Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy
Submitted by Bernhard Warner on July 16, 2010 – 11:00 am62 Comments
Earlier this week we reported how Starbucks hit a new milestone in social media marketing, the first brand to surpass 10 million Facebook fans. A few weeks back I had the opportunity to interview Alexandra Wheeler, Starbucks’ director of digital strategies, on the sidelines of the Social Media Influence conference.
She spoke of the profound importance to get buy-in from the top level of the organization (in the case of Starbucks, that comes from founder Howard Schultz) in order to implement not just a successful social media strategy, but a philosophy. There’s a big difference. Hear for yourself:
SMI offers specially tailored social media training for companies. Email: training[at] socialmediainfluence.com for more information.
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/189WmP
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SMI: Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/1qI37A
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Starbucks #socialmedia chief interviewed at #SMI10 – interesting insights http://tinyurl.com/33982mj
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy:
Earlier this week we report… http://bit.ly/d2nBtu
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Very good video from Soc Med Influence re. Starbucks campaign. #socialmedia http://bit.ly/cxbWht
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Very good video from Soc Med Influence re. Starbucks campaign. #socialmedia http://bit.ly/cxbWht
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/9jfa6r via @AddToAny
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Good stuff right here RT @TinaBradfordPR: Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/9jfa6r
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/9jfa6r
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/1qI37A Starbucks surpassed 10milliion friends
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http://bit.ly/cZWPfE Starbucks milestone, first brand to have over 10,000 million Facebook fans
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/1qI37A
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“Forget social strategy, think social philosophy” – @aewheeler, Director of Digital Strategies at Starbucks http://bit.ly/cZWPfE
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Love this quote: “Forget social strategy, think social philosophy” – Starbucks http://bit.ly/cZWPfE (via @sebgarn @aewheeler)
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/1qI37A
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[...] in social media marketing, the first brand to surpass 10 million Facebook fans. Now we have an interview with Alexandra Wheeler, Starbucks’ director of digital [...]
Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/bE1C8n #socialmediainfluence
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/bE1C8n #socialmediainfluence via @headshift
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/2dY4K
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/2dY53
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? @headshift Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/bE1C8n #socialmediainfluence / Like
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy | SMI http://ht.ly/2ekSx
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Watching interview w/ Starbucks digital director ‘Forget social strategy think philosophy’ http://bit.ly/cZWPfE
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Great RT @eggboxrobin: Watching interview w/ Starbucks digital director ‘Forget social strategy think philosophy’ http://bit.ly/cZWPfE
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There are a lot of really cool campaigns and here are some morehttp://mashable.com/2009/06/02/seaworld-social-media/http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/blog/goo-on-the-loose-cadburys-social-media-campaign/http://www.contentandmotion.co.uk/our-work/the-ibm-virtual-forbidden-city-social-media-campaign-case-study/http://madebymany.co.uk/case-study-amnesty-uk-campaigning-with-social-media-00727http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/100202-154311http://www.brightsocialmedia.com/social-media-case-study-smirnoff-facebook-campaign-redeemedhttp://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/social-media-case-study–the-body-shop-.asphttp://www.iabuk.net/en/1/socialmediacasestudies.htmlhttp://www.freshnetworks.com/blog/2010/01/case-study-vitamin-waters-newest-flavour-created-by-facebook-fans/om/work/casestudy/where_are_the_joneses/http://www.coastdigital.co.uk/our-work/http://www.creaturediscomforts.org/games/http://www.netimperative.com/news/2010/march/childline-begins-social-media-campaign-to
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Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/cZWPfE
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Interesting stuff RT @asomouk: Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://bit.ly/cZWPfE
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Think Social Philosophy: advice from #starbucks with 10 million FB fans http://ow.ly/2euGu
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[...] would ALL need to make that blunt move. No exceptions. And the sooner, the better! If Starbucks has done it, why can’t we all? We need to go through that fundamental leap of faith, before we can all [...]
[...] of you have commented on the one-on-one interview we did recently with Alexandra Wheeler, director of digital strategy at Starbucks. We thought we [...]
I’m in. Print some freak flags — I want mine.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
ROFL!!! Hi Mark! I haven’t stopped laughing yet after reading your comment a few minutes ago! I will let you know whenever we have got some swag to come along with it and whatever other flag-ish things!
It’s funny! When I was putting the blog post, I was recalling a bunch of conversations I have been having with folks in the past which resulted in the spirit of the blog post and a bunch of the ones we have been having between the two of us came up! So, if anything, I should be grateful to you for the inspiration and the wonderful conversations! It was something I needed to get out out for myself and so far the reactions have been quite interesting!
