Starbucks vs. Dunkin' Donuts

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• The Architect

  Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts’ approaches to creating meaningful community around their brands and extending their companies beyond a typical retail website is as different as their stores. Both websites have menus, nutrition information, online stores, store locators and social links -- the bare necessities for brands of this nature. The similarities end there. Dunkin' Donuts' version of extending itself beyond the walls of its stores is reminiscent of old gimmicks and half-hearted community-building ploys. There's a healthy version of its menu, links to a running site, some promos and a contest, and then we’re done. Dunkin' Donuts provides no opportunity for its fans to be a part of its website in any meaningful way. Starbucks has done better in their attempts. Noteworthy is the idea of improving the company with your ideas -- something that speaks to core fans. If you love the green Starbucks splash stick, then you should know it was developed in this way. The website allows visitors to share ideas, vote on ideas submitted by others and see which ideas have received the strongest response. It promotes community by encouraging visitors to play a part in improving the brand they love through their own opinions and innovations. Second to this, there’s a blog that’s halfway worth subscribing to if you’re an ultra fan. And while it is not exactly groundbreaking, it has a genuine appeal and seems to keep a decent personal touch to it with little of the usual corporate interference on the surface. Introducing new conveniences, products and free offers allows the blog to be something worth subscribing to for core users and brand evangelists. In addition, Starbucks offers a place for those willing to contribute to their causes. It’s not terribly engaging, but having a directory of people bound to stores and allowing for conversation within each store is a worthwhile effort. It needs more work in order to truly establish the store as a gateway to the local community.

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• The Craftsman

  A website should not only be an extension of a retail store, but it should also be the gathering place for your brand's community of followers. It's important to give that community a great experience when they visit your site, and design plays an integral role in that experience. Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks handle this experience in very different ways, and both leave much to be desired. Let's start with Dunkin' Donuts. It is quite clear that the goal of this site is to push products. The first thing that I notice is the horrible Photoshop work on the home page. It's a collage of poorly photographed and cut out cups, beans and other products. It's obvious that none of the elements ever appeared together naturally. With coffee beans the size of walnuts and cups the size of buckets, the scale is so ridiculous that the whole thing comes off as cheesy and poorly produced. There is a lot of movement and visual stimulation on the home page, including pop-up menus, enlarging images and a hot pink drop-down menu. It seems that at any moment a man wanting to guess my weight or swallow a sword could jump out from behind that burlap sack. These elements are over the top and a detriment to the functionality, as the page takes several seconds to load. The navigation is passable, but there is a lot going on. First you have the main navigation with drop-down menus. Above that you have a secondary navigation that is one of the smallest I have ever seen at only six pixels. I would think that a store finder and franchising information warrants a larger size. And above in the upper right corner there are 4 graphics that appear to be buttons but do nothing when clicked or hovered over, creating confusion. Secondary pages on the site are cleaner, but there are still some alignment and spacing problems, and an overall lack of design consistency makes the site look thrown together. While some pages look pretty good, others look quite bad. On any given page there are several fonts and many colors, causing it to look very busy. Starbucks' website is in stark contrast to the Dunkin' Donuts site. It's clean and minimalist in a way that feels great on the home page, but once you dig into the site, the pages become bland and boring. The home page immediately gives you hierarchy with a large, interactive feature that is simple to navigate. Below that are three areas that funnel traffic with a minimal navigation system. The light background helps the warm, rich imagery pop, creating terrific contrast. Nothing is in your face or obtrusive. It's subtle and functional -- just what you'd expect from a brand like Starbucks. The secondary pages aren't nearly as strong as the home page. The primary and secondary navigation are minimal to the point of being boring. The leading on the navigation and body text is tight and should be expanded. The subtle drop shadow on the top of the canvas area makes that area appear as a frame and does nothing to enhance the page. Columns are narrow, and content feels cramped. There is wasted real estate under a poorly designed search bar which features a "go" button -- none of which feels like what you would expect from Starbucks. There is also a lot of inconsistency from page to page, especially in the way their products and offerings are displayed, which makes the browsing experience feel disjointed. Both sites have work to be done and leave me feeling disappointed. I expect better from these two captains of the coffee industry. While Dunkin' Donuts is over the top with its bright colors and flashy animation, Starbucks doesn't go far enough with its neutral colors and boring framework. Like a cup of coffee that's too strong or too weak, these sites need to find the perfect brew.

