To yours truly, the most interesting aspect of this effort is that the site is not a pure wiki. In essence, the site accomplishes much of what a wiki might—encourages interaction with the brand, allows users to create and interact with content—but it does so in a way that is quite user-friendly. Part of that is attributable to the design of the site. But they also chose staff the site with what they call Idea Partners- actual Starbucks employees who respond to certain popular ideas and give updates on how they’re being implemented.
My biggest beef with most wikis is that to the uninitiated, they are often quite off-putting—from a design perspective mostly. MyStarbucksIdea.com does a nice job of putting a friendly face on social media. There’s a lesson to be learned here for marketers who are eager to test the waters of social media- keep the consumer’s cost of entry low. If I want to interact with the brand, don’t make me feel like I have to learn a new language to do it.
(On the other hand, the cost of entry isn’t zero; you have to register to participate. This is smart, too, as it probably prevents the hoi polloi who just want to disrupt the conversation from getting involved.)
April 10th, 2008 · by Ben McAllister · No Comments
Of everything I heard while I was at SXSW, there was one comment that really stuck with me.
It was made by one of the panelists at the “Suxorz: Worst Social Media of 2007” panel (good summary here; podcast here) in response to a very good question from my friend Stephen. During the panel discussion, one of the recurring themes of bad social marketing was dishonesty. Usually, it involved a corporation misrepresenting itself, either by pretending to be a real person or paying a real person to “independently” endorse a product. [Read more →]
I went out and picked up a new copy of iLife this past weekend. I’m not one to review softward, but the new iPhoto was a welcomed departure from the cumbersome version still found on most Macs today. The new features are great - such as being able to view the photographs within a folder simply by dragging your cursor across that folder - but my overall impression is this version of iPhoto is more of an evolution than a revolution. Something seems to be missing. You should definately see the online demo of iLife/iMovie/iPhoto for yourself.
Then today, after some inspiration from a friend who sent me the link to Philip’s new Drag & Draw, I began looking online for other software applications that could help me navigate my ever-growing list of photographs on Flickr, iPhoto, my cell phone, my work laptop, my laptop, my wife’s laptop, etc.
I came across this. It is the first YouTube video that actually compelled me to raise my hand to my mouth in astonishment:
This is a photo revolution. Mr. Jobs, you still have some work to do.
In our continued hunt for the holy grail of new marketing, the biz keeps getting caught up in the “bright and shiny” stuff. This has been a big part of the (blog) water-cooler conversation lately here at Ideacity and with our friends over at MIT-C3, particularly in regard to social marketing. With Facebook now being buzzed left and right, MySpace getting more scrutiny, early adopters obsessing over Twitter and Second Life getting clubbed over the head, things are becoming a silly free-for-all.
With all that hype comes lot’s of questions from clients, interested colleagues and tech enthusiasts. Given that I figured I’d jot down my stump speech for social media/marketing guidelines. Broad rules to live by for this point-in-time.
Let me know what you think, and maybe we can crack the code together.
