Strategic Public Relations

Starbucks' In-Store Wifi Leveraged Into Branded Media Network

UPDATE: See the end of this post for a link to screen grabs and first impressions of the Starbucks Digital Network experience.

Starbucks is giving customers one more reason to stop in, and to stick around, with Starbucks Digital Network. In a partnership with Yahoo, its taking exclusive content and free downloads that are only available to customers tapping into the wifi at one of it's thousands of retail locations.

Double Shot of Content
Customers with wireless devices are typically pushed to a branded site to accept terms of service before hitting the web. What was once a unavoidable nuisance is now a digital destination.

According to Starbucks: news, books, video and music will be available including free subscription editions of The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today, exclusive iTunes downloads and unlimited access to Zagat reviews and ratings -- all for free.

Rise of In-Store TV Networks
Starbucks joins Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy with their branded media platform and it's a natural extension of Starbucks music label. It increases each brand's co-marketing opportunities and gives customers a reason to linger in-store.

But Starbucks wifi delivery allows for more personalized and engaging experiences. It's one more way technology like smart phones are bridging the online and in-store experiences. Is it paid or owned media? It's a little of both and another example of how media is changing as brands becoming media platforms. 

UPDATE: Here’s my take on the Starbucks Digital Network experiencebelow and by Flickr screen grabs. Attempts to do a video screen cast/walk through.using Screenr bombed after several attempts. :-(

Upon arrival, there is no trace of the network in-store. With thousands of stores it will probably take some time to ramp up this as an in-store promotion. The wifi page does not even tee up the network. This surprised me as most users click through here with a specific destination in mind.

It’s clearly designed to keep people in the store. Even the downloads take awhile due to the wifi. Commuters getting coffee en route to work won’t get as much from it. And most of the content that is featured features ways to purchase it via iTunes or other third party sites.

Brands can look at this for a host of ideas and there are a variety of advertising and content partnership opportunities that come to mind based on the six sections it has for content, including News, Entertainment, Wellness, Business and Career and My Neighborhood.

There are some improvements that should be made over time. But for the most part, it’s great. I give it an A-. In-store support will definitely help.

Related: Behind @Starbucks digital network with @stephengillett
Cross-posted to my work blog, Thought Leadership

"Updating Your Status" | A Twitter Parody Tune ♫ ♪

I like Cake -- the food that's spawned a ton of TV shows and, more importantly, the band.

I like Twitter too. So why did I take the Cake song "Going the Distance" and create this Twitter parody?

If we can't laugh at ourselves, what's the point? Just be thankful I didn't pick "Tweet It" and I'm not into karaoke.

Is it funny? You tell me. But it's definitely a parody. So here's one of my favorite earworms -- dedicated to the social plaform, and cottage industry, that's grown up around it.

"Updating Your Status"
140 characters, a parting line
Fingers nimble and dancing in time
The fail wail flashes, No tweets go out
So Mashable and Techcrunch begin to shout

We talk amongst ourselves and post cool links
But does it do any good or cause you to think?
Shallow and brief it adds to the chatter
And we follow people who seem to matter

As we speed read old tweets, Twitter’s still down
More nerds up in arms, a worldwide frown
The site is free, unless you promote content
Hoping and praying Twitter’s a silver bullet

Google Wave’s coming down as Facebook grows up
Yet YouTube’s showing two girls, one cup?
So we’re surfing, and skimming and watching news spread
Life streaming is Hard. “That’s what she said.”

Refrain
Updating your status
Polluting the stream
It’s TMI. TMI. Needy and kind of boring

We use hashtags, DMs and retweets too
Drinking coffee, Redbull or Mt. Dew
We’re updating our status

Yeah!

No tweetups no twitpics, no memes, no doubt
How would we function, whine or pout?
When bowel shaking earthquakes and other events
Take place in the world, Twitter informs. People still vent.

We tell all it’s essential, a most important site.
But would we pay for it? Pfft, yeah, right.
We keep surfing and linking and watching news spread
Did you hear the latest? Abe Vigoda’s still. not. dead.

As Foursquare gets down Facebook Places goes up
Half a billion users? All your base are belong to us.
Now you’re going geo-loco with your Twitter gang.
I’m headed out for some coffee, do you wanna hang?

