Journal of Marketing Communications

ISSN: 1352-7266 (Print) 1466-4445 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjmc20

Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on

Twitter

Viriya Taecharungroj

To cite this article: Viriya Taecharungroj (2016): Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy
on Twitter, Journal of Marketing Communications, DOI: 10.1080/13527266.2016.1138139

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2016.1138139

Published online: 10 Feb 2016.

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 Journal of Marketing Communications, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527266.2016.1138139

Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on Twitter

Viriya Taecharungroj
Business Administration Division, Mahidol University International College, Nakhonpathom, Thailand

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Many scholars have found that social media are extraordinarily useful Received 17 April 2015
platforms for marketers to engage their stakeholders. Much research Accepted 23 December 2015
has developed frameworks for and proposed empirical guidelines KEYWORDS
on how brands should communicate and interact with audiences on
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Content analysis; social

social media platforms. However, a comprehensive study that is based media marketing; Starbucks;
on a successful and reputable brand is still lacking. The objective of Twitter
this research was to categorise the types of content used by one
of the most admired brands in the world, Starbucks, and evaluate
its effectiveness on Twitter. In total, the author studied 565 tweets
and retweets and 1392 replies. This research found that Starbucks’
marketing communications strategy includes three types of original
and retweeted content: information-sharing, emotion-evoking, and
action-inducing content. The author also found six types of replies:
information, Apology and suppot, positive comment, question and
enquiry, chit-chat, and gratitude. To be successful on the social media
platforms, this research suggests that brands should use various types
of content, focus on visual content, and prepare for and manage
customer interactions appropriately. The findings present useful and
practical information for brands that seek to engage audiences using
an inexpensive but compelling marketing communications strategy
on social media.

Introduction
In 2014, Fortune magazine named Starbucks the fifth-most admired brand in the world.
Starbucks rank number one in the food service industry (Fortune 2014). Digital sophistication
is one of the main drivers of the company’s success. In his book ‘Onward’, Howard Schultz,
the CEO of Starbucks, stated that digital and social media were the main initiatives that
Starbucks pursued during and after the global recession (Schultz and Gordon 2012, 320). As
digital and social media marketing has grown in importance, Starbucks have established a
remarkably strong presence on social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram,
Pinterest, and Tumblr. On Twitter in particular, Starbucks have garnered more than seven
million followers. Followers, its potential audience members, are Twitter users who voluntarily
receive Starbucks tweets in their feeds. Starbucks had posted updates, or tweets, more than
46,000 times as of January 2015. Starbucks’ activities on Twitter have received unequivocal

CONTACT  Viriya Taecharungroj  viriya.tae@mahidol.ac.th

© 2016 Taylor & Francis
 2    V. Taecharungroj

praise because they have established consistent, open, active, interactive, and engaging
relationships with followers (Noff 2010; Ruiz 2011; Gembarski 2012; Wakefield 2012; Moth
2013). Understanding Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on Twitter is the pivotal
goal of this research.
Social media have transformed the landscape of marketing communications. Many schol-
ars have studied and expanded marketing communications theory to incorporate functions
and impacts of social media. Previous literature indicates the importance of brands’ com-
munications and interactions with customers. Nevertheless, a comprehensive study of a
successful brand on social media is lacking. The current research focuses on Starbucks’ Twitter
strategy and practical implications for other brands. Unlike the other most admired brands
on the Fortune list – Apple (1st), Amazon (2nd), Google (3rd), and Berkshire Hathaway (4th) –
Starbucks’ business practices are not particularly technological. Hence, an understanding of
its marketing communications strategy on Twitter can be useful for many other organisations.
The first objective of this research was to explore and categorise Starbucks’ marketing
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communications activities on Twitter. The second objective was to compare the effectiveness
of different types of content. Finally, this research aimed to suggest marketing communica-
tions guidelines for social media marketers.

Literature review
Social media marketing theoretical background
Social media – or another closely related term, social networks – are platforms that combine
Web 2.0 technology and user-generated content (UGC) (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). Social
media can be regarded as web-based services that allow users to create identities, engage
in conversations, share content, find other people, foster relationships, build reputations,
and join groups (Kietzmann et al. 2011; Cvijikj, Spiegler, and Michahelles 2013). Examples
of social media platforms are chat rooms, blogs, social networking websites, video-sharing
websites, photo-sharing websites, virtual social worlds, collaborative projects, commerce
communities, and social bookmarking websites (Mangold and Faulds 2009; Kaplan and
Haenlein 2010; Castronovo and Huang 2012). Brands can use social media to communicate
with audiences as they do with traditional media; however, consumers can also use these
platforms to communicate with one another (Mangold and Faulds 2009). Social media plat-
forms have transformed the role of audiences, making them simultaneous recipients and
initiators of content (Hanna, Rohm, and Crittenden 2011).
Social media are a pervasive force that is redefining the process of communication.
Traditionally, the communications model consists of the four elements source–message–
channel–receiver (SMCR) (Berlo 1960). The processes within the traditional model involve
encoding, decoding, response, feedback, and noise (Rothwell 2010). The emergence of social
media has made the nature of communications more complex and inclusive. Many schol-
ars have recreated the communications framework or model to incorporate the elements
of social media (Mangold and Faulds 2009; Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010; Hanna, Rohm, and
Crittenden 2011; Castronovo and Huang 2012). Mangold and Faulds (2009) conceptualised
‘the new communication paradigm’, emphasising that brands’ control over the content, tim-
ing, and frequency of information is being ‘severely eroded’. Traditionally, a company has
had considerable control over how its brand is perceived through the management of its
 Journal of Marketing Communications   3