Will let you know about your freak flags, as mentioned above, not to worry! ) hehe
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Starbuck’s Alexandra Wheeler: forget social strategy, think social philosophy http://ow.ly/1qI37A
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Very nice marketing information.
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Amen, brother! Flying my freak flag too!
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Does your business use ‘Social’? Do you have a Social Media Philosophy? Starbucks does. I love this –> http://bit.ly/bE1C8n
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Glad to have you pushing the envelope Luis. You’re spot with your comments, it also brings to mind the talk on “cognitive surplus” from Clay Shirky. Particularly the happening around ushahidi…
If that’s not evidence of philosophy in play rather than strategy – I don’t know what is!
I think if a philosophy will be worthwhile, it need to facilitate or return civic values, and not just business value. Civic value, will be regarded as more worthwhile and longer lasting than business value, and may perhaps precede and outlast any direct business outcomes.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Luis – hats off to you! Thank you for calling it out. As I often say in my council calls, Google took 8 years to become what it is. Imagine how long will the next Google take?
Old business will act like old business. Economy 2.0 needs a fresh mindset, a fresh and proven social behavior. We have always been about communities/tribes, we moved away from it and look what happened? Now technology is making us become ‘human’ again and I guarantee you, it will always bring positive business ROI. (Just not trackable yet).
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Hiya, Kelly! Awww, thanks a bunch! Stay tuned, because I am already working on something along the lines of what we have been mentioning over here hehe Stay tuned! Will let you know when it is ready!
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Hi Charlie! Oh, my goodness! What a wonderful set of comments! I haven’t gotten just yet through that video clip from Clay on “Cognitive surplus”… I have it on my “To Watch” for the weekend, but I guess I will need to watch it sooner!
Brilliant the comments around civic value, because I think you are just spot on! In today’s society I’m more and more convinced by the day that business value is no longer enough for us knowledge workers; we need to not only aspire to that civic value, but to eventually demand it as our right to make a larger impact not only within our business, but within our society as well in general.
Otherwise, it would be too bad to waste such a unique opportunity to make a difference between all of us! Glad you had a chance to drop by and add these comments. Very insightful!
Many thanks!
PS. Will watch the video and perhaps create a follow up blog post, too…
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Hi Bilal! Thanks for the lovely comments! For a minute they made me think about JP Rangaswami’s comments back at the Enterprise 2.0 conference event keynote session he gave back in June where he stated the following:
“It took IBM 40 yrs to become evil; Microsoft 20; Google 10; Facebook 5; Twitter 2.5″
Indeed, things are going faster and faster and the fact we are now capable of having a sense of what’s happening amongst us we are no longer content with what happens, but we also want to take a much more active participation from the whole thing; like finally having a voice, an opinion, an expectation of how businesses should run, but also an expectation as to how they should behave not only with their own customers, but also with their own knowledge workers.
Somehow, something tells me this is just the beginning of some great things and I find it exciting we are all about to not only experience them, but live them fully! W00t!!
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Luis,
I stumbled across your Blog via who knows how…. And I am glad I did. I also believe that social media, online communities of thought/practice/enterprise/government/issues/concerns/cares are without doubt the new ways in which society will enable change in the future. The world has finally shrunk to a manageable size. We are on the cusp of something humanity changing, and I don’t think enough people are aware ….yet.
I will RSS your blog and continue to read and enjoy.
Cheers from Down Under
PS – I enjoyed the work of your namesake during the Football World Cup (except for the handball)!
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Nice post, Luis! I agree talking about the underlying philosophy and/or concepts of social media is insightful and helpful. I find talking in this way to employees and managers helps. As an IT manager in the company I work for said: “When deciding to do an IT investment let’s not talk about money/ROI first, but first make a decision based on the story.” In your terms: The philosophy should make sense and be understood first.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Hi Luis,
What a great post !
We’re back again on this Evolutionaries Vs Revolutionaries question (link).
Unfortunately, to transform Enterprise 1.0 into 2.0 you need to have C-suite people sponsoring you.
And C-Suite people only understand 2 paradigms 1) ROI and 2) Risk Mgt.
What if through the usage and adoption of social software we would have an unprecedented opportunity to change the world we live in? Wouldn’t we want to seize that opportunity and make it happen
“What if not ? What are the risks ? What are the costs ? Do you think I am gonna risk to transform the whole company on a ground of a What If ?”. These are the answers you are likely to get I am afraid.
Though I fully agree with you, I won’t join the Hippie 2.0 movement because together with the S word (as A. McAfee wrote (link)) this is exactly what scares C-suite out of E20.
