by Sarah Shea

Consumer relations varies greatly from company to company. With the advent of social media, the means of these relationships has taken on innovative forms. Through the use of corporate blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, consumer feedback has become nearly instantaneous and two-way communication prevails.

One example of the new possibilities of consumer relations is My Starbucks Idea, an online platform for Starbucks customers to share their ideas. The website is a virtual suggestions box of sorts. Rather than use pen and paper to voice ideas and opinions, customers create online accounts to share feedback. After creating an account, users can offer commentary for any range of topics, from new drinks to social responsibility practices. So far, more than 25,000 ideas have been offered for drinks alone.

The "ideas" are categorized three ways: product ideas, experience ideas and involvement ideas. All users can read and comment upon the ideas of other users, adding favorites or giving speculations a thumbs up or thumbs down. Not only can consumers offer their own perspectives, but they also have the ability to network with others. The interactivity of the website gives it a unique approach to consumer relations.

"My Starbucks Idea is one of the best corporate blogs out there, and I think it owes a huge part of its success to [its] focus on user-generated content," said Juliana Weiss-Roessler, a freelance writer.

Listen to the consumer

One important part of using corporate blogs like My Starbucks Idea is confirming that the company is listening to the consumer. For Starbucks, an "Ideas in Action" section shows just that. Here, the different ideas implemented are explained in detail by different Starbucks team representatives. The ideas cover a broad range of topics — from new Braille Starbucks cards to iTunes playlists. These "ideas in action" even link back to the consumers' original ideas.

Starbucks has communicated these ideas through blog posts such as "100 of Your Ideas Launched with More to Come." This post outlined the ideas in an enumerated list, making navigation of each individual idea quite simple. With the blog function of the site, users can see their voice coming through the company.

Ines Nadal, senior research executive of Synovate, said, "Listening to its customers helps Starbucks to understand where the problems are . . . More importantly, this ability to listen enhances brand image and helps the brand to connect and engage with consumers, ultimately improving business results."

Give the consumer the power

Through My Starbucks Idea, Starbucks is taking consumer relations to a new level of interactivity. Rather than push its own ideas on customers, Starbucks is putting the power in the hands of the consumer. The idea platform allows them to share ideas and connect to other users and Starbucks representatives, all in one place. While traditional consumer relations, such as written surveys and phone calls, can be intrusive, social media provides a means more conducive to the lifestyle of the customer. Using platforms like these, customers are able to interact in their own time.

"Often it is difficult to get customers to provide feedback using traditional channels," Nadal said. "Social media is a less disruptive channel and also more engaging, which can help to build up consumer relations."

Engage the consumer

One key to making corporate blogs such as My Starbucks Idea work, Nadal said, is an interested consumer. "A successful [user-generated content] strategy needs customers who are truly passionate about the brand and are willing to engage and participate in creating online content," she said.

Starbucks has not only engaged customers through My Starbucks Idea, but also other social media platforms. This type of relationship with its customer base has allowed for more connectivity.

"The majority of these conversations happen in real time while they are at the store consuming Starbucks products, bringing the brand closer to its customers and their experiences," Nadal said.

Creative ideas like Starbucks' are changing the world of consumer relations. With an ever-changing media base, companies must also find new ways of interacting with their publics. More often than not, this includes turning to interactivity and online media.

From playlists to eco-friendly cups, My Starbucks Idea is revolutionizing consumer relations.

by Maria Sanders

In 2006, Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA), began a Myspace page. His intent was simply to sell enough T-shirts he had printed so a friend could get the help she needed. Five years, and 150,000 messages responded to later, TWLOHA has lead a movement across the world, fueled by the power of social media.

Building on its start with Myspace, TWLOHA’s online presence now includes a Facebook page, Twitter profile, YouTube channel, multiple Tumblrs and a Flickr account. The organization staffs six full-time employees and eight full-time interns to monitor its various social media sites, and to respond to the thousands of messages pouring in.