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• The Developer

  Anyone who has studied the metrics on their own website knows that getting people past the front page is a big deal, getting them to stay longer is even a bigger deal, and having someone feel that your site is worthwhile enough to come back is the ultimate score. Today's websites are as much about visitors consuming information, collaborating and interacting as a community as they are about selling a product or service.Interestingly, when comparing Dunkin' Donuts to Starbucks, it is clear that both companies have attempted to make their sites into something more than just a reproduction of their retail storefronts. They both have used various methods to try to capitalize on the enthusiasm of their customers. Dunkin' Donuts offers a feature that allows you to create your own donut, while Starbucks has launched a number of social websites that range from promoting specific product lines to advocating social change to soliciting suggestions to make your Starbucks better. Overall, Starbucks does a better job of providing compelling reasons to visit the site. However, both make the perplexing mistake of burying the content rather than bringing it to the forefront. Dunkin' buries these nuggets in favor of button graphics and forces visitors to hunt to find something interesting. Starbucks hides a single text link for each of their social sites below their Flash movie that gets in the way of finding something more useful. Both companies have very active Facebook pages with posts happening every few minutes -- not that you would know this by looking at the front page of their site. What's that you say? The goal is to sell product? Well, I have a question in return: Isn't it necessary to drive traffic to your site in order to sell products online? If there are 4.5 million fans on Starbucks' Facebook page posting every couple of minutes, you do the math. I'll just hold off on returning to these websites until either company gives me a reason to.

Fit or Fad?: Choosing the Right Social Media Networks to Connect with Your Customers

This just in...

Pinterest is now a marketing tool for business. That is, if the chatter emanating from LinkedIn groups and marketing white papers is any indication. Yes, there are already white papers. In just over a year, Pinterest has edged its way up the Alexa rankings to claim a spot on the 50 most visited sites in the world. It has even surpassed such well-established powerhouses as PayPal, CNN, Netflix and The Huffington Post to claim its stake as the #16 most visited site in the U.S. “But what the heck is Pinterest?” you may be wondering. I’ll let this hot new social site pin it down for you: “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes and organize their favorite recipes.” Wait a minute…this bastion of all things bridal, bed sheets and baked goods is now big business? Really? How did this happen? And what does it mean for your business, if anything?

The quick and the dead

Social media is the new wild west of marketing…at least it often feels that way. In just the past few years, we’ve experienced a revolution in the way information about our world, our products and our customers is collected and shared. Connections are raw and direct with little room for error. As a result, it’s no surprise that 140-character faux pas from high-profile tweeters have become evermore commonplace – not to mention the number of noteworthy public scandals brought to light by social media missteps. And then there’s complexity of the social landscape, which changes like the Nevada desert – a few boulders (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) surrounded by a sea of shifting sand, posing a challenge to any business to keep pace. So in this environment of constant flux, how do you remain relevant and cutting edge? How do you balance caution and agility in responding to new platforms? How do you make the most of limited resources? And who’s going to do all this posting, tweeting, +1ing and pinning, anyway? After all, not every business has the luxury of a dedicated, in-house social media guru.

Here’s the good news…

Using the right social media tools in the right way is far more important than using every tool in the box. A carefully curated approach can create stronger ties between your company and your customers while providing the greatest return on your investment of resources. Here’s a step-by-step guide for identifying those networks that are the best fit for your business model, capabilities and customer base.

1. Know where your peeps are.

For major consumer brands like Coke, Nike, Comcast and other B2C juggernauts, it’s important to be everywhere. Fortunately though, they also have the budgets and the manpower to sustain such efforts. Your brand, on the other hand, probably doesn’t need to be everywhere; you just need to figure out where it’s best to be. The key to maximizing the value of your social media efforts is knowing where your customers live online. Just as with all marketing efforts, success starts with knowing your audience, their habits and preferences. If the type of customer you serve isn’t likely to be active on Twitter, there’s no need for you to invest your time there. On the other hand, if your target is young moms, up-and-comer Pinterest is probably a great place to connect with these individuals. Don’t be afraid to stop investing resources (human or monetary) in poor performers. For example, I work for a consulting firm that manages enterprise software projects for utilities. Because the corporate culture of these types of companies tends to evolve very slowly, many of our prospects were still blocking employee access to Facebook and Twitter until just recently. So, historically, those outlets have offered our firm little lead-generation value. However, nearly everyone I meet has a LinkedIn profile, so our firm has a strong presence there, with many of our staff actively involved in LinkedIn groups. Find where your people are and join the conversation.

