Evident Productions

If you’ve been to Starbucks since June of 2010 then you’ve probably noticed that WiFi is now free access.  This service is no longer limited to exclusive gold card members.  Anyone who wishes to connect online in the stores may do so.

When Starbucks opened up the service for EVERYONE to connect for free, I thought to myself, “something’s up here.”  Now I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I knew that there HAD to be a motive to the service being free beyond the mere gesture of generosity to their customers.

In fact that was just the case.  Granted they were not up to anything cynical, but Starbucks is gearing up for a huge launch that will raise the bar of connection and VALUE their customers get out of the Starbucks coffee shop experience.

Recently Starbucks has been confronted with competitor brands that have offered “free” incentives along with more options than what Starbucks was providing in their stores.  Starbucks even made the move to breakfast foods and not just serving up drinks hot and cold.  From the McDonald’s McCafe to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf’s wide variety, competitors have been putting the heat on Starbucks.

“The Bucks” Breaking into new territory-

As soon as you accept the terms and conditions to use Starbuck’s free WiFi, a page with media, social share, and content articles are all placed in front of you on your browsers page.  From there you can of course surf the web, check your e-mail, or tackle personal internet business.  If you stay on the page though you can do everything from registering and reloading your Starbucks card, to shopping for items, see where the Journey of Taste for a signature coffee bean roast starts.

The content on the page is not complex while it gives you simple options to browse and is updated often. Their site browsing experience invites the user to engage in regardless in the content of their choice.

But WAIT!  That’s Not All-

This is happening at limited stores now, but eventually will be nation-wide in the U.S. soon. Eventually it will spread to their international locations.  What is it?  Well if you open up iTunes and click on the iTunes store, a banner will drop down from the top which will show you the selection of music that is currently playing in the store.  From that point you can choose to purchase the music or even sample other pieces that have played or will be in the play count in the next few minutes.  This new social media marketing is taking your audible experience and engaging you with social marketing in a whole new level which hasn’t been seen or HEARD OF before.

Don’t think for a second this is a random experiment.  Starbucks has teamed up with content partners to offer this based on researching activities of customers before, during, and after they were at one of their store locations.

Building their OWN social network based on others-

In addition to the cool new iTunes music features in the stores, eventually their plan is to build a social network environment unique to each community that a person can engage in at each store.  The same contract agreement landing page that has media and options to view about Starbucks will eventually have local favorite information as well.  Users will be able to look up local restaurants and reviews and where the nearest movie theater is and what’s playing at what time.  Outdoor enthusiasts will be able to plan their routes through geo-tagged maps highlighting Starbucks outlets, key scenic and local features, local user identified pictures, as well as other content.  Starbuck patrons will be able to engage in a local community news site and learn about local charities, educational projects and environmental causes.  All of these again will be focused uniquely to each communities features and tastes.

TAPPING INTO the local marketing potential-

With locally focused social network engagement the marketing potential for nearby store fronts, and business owners is incredible.  Now you can engage in marketing that discount or weekend fare feature to targeted audience that may not only read it in your local paper, but now you’re targeting eyes that are 50-100 yards away from your store as the feature or sale is going on.

Now that local charity car was will be able to promote their event at the gas station down the block by promoting themselves to people that were simply checking e-mail in the morning and after viewing the banner on the web site realized they need to get a car wash.  Why not give to a good cause while getting that car washed for you?

The local interaction and engagement builds are endless.  Thee potential will build however only as communities grasp this cutting edge concept and see the incredible and IMMEDIATE impact it will have on their business.

What Starbucks will need to fix before it works-

Right now if you walk into Starbucks your user experience with network bandwidth is random and often limited to issues beyond the users control.  If you go during a slow point during the day chances are you’ll have a great connection and consistent and fast speed with your internet surfing experience.  If you happen to walk into a store where someone is updating all of their podcasts, watching their favorite episode of Grey’s Anatomy on Hulu, and uploading large files all at the same time you’ll have better luck surfing the internet via your USB to smoke signals adapter.  Now of course I have NEVER had that experience so that’s just all crazy talk, but it does pose a concern.

The problem is not necessarily the person, but does pose the concern of bandwidth issues on the current system Starbucks is using.  If their social network engagement takes off and you find 20 people surfing local sites, video content, and uploading pictures from their recent hike eventually you’re going to get disgruntled customers.  Their user base for these social connection points will become frustrated, sign-off and leave the marketing area of their screen in THAT STORE because their engagement was inconsistent or not satisfactory.

I’m sure that based on Starbucks already proven reputation of studying and researching their user base they are already working on solutions to fix these problems as the momentum of popularity with this new system grows.

Expect to see more of these UNIQUE social networks-

Starbucks is getting on the band wagon in their own way however they’re not the first.  Barnes and Noble offers special features on a free WiFi network to their Nook users.   Gogo Inflight Internet which partners with 9 airlines offers paid access to the internet, but gives users access to Wall Street Journal and other sites like Frommer’s Travel Guides.  Many businesses are catching the idea that Social Networking is not just a fad, it’s here to stay and the sooner they EMBRACE IT in their unique way to market and CONNECT with their markets the better chance they’ll have of staying ahead of the competition.