Unlike TWLOHA, many nonprofits aren’t started online, so they are learning to adapt their messages to an online audience. With 500 million Facebook users and 100 million tweets being sent every day, social media is valuable tool that offers several advantages to not-for-profit organizations.

Beth Kanter, in a blog on Mashable.com, listed four ways social media is changing the world of nonprofits. First on Kanter’s list was the ability to deepen relationships and engagement with your audience through the use of social media.

An important element of social media and social networking is relationship building. This is an element that traditional communication methods may lack. People look to Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and other networking sites to keep in touch with others and find out what’s going on with things they care about.

“We try to communicate our message in a way that is meaningful to our audience,” a spokesperson for TWLOHA said. “Social media sites play such a big role in our daily lives so it feels only natural for us to use this as our main form of communication.”

A strong source of audience engagement for TWLOHA comes from its street team, which is organized online. “Our fancorp street team has allowed us to empower our supporters who have been really keen to become more involved. Street team allows them to be active members completing tasks and promoting TWLOHA,” the spokesperson said.

Hannah McDaniel, director of marketing and communications at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Alabama, said her organization currently uses Facebook and Twitter to deliver key messages. “For us, the main goal is to keep people talking about BGCCA. We use social media to let people know what is going on that day, and remind them that we are still here,” McDaniel said.

She uses social media to make announcements that BGCCA’s closest stakeholders would need to know. “I think [social media] helps parents and donors stay informed with what we’re doing.”

Updating social media accounts with event information, news or volunteer opportunities is a chance to engage your audience directly.

The ability to have direct communication and develop relationships with your supporters and the recipients of your service is a great advantage indeed. But, for a nonprofit, the bottom line is always a huge factor. With the current state of the economy, what financial advantage does the use of social media offer nonprofits?

According to a report from the National Council of Nonprofits, as the economy worsens, the demand for service from nonprofits around the country grows. For many organizations, however, funding from donations is stagnant or even plummeting.

“It is both unrealistic and unsafe to those depending on services to simply assume that nonprofits will somehow be able to continue to deliver more services that cost more with declining revenues. The math just doesn’t work,” Tom Delaney, president of the National Council of Nonprofits, said.

While traditional communication methods such as direct mail can be costly, social media gives communicators a less expensive and typically free way to send their messages out. In the current recession, social media has become more important for organizations such as McDaniel’s. “We are also using it to cut a majority of the costs created by direct mail pieces, such as our newsletters and annual reports,” McDaniel said.

Ridge Haven Retreat is a nonprofit camp in Brevard, N.C. In the past, the camp used postcards and information packets to keep individuals and other organizations aware of what the camp was doing. Another service the camp offered was printing and mailing pictures to parents of children who had attended a camp session. Through Facebook, the camp has been able to cut costs considerably while offering better service.

“We don’t have to put every piece of information on a postcard anymore,” Thomas Sanders, recruiter/group coordinator for the camp, said. “We are able to put information about the camp on our Facebook. The pictures we now post on social media cuts costs for us and gives parents the chance to print pictures in whatever sizes they want rather than the basic size we were sending.”

Social media also gives nonprofits the advantage of being more direct with requests for assistance. Riz Shakir, founder of Project Team Up, a nonprofit helping to rebuild the communities of Holt and Alberta, Ala., after the tornadoes of April 27, 2011, said his organization uses social media as a way to connect with individuals all over the country.

With the work Project Team Up does, the organization is often in need of specific pieces of equipment or people with certain skills, and by using social media it is able to have those needs met more quickly than just with word of mouth. “We put out a tweet asking for people with specific skills, and it’s surprising the response,” Shakir said.

Social media is a powerful tool for the nonprofits who use it. Social media offers affordable, convenient and personal communication with and from organizations and their audiences.