promotion mix, including advertising, public relations, and sales promotions. Now, consum-
ers interact with one another to create conversations about the brand. The new communi-
cations paradigm model (Mangold and Faulds 2009) demonstrates that social media have
a hybrid element combining the characteristics of the traditional promotional tool and an
avenue for customers to interact and create word-of-mouth. Therefore, although social media
can help a company communicate more efficiently, the uncertainty in the marketplace can
be intimidating.
In 2010, Hennig-Thurau et al. developed the ‘pinball framework’, which incorporates the
effects of new media on customer relationships whereby companies release a ‘marketing
ball’ into the environment. New media are the bumpers that divert the ball in chaotic and
unpredictable ways. Marketing managers use marketing tactics or ‘flippers’ to guide the
ball; however, the ball does not always move where intended. The authors asserted that
new media, which include social media, are disruptive and make marketing activities unpre-
dictable. Social media platforms can also have an impact on other marketing activities.
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Castronovo and Huang (2012) proposed an alternative marketing model on a social media
platform. The authors emphasised the linkages between marketing activities on social media
platforms and other marketing activities, such as brand community, customer relationship
management (CRM), and search engine optimisation (SEO). The model illustrates that the
effects of marketing activities on social media platforms are ubiquitous and have an impact
on companies’ marketing communications strategies.
The emergence of social media has led to the development of the various expanded mar-
keting communications theories and frameworks referenced above. These prominent models
accurately capture the role of social media in the communications process. Scholars have
stressed that companies must properly execute social media marketing activities (Castronovo
and Huang 2012), manage relationships with customers (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010), and
shape discussions online (Mangold and Faulds 2009). However, although these frameworks
generally suggest that brands should utilise social media platforms skilfully and constantly
interact with customers, there is no consensus on ‘how’ they can do so effectively. The current
research aimed to reinforce the understanding of how a successful brand utilises a popular
social media platform to deepen social media marketing concepts and provide guidelines
for other aspiring brands.

Social media marketing strategy and benefits

The rising importance of social media in the marketing communications field has stimulated
scholars to study the phenomenon and provide guidelines for businesses to use social media
effectively. Much research has focused on the types of content that brands post on social
media platforms and their effects on customers. Table 1 summarises examples of social
media marketing guidelines from previous literature.
Many scholars have found that the most effective type of content is in picture form
(Hansson, Wrangmo, and Søilen 2013; Kwok and Yu 2013; Sabate et al. 2014). Other research-
ers have found that effective online content should be entertaining and informative (Cvijikj
and Michahelles 2013), interactive and reactive (Burton and Soboleva 2011), humorous and
philanthropic (Zhang, Jansen, and Chowdhury 2011), and relevant and conversational (Kwok
and Yu 2013). Jansen et al. (2009) stated that brands should use Twitter as a feedback mech-
anism that also learns from customers’ posts. Likewise, many scholars have suggested that
 4    V. Taecharungroj

Table 1. Examples of social media marketing guidelines from the literature.

Author(s) Platform Context Guidelines
Zhang, Jansen, and Twitter Twitter accounts of Businesses should maintain brand
Chowdhury (2011) nine food and beverage presence; actively engage with customers;
businesses and tweet humorous, anecdotal, and
philanthropic content every 1.5–4 h
Burton and Soboleva Twitter Twitter accounts of public- Domino’s Pizza used Twitter as a response
(2011) ly-owned companies in mechanism. Microsoft used hashtags to
the US and Australia increase its number of followers. A Twitter
strategy can be both reactive, using
replies, and interactive, using hashtags,
retweets, and hyperlinks, to promote
positive messages
Jansen et al. (2009) Twitter Twitter accounts of 50 Microblogging is a viable and effective
major brands, including medium for word-of-mouth marketing.
Starbucks Brands should use Twitter as a feedback
mechanism for new products. They can
improve their brand image by analys-
ing customers’ posts. Effective use of
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microblogging platforms requires contin-

uous and constant management. Brands
can have multiple accounts for different
events and issues
Lovejoy, Waters, and Twitter Twitter accounts of 73 Nonprofit organisations were not using
Saxton (2012) nonprofit organisations Twitter to foster conversations and build
community. Practitioners should use the
platform to engage stakeholders rather
than only for one-way communication
Pfeffer, Zorbach, and Twitter & Facebook Observations from three To avoid online ‘firestorms’, or negative
Carley (2014) recent negative word-of- word-of-mouth dynamics, a brand must
mouth events be proactive and create a large fan
network to counter negativity if it arises.
It should also identify trusted information
brokers or influencers to pass on informa-
tion to the public
Hansson, Wrangmo, Facebook Questionnaires from Companies should have an active profile
and Søilen (2013) Swedish social media providing up-to-date information about
users developments. Companies should provide
information and create inspiration
through photographs and statuses
Sabate et al. (2014) Facebook Five Spanish travel The use of images positively increases
agencies users’ attention and engagement
Kwok and Yu (2013) Facebook Text-mining analysis of The four suggested strategies are: (1) use
twelve restaurants eye-catching keywords, (2) focus on status
and photo sharing, (3) engage users with
conversational messages, and (4) learn
from the best examples
Cvijikj and Micha- Facebook 100 fast-moving con- Entertaining content is the most influ-
helles (2013) sumer goods (FMCG) ential on the level of engagement. The
pages other two suggested content types are
information and remuneration

practitioners use social media to engage stakeholders, develop healthy interactions, and
create direct dialogues with them (Rybalko and Seltzer 2010; Segrave, Carson, and Merhout
2011; Zhang, Jansen, and Chowdhury 2011; Lovejoy, Waters, and Saxton 2012; Öztamur and
Karakadilar 2014; Tiago and Veríssimo 2014). Furthermore, brands should be proactive in
creating large fan networks to alleviate any problems with negative word-of-mouth that
arise (Pfeffer, Zorbach, and Carley 2014).
The proper use of social media can help businesses strengthen relationships with custom-
ers, identify new opportunities, build brand trust, and foster word-of-mouth communication
 Journal of Marketing Communications   5

