different country names. For example:- Starbucks Canada ,Starbucks Argentina. One of the
probable reason for that is they want to interact with each country customers separately because
choices differs in different regions of world, so they post accordingly

Recommendations
This brand seems to be on every possible social media sites but there are few
recommendations :-

1. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram where Starbucks updates frequently
should create any hashtag or any open group in which customers can give review,
complaint about the brand or can say something good about the brand
For example : Sometimes customer gives their reviews in the comment section which is
unknowingly ignored by the Starbucks account admin due to lot of comments ,but by the
hashtag or open group ,these comments will be separated from the others .

2. Due to over 300+ products every new launching product in a week or two sometimes
confuses the customer and create a doubt while ordering the new product
For example, few weeks back there were two products whose names are quite similar to
each other and are also launched in the same week which create a lot of mess to
customers while ordering their product

3. It has been observed by me that Starbucks do not have any brand ambassador which is
very rare in such a big brand.They should assign couple of brand ambassadors which can
more promote their brand s name.
For example Puma sports has assigned virat kohli as a brand ambassador .

References
Krikorian, M. (2014, January 24). Business overview: Why Starbucks deserves your
attention. Retrieved July 30, 2017, from http://marketrealist.com/2014/01/business-overview-
starbucks-deserves-attention/

Starbucks. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks

Starbucks. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2017, from https://www.starbucks.com

Starbucks. (n.d.). Retrieved July 30, 2017, from

https://ca.linkedin.com/company/starbucks