“At this point in time, there is no more cost-effective means that can literally reach hundreds of thousands of people than through the use of social media,” John Panico, co-owner of Social Media Dudes, said. In short, if your nonprofit is not using social media, you should expect to literally whither away and die. It is THAT important to your survival. Don’t wait."

by Amandeep Judge and Hannah McDaniel

Social media’s impact on communication has been phenomenal. Many social media experts say that it will be the main way people communicate and interact in the near future. Although social media is becoming popular and extremely necessary to brand-building, the questions of how to measure social media and why measurement is important are ever evolving ones.

“Return on investment is the buzz word right now,” said Stefany Sanders, director of social media at Jackson Spalding. “But it’s just one of several useful metrics for measuring social media impact.”

In its truest form, return on investment is only good for measuring monetary sales and growth, said Sanders.

“Measuring social media ROI is difficult because there is potential for positive outcomes beyond just an increase in the bottom line. There are numerous customer relations and relationship building opportunities,” said Kristen Heflin, University of Alabama assistant professor and fellow of The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations.

There are many tools and platforms available online to assist any practitioner with measuring social media trends and impact. These platforms help to assess different complex business strategies.

“We work with our clients to articulate their overall business goals and define their social media objectives in that context. Then we have the metrics discussion — what indicators represent achievement of the objective?” said Sanders.

“You should continually conduct research: keyword research, trend analysis, social media monitoring. It’s at the core of an effective social media campaign,” said Heflin.

According to a Social Media Biz article by J.D. Lasica and Kim Bale, there are more than 200 different platforms to use to measure social media, and they all serve different business strategies and audiences. Some platforms are designed for larger businesses, and others are better suited for small businesses. Lasica and Bale suggested that for social media plans to flourish, brands and companies need to evaluate their social media and engage with their audiences.

The article stresses the importance of measuring: “Born as a way to respond to crises and manage brand reputation, social media monitoring, or brand monitoring — which ties into social media measurement and analysis — is finally maturing into a business process that helps the bottom line.”

Maria Ogneva wrote a Mashable.com article on how companies and brands should invest in tools that monitor and measure their social media activities. She notes that monitoring is important because a company needs to know how people are talking about it. This process consists of picking keywords related to your brand and allowing for a tool to gather all online information related to those keywords, in an easy-to-interpret format.

“Clients love proof of success,” Sanders said. “It makes everyone look good, and gives meaning to everyone’s hard work.”

Heflin said that “monitoring the social media ecosystem” as a whole is much easier to do with apps like Radian6, Lithium, Google Alerts and Social Mention. She added that applications like Technorati and Google Blog Search are great for monitoring blogs; Tweetdeck, Twitter Advanced Search and Seesmic Desktop are useful when monitoring Twitter.

Sanders said Facebook Insights is great for monitoring Facebook traffic. She said Jackson Spalding uses Google Analytics to monitor social media impact as well.

According to Ogneva, “Measurement is crucial for benchmarking and tracking your success over time. It’s what helps you draw comparisons to your peers, analyze the huge ocean of tweets and blog posts, and distill them to a list of actionable insights.”

Ogneva explained the similarities between monitoring and measuring, but also emphasized the need for both. She said the main difference between the two is that measuring your social media responses is more detailed and contains the date, source and dimensions of the data. The importance of measuring social media is all about the return on investment.

To get the most social media impact, Heflin believes “a good rule of thumb is to use at least one platform from each branch of the social media trinity — blogs, microblogs and social networks.”

Sanders reminds us that we should first determine if a social media strategy is an appropriate choice for the client.

“We always make sure the objective drives the strategy and not the other way around,” said Sanders. “We tell clients that it is not a good idea to start with the tool you want to use and work backward from there.”

Once a social media strategy is adopted to meet a specific objective, measuring its ROI is key. Social media not only can benefit a company’s bottom line but also provide a different type of return on investment. This new media must be measured to determine what kind of relationships are being built online, and these relationships, whether good or bad, help determine the success of a company.