(Whitla 2009; Huang and Benyoucef 2013; Ho 2014). Consumers’ positive attitudes about
engaging with a brand on social media also have an effect on consumers’ intentions to make
in-store purchases (Jang, Chang, and Chen 2013). Additionally, social media offer the possi-
bility of product development through online consumer involvement (Cvijikj, Spiegler, and
Michahelles 2013). This communication can strengthen brand identity and brand community
(Segrave, Carson, and Merhout 2011). Moreover, brands can improve trust and commitment
through users’ active participation in their online communities (Kang, Tang, and Fiore 2014).
The current research aimed to focus on the social media activities of an established brand,
Starbucks, and to purposefully study its activities on Twitter. This popular social media plat-
form is one that marketers often employ due to its pervasiveness, speed, interactivity, and
convenience. Twitter has gained popularity among a number of organisations, and it is an
indispensable tool that allows marketers to communicate and interact with customers online.

Twitter
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The interactivity of users on social media platforms has become key in building online rela-
tionships between organisations and the public (Saffer, Sommerfeldt, and Taylor 2013).
Twitter is an interactive social media platform that allows users to microblog or post short
statements (Bae and Lee 2011). It is open, real-time, simple, free, and flexible (Zhang,
Jansen, and Chowdhury 2011). Since its launch in 2006, Twitter’s influence has continuously
expanded. At the close of 2014, there were approximately 288 million active Twitter users
(Twitter.com 2015). Twitter allows ordinary users to broadcast or share information about
their daily activities (Bae and Lee 2011). There are some simple yet powerful functions for
Twitter users. A tweet is a short message, no more than 140 characters long, that is posted
by a Twitter user to his or her followers. A user can voluntarily follow another user, operated
by an individual, a group of people, or a brand, to receive its future tweets on a personal
feed. Interaction on Twitter, as previously noted, is important; a user can ‘retweet’ or repost
other users’ messages to broadcast those messages to his or her own followers. Furthermore,
a user can mention or reply to another user by using an @ sign followed by a username.
Conversations on Twitter are typically unorganised; a hashtag (#) sign is placed in front of a
keyword to allow users to search for relevant messages or conversations that revolve around
that topic of interest.
Twitter is ideal for brands that seek to build relationships with key stakeholders (Hennig-
Thurau et al. 2010). Although Twitter is essentially devoted to information dissemination
(Bakshy et al. 2011), businesses also reap benefits from using Twitter to interact with their
audiences. Many companies typically use Twitter to communicate with a large number of
followers in a one-to-many form. Furthermore, they use the one-to-one mechanism to inter-
act with individual users by replying or retweeting (Burton and Soboleva 2011).

Methodology
Content analysis
This research employs content analysis (Elo and Kyngäs 2008) to study tweets from Starbucks’
official Twitter account (@starbucks). Apart from the official @starbucks account, Starbucks
has other accounts. These include activities-related accounts, such as My Starbucks Ideas (@
 6    V. Taecharungroj

MyStarbucksIdea) and Starbucks Rewards (@starbucksgold); product-related accounts, such

as Teavana (@teavana), Frappuccino (@frappuccino), and Evolution Fresh (@EvolutionFresh);
and country-specific accounts, such as @StarbucksCanada and @StarbucksIndia. Nevertheless,
the scopes of those other accounts are narrow, whereas the official account covers a broad
range of topics. Therefore, to understand Starbucks’ overall strategy on Twitter, the author
focuses only on the official account. The author collected all Starbucks tweets from 2014,
including original tweets by Starbucks and retweets. Retweets are tweets in which the con-
tent is created by another user and forwarded or broadcast by Starbucks to its followers. In
total, there are 565 tweets from 2014. Another type of Starbucks activity on Twitter is replying.
Replies (or mentions) are one-on-one communications from Starbucks to individual users.
Replies are more numerous and frequent than original tweets or retweets. Hence, the author
studies the replies occurring in December 2014. There are 1392 replies in the study. Content
analysis is also used to analyse the replies; however, category generation is separated from
that of original tweets and retweets.
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The goal of content analysis is to describe a phenomenon (Hsieh and Shannon 2005). The
author aims to create categories that capture the universe of Starbucks’ marketing communi-
cations strategy on Twitter. The important process of content analysis is to immerse oneself
in the data, find insights, and iterate the process to capture trends and patterns.

Devising categories
The author compares and contrasts the categories and theories of several scholars (Jansen et
al. 2009; Humphreys et al. 2013; Madden, Ruthven, and McMenemy 2013). Jansen et al. (2009)
studied tweets, including Starbucks tweets, and categorised them as comments, sentiment,
information providing, and information seeking. They also analysed tweet content using
object and action approaches. Examples of object categories are coffee, barista, store, and
card. In contrast, action categories include positive comment, response, question, answer,
and chit-chat. Madden, Ruthven, and McMenemy (2013) adopted the categories proposed by
Jansen et al. (2009) and developed a coding scheme for YouTube comments that share some
similarities. Humphreys et al. (2013) observed tweets by individual users and grouped those
tweets using three criteria: tweet subject, tweet topic, and tweet style. Each criterion has
several categories; for example, tweet style includes accounting, commentary, information
seeking, content sharing, and response. The categories proposed by various scholars share
some similarities. The current research begins with the categories of actions by Jansen et al.
(2009) because the research contexts are the most closely related; it then compares them
with the samples. Some categories are retained, such as question, announcement, store,
promotion, and card. However, most categories are created anew because a number of the
original categories by Jansen et al. (2009) included replies, whereas replies are separated
in this study. In total, there are 19 subtypes of content. Subsequently, these subtypes are
grouped together to create three main categories (content types) that represent Starbucks’
strategy on Twitter. The three types of content are information-sharing, emotion-evoking,
and action-inducing content.
This research also categorises tweets according to the modality. Modalities can be classi-
fied into four main types. The first type is the text-only tweet (coded as ‘text’) that contains
text and nothing else. The text-and-link tweet (coded as ‘link’) is the second type of tweet
and contains a link to another website together with the text. The third type of tweet is the
 Journal of Marketing Communications   7

