Differentiation

The two companies I looked at were Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks Both are well known coffee companies with numerous locations.  Both have a number of social media sites but I focused on their facebook pages and instagram pages.  Due to the number of pages on both social media platforms I used the first one that pops up when searching the company.

Dunkin Donuts:

They are definitely looking focused engagement aspect of social media.  They promote use of the #mydunkin hashtag by using it on all platforms, including their tv commercials.

They do not seem to interact with the fans as much as one would expect.  They do post questions and have people vote or give their opinion but they do not then follow up with their fans if the fan posts a question or comment that would typically need to be addressed.

They do have a fan of the week and encourage their fans to post their Dunkin photos.  That seems to be working well for them.  Definitely helps promote brand awareness.

Dunkin Donuts is using the same photos and captions for both their Instagram and Facebook, making is a little less interesting.  They do however post to both social media platforms separately.  This is interesting because you can link Facebook and Instagram together and post on both at the same time, but Facebook shows that the post came from Instagram.

Starbucks:

The social posts from Starbucks are mostly focused on coffee.  I found this interesting as they just paid huge money to have a full page ad on the back cover of Sports Illustrated promoting their breakfast options.

Starbucks is posting to comments and feedback from their fans almost every time on Facebook.  They are definitely are having more of a conversation with their fans, making them very engaging but in a different way when compared to Dunkin Donuts.

Similar to Dunkin Donuts Starbucks uses the same photos on both Facebook and Instagram.  They also post to both platforms secretly.  Starbucks uses all kinds of hashtags where Dunkin uses hostages rarely if ever.

Starbucks seems to use Instagram a bit better than Dunkin (in my opinion).  They like to use #regram when you use a post posted by someone else. This is interesting and I think really gets fans to from loyalty.  Much like how Dunkin uses fan of the day.

Starbucks has substation more fans than Dunkin on Instagram.  Both companies have about the same number of posted photos.

Personally I think Starbucks could focus a little action on their other beverages and food options. Dunkin is already doing this.

Social Media Madness

Welcome to the blog of RbDiva.  I would like to express my gratitude for taking the time to enjoy my thoughts on what social media has to offer.  I ask that you have patience as this is my first blog post every (shhh that’s a secret)

With the number of social media sites growing at an exponential rate.  It is difficult to keep track of relevant information and been seen by clients and potential, while at the same time being social with friends and family. 

 

some social media sites that are conducive to sharing along with constant updates, include but are not limited to; pinterest, instagram, twitter, facebook, linkedin, foursquare, and google+.  with all of these sites competing for your attention it can become difficult to manage your time while remaining “social”. 

Some social media sites are able to link multiple accounts in order to save the user valuable time.  For instance, instagram not only allows you to share pictures on its site, but also allows the user to post the same picture simultaneously facebook, tumblr, flicr and foursquare.  Interestingly enough instragram allows you to email pictures directly to your friends and contacts. 

Pinterest allows users to copy their posts from pinterest directly to their facebook in real time.  By doing this facebook friends are able to see that you are an active user on pinterest and can then follow your boards. 

when it comes to facebook, it seems to be the hub for other social media sites.  facebook has done a good job of protecting itself when it comes to sharing its information with other social media sites. For instance you are able to connect your facebook posts so it automatically updates your twitter account, but it simply a link back to your facebook profile.  when facebook purchased instagram, it forced instagram to do the same, limiting instagram to link posting rather than posting a direct image. 

Sites/applications such as hootsuite, pages+, and other smart phone applications, have been created to help manage and streamline using social media for users.  Allowing users to check all sites  in on easy to use application. 

these one site, applications are good in theory, but can cause the user to be exposed to changes in privacy and security settings from the host site.  It also limits users from seeing updates that sites make to their layout and formatting. 

It will be interesting to see what sites do when it comes down to user choices.  Things such as hashtaging key words was started on Twitter and welcomed on instagram. Facebook held out but now given in to social pressures and has integrated the hashtag feature.

 

Thanks for checking out my blog, social media is an ever changing landscape enabling clients, friends, and acquaintances to connect and share information. 

 

 

http://www.hashtags.org/featured/hashtag-history-when-and-what-started-it/