2. Align social media with your business model.

Every social media site has its own strengths and benefits, so it’s up to you to determine which ones best enable you to showcase and promote your products or services. Full-platform sites like Facebook and Google+ offer the greatest flexibility and the broadest audience, but there may be others that can better serve your unique marketing goals. For professional photographers, sites like Flickr and Instagram make it easy for people to discover and share your work. They’re also where you’re most likely to connect with people who are passionate about great photography. On the other hand, sites like Groupon, Yelp, Zagat and Foursquare are built around local deals and local reviews. If you’re a brick-and-mortar shop, these sites can help boost your traffic – the kind that walks through the door with cash to spend. Consumer products – especially those that are design or taste oriented such as fashion, housewares and tech gadgets – are likely to perform well on sites like Pinterest that let users curate collections of things they like. And if you’re in a B2B business, LinkedIn and Jigsaw are great sites for building your network and working leads while Q&A sites like Quora and Focus offer a platform to showcase your expertise and build trust with prospects by answering questions posted by the community.

3. If you show up, come ready to engage.

With social media, you get back in proportion to how much you give. If your company makes the commitment to join a community, you must be prepared to become an active an engaged participant in it. You can’t expect your tribe to accept you and – more importantly – follow your lead if you’re not willing to put in the work to contribute something of value to their community on a consistent and ongoing basis. It may take a while to gain momentum, but as you get to know a community’s values and style of interaction, your sphere of influence and the marketing capital that comes along with it will grow steadily. Fame Foundry friend Gary Vaynerchuck lives on Twitter. He has over 900,000 followers and can stir a mass of them to action at will. I have experienced this phenomenon firsthand, having watched (and participated) in amazement as Gary went on a one-day Twitter binge to push his book The Thank You Economy to the number one spot on Amazon on the day it was released. Although he did not hit number one on the bestsellers list, he did make it to number six…and number two on the “Hot New Releases” list…and number one on the “Movers & Shakers” list, increasing his sales by over 200,000% within 24 hours. That’s the power of becoming an integral part of a community, a leader of a tribe that speaks and is listened to. What kind of blitz for your business could you create with 500, 5,000 or 500,000 followers?

4. Don’t be lazy.

When you post new content on one site, it’s awfully tempting to syndicate – or rebroadcast – it everywhere else. For example, it takes no effort at all to republish your Twitter feed to your Facebook Page or LinkedIn profile. It’s so easy, and there’s no harm in doing it, right? Not necessarily. Your Facebook fans might not appreciate having their news feeds cluttered with your tweets and retweets. And LinkedIn isn’t necessarily the right venue for all the casual exchanges you might participate in on Twitter. It’s a right time/right place/right manner thing. Let’s be clear: I am not saying that you should post content in only one place. I am saying that it is best to adapt that content to the needs, expectations and etiquette of each community. You must shape and massage your content to make it relevant to both the platform and the people. For example, let’s say your business is hosting a special event. You can live-tweet the event as it unfolds, publish a recap of the highlights on your company blog, post pictures from the event on Facebook (particularly if you’re “tagging” participants in the photos), make the presentation slides available on LinkedIn or SlideShare and host follow-up discussions on a proprietary business forum site. You’re still getting great social media mileage from this one single event. But by tailoring your content to the interests and preferences of each community, you’ll give people a reason to follow you in more than one place while preventing information burnout for those who already do.

5. Don’t overlook the easy targets.

Some social sites truly are “set it and forget it,” giving you invaluable exposure while requiring relatively little active involvement. These are reference and review sites for which the benefits of being represented far outweigh the minimal monitoring requirements. If you’re a local business, be sure to keep an eye on word-of-mouth review sites like Yelp and Zagat. Make sure the information listed about your company is accurate. Check in bi-weekly or monthly to see how reviews are fairing. Respond to negative feedback in order to make things right.

A more difficult but highly rewarding option is to establish a Wikipedia entry for your company. While there are a few hurdles you must overcome in order to make this happen, the benefits are tremendous. In addition to further legitimizing your company in the public eye, a Wikipedia entry is a great way to secure a prominent position in Google search results – no sponsored-listing dollars required.

It's not easy, but it is worthwhile.

The underlying principle for all of these tips is that you must put your customers and prospects first. Serve their needs, promote their interests and conform to their expectations of conduct. Share your time and expertise generously and give your fans good reason to like and share your brand and products with their friends. It all comes down to this: to use social media effectively to promote and grow your business, you must find the right fit and then work hard to fit in.