text and image tweet (coded as ‘image’) in which Starbucks tweets an image to followers.
The final type is the text and video tweet (coded as ‘video’).
Consequently, the author compares the effectiveness of each content and modality by
analysing the number of retweets and the number of favourites. The number of retweets is
the number of times other Twitter users retweet that particular Starbucks tweet. Likewise,
the number of favourites represents the frequency with which users label a tweet as a favour-
ite. The numbers of retweets and favourites are by no means conclusive or exhaustive in
measuring the effectiveness of content; other metrics, such as sales and brand performance,
are arguably equally, if not more, important. Nevertheless, scholars have used the number
of retweets to represent influence, popularity, and interactivity (Cha et al. 2010; Kwak et al.
2010; Bae and Lee 2011; Burton and Soboleva 2011). Hence, the current research observes
these two values to determine the effectiveness of content. A two-way ANOVA is conducted
to show the differences in the average numbers of retweets and favourites for each content
type and modality.
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Another important part of this research is the analysis of replies by Starbucks. Replies
are messages from @Starbucks to individual Twitter users who either tweeted directly to
@Starbucks or mentioned Starbucks in their tweets. Similar to the content analysis of tweets
and retweets, this study begins by comparing the categories of tweet by Jansen et al. (2009)
and the samples. Some categories are adopted from the previous study, such as positive
comment, question, and chit-chat. The response category from the previous study is changed
to the apology and support reply type. The answer category is changed to the information
reply type to better explain the purpose of the reply. Apology and suppot are grouped
together in one category because they generally go together in a reply. In total, replies are
categorised into six types: Apology and suppot, gratitude, information, positive comment,
enquiry and question, and chit-chat.
In the coding process, three coders are trained to code Starbucks tweets using the content
type and modality criteria. One hundred tweets are selected to test the inter-coder reliability.
The inter-rater reliability has an average pairwise per cent agreement of 92%, an average
pairwise Cohen’s Kappa of 0.88, and a Krippendorff’s Alpha of 0.88. Another three coders are
trained to code the replies. One hundred Starbucks replies are tested for inter-rater reliability
using the six reply types. The inter-rater reliability has an average pairwise Cohen’s Kappa
of 0.81 and a Krippendorff’s Alpha of 0.81. The inter-coder reliability results of both tweets
and replies reveal a good level of agreement (Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken 2002).

Findings
Three types of content
From the content analysis, the author finds three content types that describe Starbucks’
marketing strategy on Twitter. In this section, examples of each subtype in the three main
categories are explained. Descriptive statistics for tweets in each content type are then
presented and discussed. Finally, a two-way ANOVA indicates any differences in effective-
ness among the three content categories and modalities. The full list of content types is
presented in Table 2.
The first content type is information sharing. In this type, Starbucks aim to communi-
cate valuable information to followers. The emphasis of this content type is the benefits
 8    V. Taecharungroj

Table 2. Content type list with definitions.

Content type
Information-sharing content
Emotion-evoking content
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Subtype Description
Practical tip Advice on how to create, order, or modify a drink or
other Starbucks product. It is accompanied by the
#ProTip hashtag
Product intro/promo An introduction to or promotion of Starbucks prod-
ucts, including coffee, other beverages, food, mugs,
and cards
Store intro/promo An introduction to or promotion of Starbucks stores
worldwide
Campaign intro/promo An introduction to or promotion of a Starbucks-related
campaign
Official announcement An official announcement by Starbucks
Factual information Other factual information
Imagery An image presented in a dramatic fashion to evoke
an emotion. These images sometimes have surprising
elements
Sentimental message A message that aims to evoke emotions, such as awe,
excitement, happiness, calmness, serenity, or peaceful-

ness. These messages typically incorporate signalling

Action-inducing content
words, such as #love
Storytelling A Starbucks-related story told by a person. This type of
message is about people and their activities
Inspirational quotation A quotation by a famous person that aims to inspire
readers
Poem Poems or rhymes that contain well-crafted words that
evoke positive emotions
Humorous message A message with a humorous element
Witty message A message with a witty element
In-store download A promotional message asking readers to purchase
a download card and/or to download in-store digital
content
Event participation A message asking readers to participate in an event or
a campaign
Question A question asking readers to respond regarding
certain issues
Sales promotion A sales promotion campaign, including discounts, free
giveaways, and other types of sales promotions, that
persuades followers to take action
Social media engagement A promotional message persuading readers to engage
with Starbucks on a social media platform
Card registration A message persuading readers to register for a Star-
bucks card

that followers may receive. The following subtypes fall within this content type: practical
tip, product introduction and promotion, store introduction and promotion, campaign
introduction and promotion, official announcement, and factual information. Practical tip
tweets are those that provide followers or Starbucks customers with guidelines to follow with
Starbucks-related products. An example of a practical tip occurred on 26 January 2014, when
Starbucks tweeted, ‘When you add mocha sauce and hazelnut syrup to a latte #ohyes #lat-
tehack #nomnom’. Often, Starbucks label a practical tip tweet with the #ProTip hashtag. For
example, on 29 September 2014, Starbucks tweeted, ‘You can always ask for #IcedBlackTea
unsweeten. #ProTip #becauseyouresweetenough’.
Product information and promotion is an information-sharing subtype that aims to
inform followers about a new product or provide interesting information about existing
products. The following is an example of a product intro/promo tweet: ‘Layered, lively cup,
resoundingly crisp #BlondeRoast. Aria Blend is now available where you buy groceries.
 Journal of Marketing Communications   9

