I recently came across the Starbucks Green Apron book and read through their 5 principles for turning the ordinary into the extraordinary. I found it very interesting that the 5 principles can be applied directly to a social media campaign or strategy.
The Green Apron Book is a booklet that Starbucks gives its baristas. It outlines Starbucks mission: “To provide an uplifting experience that enriches people’s daily lives,” along with 5 Principles for doing exactly that:
- Be Welcoming: Offer everyone a sense of belonging.
- Be Genuine: Connect, discover, respond.
- Be Knowledgeable: Love what you do. Share it with others.
- Be Considerate: Take care of yourself, each other, and the environment.
- Be Involved: In the store, in the company, and in the community.
The principles promote that good business and great customer experiences come out of a personal connection between people. Social media management relies on this principle as fundamental to your social media strategy. Without being personal and considerate you will struggle to build community.
Community is the centerpiece of your social media strategy, everything said and done by people inside your community will shape and define how your community evolves. By applying principles like the one’s outline here you can be sure that your community online and offline will grow and evolve into a very valuable business proposition.
Yes, this does mean that you need to allocate resources (mainly people) to manage the social media engagement for you business. Automation will just create a flat community with no energy and even less business interest.
