Successful companies use social media effectively by hiring people to engage in digital conversations with customers, and not by simply trying to push promotional material and sell products, Starbucks Corp. CEO Howard Schultz told hundreds of people at a May 26 Vancouver Board of Trade luncheon.
“The mistake that most companies make is that they view these digital channels as opportunities to sell stuff,” Schultz said.
“That’s wrong and it’s not going to succeed. Those channels have been created for friends to share information. The sharing of information is built on the thread of trust. That thread of trust is not going to be shared based on a promotional offer. It will be shared because of values and a common understanding and respect for what that company, what that product or that brand stands for.”
Schultz said that once a company has established trust with its Twitter followers and Facebook friends, then, perhaps two or three times a year, it would be OK to try to sell something because then it will be able to draw on a reservoir of trust.
The biggest error, however, he said, is for companies not to be active in social media at all.
“Traditional marketing, advertising, public relations and all the things that have been taught in business schools for the past 50 years about building a brand, creating awareness, creating product – all those things. You can take those things and bury it,” Schultz said.
“The reason is that social and digital media is a bullet train and that bullet train is not coming home.”
Vancouver social media guru and former Wilcox Group principal Mat Wilcox has been saying similar things since last summer, when she shut down her agency. (See “Tips on how a company can benefit from social media” – July 20, 2010; BIV Business Today.)
Glen Korstrom
Twitter @GlenKorstrom
gkorstrom@bivcom