The day has come: A blog post that is not about photography!
I was recently going down the list of “Top 42 Content Marketing Blogs” and I stumbled across Brian Solin’s ‘Defining the Convergence of Media and Influence’ blog. After taking a quick glance at his site, it did not surprise me that he was in the top 5 of the top 42 blogs.
As I have been researching Starbucks quite a bit over the last month, one of his posts immediately stood out to me: The Interest Graph on Twitter is Alive: Studying Starbucks. Now, before I continue to praise the content of this blog post and its inherent importance to marketing, I would like to state one thing: I despise Twitter. But that’s another topic for another blog post.
Geographic Locations of Starbucks Followers - Source: http://www.briansolis.com/
Brian Solin describes the use of an ‘Interest Cloud’, a visual display of information gathered from ‘followers’ on Twitter. The cloud is capable of representing user information by “sorting activity by demographics and psychographics, sentiment, bio data, profession etc.” Solin states that “interest graphs represent a potential goldmine for brands seeking insight and inspiration to design more meaningful products and services as well as new marketing campaigns.” I fully agree.
The interest cloud is capable of doing what many companies invest millions into doing: clearly defining consumer demographics. The cloud allows companies such as Starbucks to get a clear image of their customers in terms of psychological needs, attitudes, perceptions, lifestyles, and social circles. These simplistic displays of information have tremendous impacts on the marketing strategies of companies.
The Interests of Starbucks Followers - Source: http://www.briansolis.com/
In the case of Starbucks, the interest cloud displays that many of its ‘followers’ greatly value: love, life, friends, music, and the world. With this information, the marketing department of the company can aim its efforts towards satisfying these consumer-interests.
For example (mind you, this is an over-exaggerated example): Starbucks could attempt to develop an in-store service that allows groups of customers (friends or couples) to buy music for $0.50 per song, and donate half of this money to a charity of their choice. For single consumers, the company could charge $0.60 in order to promote ‘meeting new people and socializing’.
Gender of Starbucks Followers - Source: http://www.briansolis.com/
Brian Solin clearly illustrates the future of marketing research and consumer profiling. His blog post describes how the international-giant Starbucks can make use of its Twitter followers to more precisely analyze and predict its consumer’s behavior.
Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com/
Date Written: February 8, 2011