#GetBrightandLight’. Two subtypes, store introduction and promotion and campaign intro-
duction and promotion, follow similar patterns; however, the former emphasises a physical
store, and the latter emphasises a Starbucks-launched campaign. The other two subtypes in
the information-sharing content type are official announcements (e.g. ‘Starbucks is not a part
of Monsanto’s GMO lawsuit to stop food labeling sbux.co/1x7Dczt’) and factual information
(e.g. a tweet retweeted from the My Starbucks Idea account reads, ‘Almost half of college
students in our country don’t finish their college degrees. #WeCanDoBetter #HighEd sbux.
co/1kE48fV’). An official announcement is a content type that replicates traditional press
releases or news announcements, such as mobile application updates or website mainte-
nance schedules. Factual information is posted sparingly because Starbucks generally tweet
content that is closely related to the brand.
The emotion-evoking content type includes seven subtypes: imagery, sentimental mes-
sages, storytelling, inspirational quotations, poems, humorous messages, and witty messages.
The main purpose of emotion-evoking content seems to be to evoke positive emotions in
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followers, such as happiness, excitement, awe, serenity, peacefulness, calmness, and delight.
The most common subtype of this content type is imagery. Imagery content utilises visual
elements through digital images. These images are typically beautiful, digitally adjusted (fil-
tered) and/or modified to create interesting spectacles for audiences. Sentimental messages
employ words that are carefully crafted to evoke positive feelings. These messages can be
short or long; they are typically but not always related to the brand. For example, a tweet on
Mother’s Day reading ‘Mom’s the best. [a green heart emoji] #BestMom’ was retweeted more
than 6000 times and was added as a favourite more than 7000 times. Another frequently used
subtype is storytelling. In storytelling tweets, a story is typically told by a Starbucks customer
and retweeted by Starbucks (e.g. customer @alliradiuk tweeted a picture of a Starbucks gift
card with the message ‘a stranger just bought me a Starbucks giftcard [sic] just for having a
conversation with him: kindness is always rewarding’). These tweets’ main objectives do not
involve providing information to followers or persuading them to take action. Nevertheless,
creating emotions through captivating content is undeniably important in building any suc-
cessful brand. The other subtypes – poems, inspirational quotations, humorous messages,
and witty messages – also play a role in evoking positive emotions.
Action-inducing content is the final content type identified by the current research. These
tweets attempt to persuade Starbucks followers to take a desired action, such as purchas-
ing, participating, or registering. Action-inducing content is often presented in the form
of imperative sentences. The most common subtype is sales promotion. Sales promotion
tweets usually urge customers to purchase Starbucks products within a specified time period
for a discount. For example, together with a picture of a receipt, Starbucks retweeted a
tweet from another account, @StarbucksStore: ‘$2 grande iced drinks after 2 pm with your
morning receipt. #TreatReceipt (US only)’. In-store download cards and card registration are
two subtypes that seek to persuade customers to buy a card to download digital content
(e.g. ‘Pick up a download card for the Time Surfer app. Kill some time by rewinding with
this freakishly fun game. It’s our in-store #PickoftheWeek’) or to persuade new or existing
customers to register for a Starbucks reward card (e.g. a retweet from another Starbucks
account, @starbucksgold, includes a picture of the card and reads, ‘Catch her while you can:
Our Limited Edition Siren Card’). Other action-inducing subtypes also attempt to persuade
customers to take action. Event participation tweets ask followers to participate in Starbucks
events or campaigns (e.g. ‘Tag your #redcupcontest moment on Instagram to win a sterling
 10    V. Taecharungroj

Table 3. Descriptive statistics of Starbucks tweets in 2014.

n % n (retweet) % retweet Avg. ret. Avg. fav.
Information-sharing content
Practical tip 37 6 3 1 758 2231
Product intro/promo 31 5 15 7 517 1456
Store intro/promo 10 2 0 0 514 1490
Campaign intro/promo 21 4 10 5 421 1060
Official announcement 9 2 3 1 304 1015
Factual information 4 1 1 0 476 1248
Information-sharing total 112 20 32 15 573 1598
Emotion-evoking content
Imagery 132 23 25 12 1351 3651
Sentimental message 52 9 5 2 1193 2378
Storytelling 118 21 112 52 126 729
Inspirational quotation 12 2 0 0 1058 1361
Poem 6 1 1 0 3217 6033
Humorous message 5 1 4 2 353 906
Witty message 24 4 4 2 2581 4227
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Emotion-evoking total 349 62 151 71 1005 2431

Action-inducing content
In-store download 20 4 1 0 159 616
Event participation 25 4 4 2 684 1524
Question 8 1 0 0 749 2325
Sales promotion 33 6 17 8 5322 6387
Social media engagement 9 2 2 1 322 933
Card registration 9 2 7 3 581 1511
Action-inducing total 104 18 31 14 2020 2901
Total 565 214

silver Starbucks Card. Rules: sbux.co/redcupcontest’), question tweets ask followers for their
input (e.g. ‘What would you do if you won #StarbucksforLife? [several emojis]’), and social
engagement tweets persuade followers to engage with Starbucks on other accounts or
other social media platforms.

