Earlier this month, Starbucks announced a new advertising campaign that, among other things, has a big social media component.  People can submit pictures for a contest via Twitter, while Starbucks is disseminating messages to fans on Facebook, and putting video about the coffee up on YouTube.

Not much new there.  But, a question raised in the NY Times article about the campaign caught my eye:

Still, it is difficult to measure the effects of social media — a follower on Twitter does not necessarily translate to a daily Frappuccino drinker.

A follower is probably a fan, but their act of following doesn’t necessarily signal a change of behavior, increase in reach, or direct impact on sales that marketers need to measure.

I’m not sure how Starbucks is evaluating their social media efforts, but too often this is about looking at number of followers or friends or posts or tweets over the life of the campaign. Instead, I think that a more meaningful assessment for this and other campaigns might be measuring  how brand loyalists’ participation in social media involving the company influences other people in their networks to become customers.

Here’s why I don’t think the other methods make sense and some rough ideas for tactics that I think would get meaningful social media measurements.

Preaching to the choir

As I mentioned in a previous post, I love Starbucks and, half sorry to say, am in there almost daily.  Today, I started to follow them on Twitter.  I’m also their fan on Facebook.

What does that mean for Starbucks? Because both Twitter and Facebook are about defining yourself with a public display of what you you like and what you’re connected to, most of the people who do connect themselves to Starbucks online aren’t just coming into the fold.  They’re fans, with some part of their identity tied up in that brand.

Great communication channel, lousy yardstick

From my following and friending, Starbucks gets more channels to send me messages about new products or specials, or ask me for feedback, and that is valuable, but not a great gauge of how successful a social media campaign is.  My relationship with them in cyberspace hasn’t changed how often I go there or how much I like their coffee, nor did my doing any of those things mark some sort of turning point.   I definitely don’t tweet about my (almost) daily venti non-fat cappuccinos, nor do many of my equally Starbucks-enamoured friends.  So, number of tweets or followers or friends isn’t a great way to measure how effective a campaign is, especially if you’re only looking at the numbers of participants but not what they’re saying or how much they’re getting involved.

The ideal use for social media may be a communication channel rather than a yardstick.  The value is that it can also be used to find out who the brands most devoted customers are, help them to get the word out and reward them for their support.

Starbucks is definitely taking a step in the right direction by acknowledging that support (as shown in their Facebook page post) but it’s probably not doing much to change how much coffee they’re selling – yet.

I’d argue that social networks are best used as a way to communicate with people who already love the brand and be measured that way.  Starbucks needs to set the stage for their most loyal customers to connect the coffee with their networks and make that introduction easy, pleasurable, and track-able.

Incentives, Spreadability, and Personal Connections

By helping their online fan base to spread the word about Starbucks, the company could engage with and reward those loyal customers further, and use social media to reach out to their networks.  Because Starbucks is a social and community oriented brand, tactics should stay true to those roots.  They also have a product that people buy in a store, so measurement needs to link online events with offline results.  Some rough ideas about what they could do:

Provide incentives that align everyone’s interests and keep it social.

The purpose: To identify potential brand champions, work out how effective promotions through social media are at encouraging action, and provide incentives for people to promote Starbucks to their networks.

The tactics: Starbucks loyalists probably don’t need a whole lot of incentive to take a friend or coworker to Starbucks, but that kind of brand advocacy is almost impossible to track.  A “bring a friend” referral campaign, where people following Starbucks on social media sites were sent a message with a limited time coupon for half off a second drink would enable the loyal customers to treat someone for less (and have an excuse to get another coffee).

It would also help Starbucks work out how many of their ~1.5m Facebook friends and ~188k Twitter followers were on board to evangelize the product.  If the friend likes the coffee, they could be given info on how to get the same offer, either by going online or filling out on their coupon who had referred them by Twitter name.  And give the referrer a thank you as well.

Spread the message with YouTube & Facebook at once.

The purpose: To reward fans who advocate for Starbucks by spreading the videos to their networks and bring them into the store.

The tactics: Much of the traffic to video sites like YouTube come through social networking sites; people use Facebook to spread media across their group of friends.  Fans could not just be notified that the videos are up through Twitter and Facebook, but asked to spread the word by posting it on a social networking site.  They could also be asked to post their own video about Starbucks and share it with their networks on Facebook.

If they do share a video, they should be rewarded based on the number of friends that watch, or friends could text their rating of the coffee and the referrer’s Twitter name to a number, triggering a reward for the referrer if the rating was above a certain threshold.

And finally,

Use the offline channel to grow online participation.

The purpose: To engage people who are Starbucks fans but haven’t engaged with the brand online yet.

The tactics: Not every loyal Starbucks customer is a Twitter follower or Facebook friend.  I would ask baristas to pick a few regulars at their location.  Find out if they interact with the brand online.  If they don’t, make sure they have a way to use the “bring a friend” offer (email, paper coupon),  but also let them know about the Twitter and Facebook presence and encourage them to follow or friend.  It’s also a way for people in the stores to have a conversation with those customers and let them know that their business is appreciated, face-to-face.

As the campaign evolves, I’ll be interested to see what Starbucks says about its performance.  In the meantime, I’ll still be getting my venti non-fat cappuccinos.