I think we need to explain again and again and again how Enterprise Social Networks can help the company to create value, getting things done faster and better, having happier and more loyal customers (think Social CRM) and happier and more productive employees.
You can put number behind these figures : how much more revuenue loyal customers generate when you take good care of them (this one I don’t but it surely can be googled around).
How much does your operating profit margin increase when your employees are happy and engage Vs when they disengage ? There are number available (link): about 6% difference.
We are leaving in a time where Facebook makes more traffic than Google. C-suite people knows that. And it never takes long before something successful in the internet get inside the corporate wall.
My bet : it will eventually happen because last thing C-Suite people want is their company to look obsolete in terms of internal technologies.
I guess the main challenge is how it will hapen. The main risk is to implement Enterprise 2.0 to make Enterprise 1.0 processes more effective (link). In that case it won’t change anything to the company culture. We’ll just do the incorrect thing faster.
So we need to be pedagogic and tell C-suite that the reason we need to implement Enterprise Social Networks is not because they are new, trendy or because our competitors have implemented it. It is because they have proved on the web to be the most appropriate tools to leverage a continuous flow of information (the interconnected world we are leaving and making business in (link)) in order to create value.
In order to fully benefit from its value, we need to take this opportunity to review E1.0 processes and change the way we do business. That’s the way we really want it to be impleted.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Great post Luis. It gave me the idea of a new way of presenting the ROI thing.
We all agree that ROI is rather a complicated issue. Not everything can be turned into equations and, above all, not human related things in an impredictable context.
On the other hand when a company invests time and money on something no one can reasonably say “I don’t care about what will happen” and, above all, not the guy who signs the check.
But should things be so manichean ? Those who care about ROI, numbers (business approach) and those who look beyond and have a more philosophical approach (Hippies) ?
I think that there’s another way. When dealing with this issue, businesses should rather have a NGO approach. What I mean is that NGO collect and spend money, they are not asked to make more money with what they’re given but they have to prove they did things, they improved the situation. In one word : you can be accountable (and you have to) without being obsessed by turning money into more money.
So NGOs have to be accountable but they don’t show financial results, they show concrete achievements that can be turned into numbers even if not financial.
Providing better education is not a financial outcome. But it can be measured by how many kids can to school thanks of the NGO. Same for health : how many young kids manage to live older than 6 months compared to what it used to be…
Saying “we can see things have improved” is not enough, measuring financial outcomes can be a nonsense but demonstrating in an objective, concrete and indisputable way that things have improved is, in my opinion, mandatory since you have to be accountable for using resources and money that are not yours.
I really believe most people can agree on this “third way” but I have to admit that, to date, too many people are either focusing on finance or being ok with the feeling that things are doing better without being able to demonstrate it. There should be an acceptable halfway option between these two attitudes.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Hi Luis,
Hippie 2.0, I like it!
I’m not coming from the same context in which you’re positioning this discussion, but the rhetoric alone strikes me as off. There should be no false dichotomy between social strategy and social philosophy. The two should be intertwined and enable the other.
A social philosophy begets a social strategy, and a social strategy enables a social philosophy. A social strategy should focus on business transformation that enables the social philosophy.
Your heart is in the right place, but things are not either/or. They can often be all of the above–whatever it takes–whether your audience is moved by ROI or just the inevitable groundswell of the new way of being–we’re focused on the same end objective.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Luis,
As always you are straight to the point. Yes, business should think differently, the problem is, the businesses that have thought differently could not be sustained for various reasons over time in most cases. A few survive for years.
Maybe the new generations of business executives will bring this change but hard to envision my older peers(those over 45) in the Executive suites doing this before they retire.
I am with you on this.
But when one is in need of every dollar for livelihood it’s a big leap fr some to do in blind faith.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Hi Luis,
A post of mine riffing off that search for value and ROI from social software… a little of the have’s (get it) and the have nots!
http://tactics.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/oregon-on-my-mind-a-bad-twist-on-a-well-known-song-i-live-4750-miles-away-but-my-heads-full-of-information-from-there/
Already got it on your ping backs
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
Coming off a rough week, I dropped in on this post to see what comments you received. Like a big weight lifted off my shoulders, these comments and your original post has lightened my mood and given me great hope for the future. I, for one, will stop the world and melt with you, Luis. Count on it.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
I’m a new conscript for joining the Hippie 2.0 movement. Maybe not new because I originally signed up 46 years ago during the summer of love. I never gave up my allegiance to the movement and I’m thrilled that your spontaneous outburst at your conference has triggered a renewal and revisiting of the values of that era.
This comment was originally posted on E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez
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