Download pdf
Leveraging Social Media Marketing: A Case Study of Starbucks’ Digital Success
- 1 School of Sociology, University of Bristol, Bristol, The United Kingdom, BS8 1TH
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
With the development of communication technologies like social media, consumption has fundamentally changed. This study examines the impact of the digital and social environment on consumer behavior and business practices by analyzing Starbucks’ successful practices in social media marketing. The study finds that Starbucks has effectively increased brand awareness and customer engagement on major social platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook through high-quality content marketing, collaborations with online celebrities and active user engagement strategies. Starbucks communicates brand values through visual storytelling and builds a strong customer community with user-generated content and interactive activities. The findings suggest that companies in the retail and restaurant industries can learn from Starbucks’ experience to enhance emotional connections with customers and brand loyalty by maintaining transparency, building communities, collaborating with web admins, and creating visual content. This study is an important reference for industry practices, emphasizing the importance of continuous innovation in the rapidly changing social media landscape.
Keywords
Social Media Marketing, Brand Engagement, Digital Strategy
[1]. Mahoney, L. M., & Tang, T. (2024). Strategic social media: From marketing to social change. John Wiley & Sons.
[2]. Alves, H., Fernandes, C., & Raposo, M. (2016). Social Media Marketing: A Literature Review and Implications. Psychology & Marketing, 33(12), 1029-1038.
[3]. Jaitly, R. C., & Gautam, O. (2021). Impact of social media influencers on customer engagement and brand perception. International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 15(2), 220-242.
[4]. Bilgin, Y. (2018). The effect of social media marketing activities on brand awareness, brand image and brand loyalty. Business & management studies: an international journal, 6(1), 128-148.
[5]. Lupo, C., & Stroman, J. R. (2020). Social media marketing adoption strategies: An exploratory multiple case study of landscape industry small businesses. Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences, 14(1), 211-220.
[6]. Sam, C., & Cai, Y. (2015). A Study on the Use of Social Media to Understand Consumer Preference: The Case of Starbucks. Int. J. Manag. Bus. Res, 5(3), 207-214.
[7]. Lou, C., & Xie, Q. (2020). Something social, something entertaining? How digital content marketing augments consumer experience and brand loyalty. International Journal of Advertising, 40(3), 1–27.
[8]. Plessis, C. (2017). The role of content marketing in social media content communities. SA Journal of Information Management, 19(1).
[9]. Taecharungroj, V. (2016). Starbucks’ marketing communications strategy on Twitter. Journal of Marketing Communications, 23(6), 552–571.
[10]. Ye, G., Hudders, L., De Jans, S., & De Veirman, M. (2021). The Value of Influencer Marketing for Business: A Bibliometric Analysis and Managerial Implications. Journal of Advertising, 50(2), 160–178.
[11]. Wang, Y., Qiao, F., & Peng, W. (2015). Is the Size or the Valence of Proactive Engagement Associated with Purchase Intention? A Case Study of Branded Blogs of Starbucks. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 9(3), 197–216.
Cite this article
Zhu,Y. (2024). Leveraging Social Media Marketing: A Case Study of Starbucks’ Digital Success. Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences,102,185-190.
Data availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
Disclaimer/Publisher's Note
The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.
About volume
Volume title: Proceedings of ICEMGD 2024 Workshop: Decoupling Corporate Finance Implications of Firm Climate Action
© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who
publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this
series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published
version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial
publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and
during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See
Open access policy for details).