Descriptive statistics: content type

After the coding process, the results are compiled, and they are presented in Table 3. Of
the 565 Starbucks tweets and retweets in 2014, 112 (20%) are information-sharing tweets,
349 (62%) are emotion-evoking tweets, and 104 (18%) are action-inducing tweets. Within
the emotion-evoking type, imagery is the most common subtype, followed by storytell-
ing. However, most storytelling tweets are retweets from other accounts, particularly from
Starbucks customers. Practical tip is the most common subtype in the information-sharing
content type. Finally, sales promotion is the most common subtype in the action-inducing
content type. Table 3 shows the average number of retweets and favourites in each subtype.
However, effectiveness, such as the number of retweets and favourites of each subtype,
cannot be compared statistically because the numbers of tweets in each subtype are not
consistent. Factual information is the subtype with the fewest tweets – 4 – whereas imagery
is the most common subtype, with 132 tweets.
Figure 1 shows how these three categories were distributed over the course of 2014
because observing the total numbers alone would not provide a clear picture of how
Starbucks published its content. It is clear in Figure 1 that emotion-evoking content is
 Journal of Marketing Communications   11
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Figure 1. Content type frequency of Starbucks tweets in 2014.

consistently more prevalent than information-sharing and action-inducing content. An

obvious irregularity was in September and October 2014, when Starbucks seemed to post
an abnormally high number of emotion-evoking tweets. In that period, Starbucks retweeted
a huge volume of personal stories from its customers. Thus, the amount of emotion-evoking
content spiked for a short period and returned to normal in November and December 2014.
Although the other two content types were less common than the emotion-evoking content,
they were consistently published throughout the year of the study.

Descriptive statistics: modality

Coders categorise the 565 Starbucks tweets from 2014 into four modalities. Most tweets
are text-only (238 tweets, 42%) or images (228 tweets, 40%). There are only 88 text-and-link
tweets (16%) and 11 video tweets (2%). To make the analysis clearer and more practical, the
author combines the text-only and text-and-link types under the ‘textual’ modality. Image
and video types, meanwhile, are classified together under the ‘visual’ modality. Table 4 indi-
cates the frequencies of each content type as the visual or textual modality. From the data,
emotion-evoking content appears more likely to be visual than the other two content types.
Information-sharing and action-inducing content thus tend to be textual. However, the trend
is marginal, and the differences are not substantial.

Effectiveness of content types and modality

In the current research, the effectiveness of content is represented by the numbers of
retweets and favourites. A two-way ANOVA test is conducted to observe differences in the
average numbers of retweets and favourites between the textual and visual modalities and
among the three content types. The results find that the three content types have signifi-
cantly different numbers of retweets and favourites at the p < 0.001 level. The action-inducing
content type has the highest numbers of retweets and favourites, followed by emotion-evok-
ing and information-sharing content. The results find that the differences between the two
 12    V. Taecharungroj

Table 4. Content type and modality cross-tabulation statistics.

Content type
Information-sharing Emotion-evoking Action-inducing Total
Modality Visual Count 37 166 37 240
% of total 6.5% 29.4% 6.5% 42.5%
Textual Count 75 183 67 325
% of total 13.3% 32.4% 11.9% 57.5%
Total Count 112 349 104 565
% of total 19.8% 61.8% 18.4% 100.0%
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Figure 2. Interaction effect (modality × content type) on the average number of retweets.

modalities in terms of the average numbers of retweets and favourites are significant at the
p < 0.001 level. The visual modality is significantly more effective than the textual modal-
ity in terms of the average number of retweets (1580 vs. 756) and the average number of
favourites (3499 vs. 1507).
A two-way ANOVA presents interesting interaction effects between content types and
modalities. The interaction effects on the average numbers of retweets and favourites
(Figures 2 and 3, respectively) are significant at the p < 0.001 level. Although modality does
not have significant effect on the number of retweets and favourites of information-sharing
tweets, it significantly affects the number of retweets and favourites of emotion-evoking and
action-inducing tweets. The visual and textual modalities of information-sharing content do
not lead to significantly different average numbers of retweets (596 vs. 561) and favourites
(1684 vs. 1555). Conversely, modality has a considerable effect on the number of retweets
and favourites of emotion-evoking content. The visual modality leads to higher average
numbers of both retweets (1267 vs. 767) and favourites (3432 vs. 1525) than the textual
modality. The effect is the most prominent in action-inducing content, in which the visual
modality generates much higher average numbers of retweets (3964 vs. 946) and favourites
(5615 vs. 1403). In conclusion, although action-inducing content is the most effective in
generating high numbers of retweets and favourites, a strong interaction effect indicates
 Journal of Marketing Communications   13
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Figure 3. Interaction effect (modality × content type) on the average number of favourites.

that visual content significantly improves effectiveness, whereas textual content does not
significantly improve the effectiveness of the tweet.

Six types of reply

From the study of 1392 official Starbucks replies in December 2014, this research finds six
types of replies that Starbucks used to interact with other Twitter users. These six reply types
are information, Apology and suppot, positive comment, question and enquiry, chit-chat,
and gratitude. Of the six reply types, three are frequent: information (606 replies or 44%),
Apology and suppot (436 replies or 31%), and positive comment (232 replies or 17%). The
other three reply types – question and enquiry (48 replies or 3%), chit-chat (46 replies or
3%), and gratitude (24 replies or 2%) – are less common.
Table 5 describes the meanings of those reply types. This section explains and gives
examples of the first three most common reply types. The first and most common reply type
is information. In this reply type, Starbucks respond to a Twitter user who asks a question
or makes a comment about Starbucks. For example, Starbucks ran the ‘Vote for Joy’ contest
(#VoteForJoy), which allowed customers to vote for a specific drink. The drink that received
the highest number of votes would be discounted by 50% on a specific date (20 December
2014). On 18 December, a Twitter user (@DeAndreFMorris) asked ‘@Starbucks How do I vote
for the pumpkin spice latte? It's my favorite!’. Starbucks replied ‘@DeAndreFMorris Click on
this link: sbux.co/1ztGOwO. Then click on PSL to vote. Thanks!’. Another example is when a
user (@lanaamarie_) lamented the result of the ‘Starbucks for Life’ contest on 10 December
2014 – ‘I should of [sic] won that Starbucks for life’. Starbucks replied ‘@lanaamarie_ it’s not
too late! There are still 8 winners out there and you have until January 5, 2015. Starbucks.
com/win’. These replies aim to provide useful information to customers when they need it.
The second example shows that Starbucks also proactively give information to customers
even when they have not asked any question.
 14    V. Taecharungroj

Table 5. Reply type list with definitions.