Refrain

Fail Whale uploaded by Mariana Pugliese

Thesixtyone Turns Social Media Up to Eleven*

Characterized by TechCrunch as “a Digg for Indie music,” my new favorite site of the week/month and beyond is thesixtyone.  

Thesixtyone serves up the latest Indie bands in a format that is as simple as it is dramatic, telling visitors that “new artists make music and listeners decide what’s good.”

With well-established sites like the Hype Machine and Pandora indulging my online music needs, why am I proclaiming my love for this self-described music adventure? Well in addition to music, thesixtyone has several interesting elements in social media and design to catch my attention. 
 

·         Focus: thesixtyone only offers Indie music. It goes deeper than it goes broad with 50,000 tracks uploaded by artists and music labels. This allows them to do one thing very well. 

·         User Control: Site visitors can listen to all 50,000 tracks and create playlists. This means users can listen to what they want and bands can upload what they want…this ability to customize the user experience ensures more repeat visits. 
 

·         Addictive Sharing: The site includes social gaming elements, giving you reputation points that encourage you to listen to more songs, rate them and then share them via Facebook and Twitter. More like foursquare than Pandora in this regard, the site tracks your efforts. 

If songs you “heart” get more popular after the fact, your reputation grows. You can also unlock badges but, much like foursquare, you’re not exactly sure what activity unlocks each badge. This of course encourages more activity on the site. Visitors even get reputation points if they are listed as having referred someone to the site. So tell them prblog tipped you off…my reputation depends on it. 
 

·         Simple, Beautiful Design: Site navigation is subtle, but not so simple that you can’t figure it out. This makes it easy for site visitors to immerse themselves in thesixtyone’s full-screen images and of course listen to the music. This combination of simple design, with music and images helps connect the listener to the artists vs. simply connecting the listener to thesixtyone. 
 

·         Info Bits for an ADD Audience: As each song plays, band schedules, back story and smaller images flash on and off the screen to keep your attention.
 

The end result of thesixtyone is an engaging social media listening experience that is…wait for it…music to my ears. Check it out.

*If you knew that the headline’s reference to “turn it up to eleven” is a quote from Spinal Tap? You get reputation points from me.
** Cross-posted to my work blog, Social Study.

Is Customer Interaction An Opportunity Or a Cost?

Pandora believes customer interaction is an opportunity and this belief is one of the reasons you’re still listening to them today.

Tim Westergren, Pandora Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, spoke with Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast attendees and detailed how Pandora came to be, future plans and how their customer focus came to their rescue.

Grassroots Investment Pays Dividends
When Congress was recently considering new policies that would have tripled music royalty costs, Pandora reached out to users and asked them to write/fax Congress.

According to the Washington Post, Pandora was making its last stand. The influx of requests to save Pandora was larger than those requesting Congress end the war in Iraq. The overwhelming citizen response forced a second round of negotiations with Congress.

This return on investment provides an obvious reason to focus on the customer. But consider that Pandora’s customer base expands by 40,000 new listeners – each day. Most companies with a rapidly increasing customer base could just as easily see interactions with them as a cost. Some consumer goods companies traditionally would hide behind a byzantine phone menu and/or outsource live support to a call center. Pandora takes road trips across the United States and has town meetings with users in cities big and small.

So while the number of customers might have brands considering economy of scale when it comes to interacting with them, consider Pandora.

Inspired Audience Creates Content
This was just one of the stories that Westergren shared at the event sponsored by Lucrum and hosted by LPK. Here are related links if you’re interested in learning more about Pandora and Westergren’s engaging presentation.

Net radio entrepreneur visits | The Cincinnati Enquirer

UStream Video Feed | Thanks to VAE, we streamed the event and recorded portions of it.

Lucrum Podcast | David Bowman and I discuss Pandora and the Social Media Breakfast events.

SMB Rocked The Hizzous with Pandora | Krista Neher blogged the event and snapped pics.

Pandora Comes to Town | Michelle Lentz covered the story for Bub.blicio.us.

CincySMB5, Social Media Breakfast, Cincinnati 027 uploaded by kristaneher
tags | Cincinnati | cincysmb5 | social media breakfast | Pandora | Lucrum | Tim Westergren