Reply type Description
Information The purpose of the reply is to provide the follower with useful information he/she needs
Apology and suppot The purpose of the reply is to apologise for a mistake and/or offer support. Apology and
suppot replies normally contain apologetic and supportive words, such as ‘sorry’, ‘apology’,
‘let us make it up to you’, and ‘we’re concerned’
Positive comment The purpose of the reply is to reinforce positive feeling from other Twitter users. This type of
reply normally contains a word, phrase, and/or symbol exhibiting positive feelings, such as
joy, excitement, happiness, celebration, and congratulations

Question & enquiry The purpose of the reply is to ask the follower a question or request a specific input
Chit-chat The purpose of the reply is to respond to and continue a conversation without any particu-
lar emotion or goal
Gratitude The purpose of the reply is to offer gratitude to another Twitter user
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Apology and suppot is the second most common reply type in this study. This reply type
combines apology and support because the two often come together. For example, on 1
December 2014, a user sarcastically complained ‘I love waiting in line for 15 min to get a stale
bagel @Starbucks [frowning emoji]’. Starbucks apologised and offered support by replying
‘@ReneeCabreles That’s no good at all – pls email details (incl ow.ly/F6ECc) to twittercus-
tomerservice@starbucks.com So sorry!’ Another example of an Apology and suppot reply
on 10 December took place when a user tweeted ‘@Starbucks gave me the wrong sandwich.
Nothing else for lunch, so I’m eating it anyway but #yuck. Pesto is so not stuffing’. Starbucks
replied ‘@Syndelin We hate to disappoint, let us make it up to you! Pls email twittercustomer-
service@starbucks.com incl ow.ly/Ait3y Thx’. This reply type generally has a recurring theme
of acknowledging the problem, apologising, and providing further support.
The third most common reply type is the positive comment reply type. Starbucks used
this reply type to reinforce the positive feelings of its customers. On 21 and 22 December
2014, two customers tweeted pictures of the tall beverages and desserts that they had won
– prizes offered daily. The first customer tweeted ‘Yeahhhhhhh!!!!!! [sic] @Starbucks pic.twitter.
com/YhOvVwc0xg’, followed by the other user, who tweeted ‘@cmckeen87 I won something
too!!! @Starbucks pic.twitter.com/yefNsXQwEe’. Starbucks congratulated them by tweeting ‘@
missanachelle @cmckeen87 yaaaaaay [sic] congrats on winning instant prizes! [stars emoji]’.
Another example is when Starbucks tweeted on 25 December ‘@Paradise_Afshar looks per-
fect on your tree! [Christmas tree emoji]’ to respond to a tweet by a Twitter user containing
a picture of a Starbucks snowman ornament on a Christmas tree.

Discussion
Theoretical implications
The first objective of the current research was to categorise Starbucks’ marketing commu-
nications activities on Twitter. A better understanding of how this iconic brand utilises a
famous social media platform has some theoretical implications. In the past decade, theories
of marketing communications have been developed, modified, and augmented substan-
tially since the emergence of social media (Mangold and Faulds 2009; Hennig-Thurau et al.
2010; Castronovo and Huang 2012). All these new frameworks emphasise the importance
 Journal of Marketing Communications   15

Figure 4. Framework for Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on Twitter.

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of the role of marketing on social media platforms and the proactive actions that brands
should take to reap the full benefits. The current research aimed to provide guidelines for
and details on the interactions between a successful brand and its customers. The findings
confirm the framework by Mangold and Faulds (2009), who indicated that social media are
hybrid channels combining traditional one-to-many communications and interactions that
create word-of-mouth effects. Starbucks engaged customers by posting, or tweeting, original
content to followers and constantly replying to users’ comments.
From the analysis of Starbucks’ replies, this research also demonstrates the unpredictable
and chaotic environment of social media (Hennig-Thurau et al. 2010). Starbucks directly
interacted with users who had had negative experiences with the brand by offering them
apologies and support. Starbucks also defended its position when the brand was linked
with claims of using ingredients with genetically modified organisms (GMO). Conversely,
Starbucks also reinforced the good feelings of customers who had enjoyed their experiences
with the brand by responding positively. The findings also fit with the alternative market-
ing model (Castronovo and Huang 2012). Starbucks used Twitter to magnify the effects of
various marketing efforts, such as campaigns (Starbucks for Life and Vote for Joy) and sales
promotions.
This research categorises and identifies the three content types: information-sharing,
emotion-evoking, and action-inducing content. These three types signify the purpose of each
individual tweet and show some resemblance to the three stages of the response process:
the cognitive stage, the affective stage, and the behavioural stage (Belch and Belch 2012,
157). It can be hypothesised that information-sharing content aims to generate attention by
informing customers (cognitive stage). The goal of emotion-evoking content is to stimulate
affection (affective stage). Finally, action-inducing content is intended to generate behav-
ioural responses from followers (behavioural stage). The current research also sheds light on
how a brand can interact with customers. The findings show the three most common types of
replies: information, Apology and suppot, and positive comment. The important theoretical
implication of this research is the provision of the three content types, 19 content subtypes,
and six types of replies. The descriptions of 19 subtypes and six types of replies along with
examples can help researchers to determine the keywords for automated content analysis in
the future. By studying both original content types and reply types, this research explains the
 16    V. Taecharungroj

strategies of the two most important marketing communications activities on social media:
content creation and customer interaction (Castronovo and Huang 2012). Figure 4 captures
Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on Twitter. Previous literature indicates that
success in social media marketing comes from effective brand–customer interaction and
engagement (Jansen et al. 2009; Burton and Soboleva 2011). This framework helps clarify
how a brand can interact with customers effectively on Twitter.

Practical implications
According to the findings, other brands’ social media marketers can learn from Starbucks’
marketing activities and adapt their content marketing strategies to be more comprehensive
and effective. The second and third objectives of this research were to evaluate the effective-
ness of each type of content and provide guidelines for social media marketing managers.
The practical implications are as follows.
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Brands should use various types of content

The first implication for other brands is that brands should not rely on one particular type of
content. Starbucks employed three types and 19 subtypes of original tweets and retweets to
communicate to its customers. All three content types have their benefits. Brands that focus
on only one type of content risk losing the benefits of the other two. Information-sharing
content can help engage audiences (Cvijikj and Michahelles 2013). Emotion-evoking content
aims to create positive emotions in the minds of audiences. Starbucks most frequently used
this content type, especially through imagery and storytelling subtypes, to communicate.
The last content type, action-inducing content, attempts to persuade audiences to take
action. This research evaluates the effectiveness of each type by measuring the numbers
of retweets and favourites of each individual tweet. The ANOVA test shows that action-in-
ducing content had the highest average number of retweets and favourites. From the six
subtypes of action-inducing content, sales promotion was both the most common and the
most effective subtype. Although followers may find it overwhelming if most tweets serve
a commercial purpose, such as sales promotion, previous research has found that the top
two reasons that consumers interact with companies online are to obtain discounts and
make purchases (Baird and Parasnis 2011). Therefore, it is advised that a company’s social
media marketing strategy also include action-inducing content or a commercial aspect to
mix with informative and emotional content.

Brands should focus on visual content

It is also worth noting that the modality also plays an important role. Visual content is more
effective than textual content, especially for emotion-evoking and action-inducing content.
The two-way ANOVA test found a significant interaction effect. The results show that when
Starbucks used emotion-evoking and action-inducing content, visual content was, on aver-
age, more effective than simple textual content. This finding confirms previous findings that
picture format is the most effective modality (Hansson, Wrangmo, and Søilen 2013; Kwok
and Yu 2013; Sabate et al. 2014).
Brands should focus on how they can effectively deliver high-quality and appealing
visual content. Starbucks utilised many visual techniques by tweeting, for example, a simple
 Journal of Marketing Communications   17

beautiful photograph of a coffee mug, a computer-augmented image, or a high-quality

image of a store. Brands must ensure that a substantial portion of their content is visually
appealing to customers.

Brands should prepare for and manage customer interactions

Starbucks continuously interacted with its followers on an hourly basis through replies. The
reply tool can contribute a significant human touch to a brand. Scholars have also recom-
mended conversational and interactive activities with customers on social media platforms
(Kwok and Yu 2013; Park and Kim 2014). In the hectic social media environment, brands
cannot easily and accurately predict what will occur in the future. The current research found
that brands must interact with customers under many circumstances. Therefore, social media
marketers should prepare for the typical customers’ comments. Starbucks replied with infor-
mation when customers demanded answers. Apology and suppot replies aimed at custom-
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ers who had had negative experiences with the brand. Starbucks also reinforced positive
feelings with positive comment replies. This research found that these three general reply
types were most commonly used by Starbucks. Brands should find appropriate approaches
to incorporate these types of interactions into a social media marketing strategy.

Conclusion
In total, 565 original tweets and retweets by Starbucks’ official account (@Starbucks) and
1392 replies from 2014 were analysed using content analysis. Overall, this research was an
exploration of the social media marketing strategy of an iconic brand. Social media have
transformed the frameworks of marketing communications. To further clarify the appropri-
ate strategy, social media marketing; this research delved into one of the world’s favourite
brands, Starbucks, and investigated its social media marketing strategy using a content
analysis research method. This research not only extends the understanding of marketing
communications on a social media platform but also offers guidelines that can be beneficial
to practitioners. To be successful on the social media platforms, this research suggests that
brands should use various types of content, focus on visual content, and prepare for and
manage customer interactions appropriately.
This study has some limitations. First, it focused on only one brand in a specific time
period. Although it gave a detailed view of a successful brand, there may be issues with
generalising the research findings. Future research should apply the framework of Starbucks’
Twitter strategy in other contexts. To compare and categorise content types, this research
examined Starbucks’ activities on Twitter because the number of tweets was sufficiently high
to analyse statistically. Hence, another limitation is that it did not study other social media
platforms. Starbucks’ activities on other social media platforms, such as Facebook, YouTube,
or Pinterest, can be studied in the future to expand on or confirm the findings in this study.

Acknowledgements
The author thanks Philip Kitchen, Gayle Kerr and the anonymous reviewers whose valuable c­ omments
help improve the manuscript considerably. The author also thanks five research assistants: Vasatorn
Phonphaisan, Phongsan Sreththapruksa, Jongjit Mothayakul, Patharat Nopsanti and Natkritta
Chawintanyawat. The author is grateful to Starbucks for coffee and tweets.
 18    V. Taecharungroj

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Viriya Taecharungroj is a marketing lecturer and a vice chair of business administration division at
Mahidol University International College. His research areas are city marketing, social media marketing
and higher education marketing. Viriya had experiences in the public sector as a permanent secretary
of a committee in the parliament of Thailand and a secretary-general of a political party. He was also
an entrepreneur founding a publishing company and worked in a private sector strategic planning
position for SCG.

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