Social media sites
such as Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly important tools for
marketing groups within companies both large and small. Many companies are
starting to utilize these sorts of websites because of the high frequency of
user traffic that social network sites generate. These websites have become a
valuable marketplace for companies to advertise to their fans as well as to
build stronger customer relationships.
Over
the past week or two I’ve been following Dunkin’ Donuts on Twitter, and I’ve
also been paying attention to the way Dunkin’ Donuts uses Facebook. In this
essay I’ll explore some of the strategies that I’ve noticed Dunkin’ Donuts has
been using and how I perceive these strategies as they affect the public
perception of the company.
Unlike
many of the other companies that I casually browsed on Twitter, Dunkin’ Donuts
seldom creates unique posts about new products, images, or casual fun tweets.
The greater majority of their tweets are simple, positive responses to other
users’ posts (i.e., “@marybethphotoss great picture”! – response to: “Love my @dunkindonuts on this beautiful day
(link to picture of product”). When DD responds to a user post, they typically
use words like “we” or “our” to indicate to the user that the Dunkin’ Donuts
Twitter representative is an ambassador for the entire company instead of a
single employee. This is important because the company needs to maintain a
company image rather than a company that just has friendly employees.
I think that this
type of engagement with the user is, at a minimum, doing two things for DD’s
image and customer relationship: they are creating a more personal relationship
with individual fans of the company by maintaining a friendly dialog with
people who are trying to communicate with them, and they are also dropping
their business name in as many places as possible. This second aspect of DD’s
Twitter and Facebook use is probably the most important because fans of DD
already like their brand – it’s when the fan tells their friends about their
positive experience that promotes the growth of their fan base as well as the
growth of their customer base.
The
Dunkin’ Donuts Facebook page is a bit different that the Twitter page because
there are more posts that include daily deals and images of products. It
doesn’t look like whoever is running the Facebook page is actively responding
to fans. This is probably because Twitter is a platform that makes responding
to users that use the “@user” feature much simpler. The Facebook page does
allow for a collection of images, as well as a “profile pic” that shows up on
the front page. The current profile pic is an image of the “Dunkin’ Donuts Fan
of the Week”. This is a weekly competition of sorts that encourages fans to
submit images of themselves enjoying DD products. It’s pretty obvious that this
competition not only encourages people to go out and buy more, but it also encourages
people to invest personal time into trying to win a chance to be featured on
the DD Facebook page (and what an honor that would be).
In
his article 7 Ways to Create a Memorable
Customer Experience With Social Media, Dave Toliver describes some
important elements of social media use that businesses should acknowledge.
Toliver points out that by creating a place for customers or fans to talk about
the company they’ve opened the door to user compliments as well as complaints
(Toliver). This is OK, according to Toliver, because the bottom line is that
people are talking about your business. In the cases where people are making
positive comments about DD, the DD Twitter team retweets and responds to the
user post in order to highlight and showcase a positive customer experience.
When users post complaints about service the DD Twitter team has an opportunity
to respond to the user in order to rectify the experience or to “make things
right” so that they don’t lose a customer.
Recently,
a story broke out where a New York DD branch refused service to members of the US armed forces.
Navy Seals ORG tweeted the story (which has since been debunked by local news
and an internal DD investigation) and many of their fans retweeted the message
("We heard about the US Military members being denied service by @dunkindonuts in
Elmira NY
owned by Middle Eastern people. Reverse Racism!"). Because of the handy
“@” feature, DD was able to respond to each user post individually with a
simple message that included a link to the story (We take matters like this
seriously & immediately looked into the matter. More info: http://dun.kn/GGLBge
^JG). If Dunkin’ Donuts wasn’t making use of social media this rumor could have
spread all over Twitter without any chance for Dunkin’ Donuts to defend itself.
They would have had to depend on other users to debunk the rumor – which would likely
not happen on the same scale that DD was able to respond.
Alice
Marwick and Danah Boyd discuss imagined audience in their article I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately.
In this article the authors talk about how Twitter users imagine their audience
when making posts. I think that a strong understanding of ones audience is
important for individuals when making comments because we sometimes forget who
is actually reading what we have to say. This is even more important for
businesses because their image is something that can be easily tarnished by a
few bad posts. Dunkin’ Donuts seems to be adhering to a strict method of
responding to positive comments with appreciative responses and acknowledging
complaints when they arise with suggestions or by making an effort to rectify
the problem. Whoever DD imagines their audience to be, they can probably rest
assured knowing that anyone who is reading their comments and posts are likely
to think that the DD Twitter team is respectful, appreciative, and acts as an
ambassador for the DD company.
It’s
difficult to gauge how much of an effect Dunkin’ Donuts’ use of social media
has improved its relationship with its customers. It seems likely, however,
that by using social media sites like Twitter, DD has improved its relationship
at least with those people who are willing to follow them on Twitter or become
fans on Facebook. I think people like to feel that their business with a
company is appreciated, and social media sites make individual communications
like this possible.
In
addition to making connections with individual fans, social media is also a great
way for companies to drop their name over and over again. For advertisers,
having the brand’s name pop up in as many places is incredibly important. The
frequency in which people talk about your company is also paramount to
increasing customer base. If DD responds to a positive comment that a user has
made about the service they got with an appreciative comment, the original user
may retweet or show their friends the personalized response that they received.
This improves Dunkin’ Donuts’ image for the original customer as well as their
image for the friends of that customer. The bottom line is that social media
provides a new avenue for communication on a personal level and new means of
advertising to people. Clearly, social media is an important element for
advertisers and marketing groups of any business.
Boyd, Danah and Alice E. Marwick. “I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet
Passionately: Twitter
Users, Context Collapse, and the
Imagined Audience”. New Media Society
2011 13:114 Web. 7 July 2010.
“Dunkin’ Donuts” Twitter.
n.p. Web. 22 March 2012.
Toliver, David. “7 Ways to Create a Memorable Customer
Experience With Social Media” Mashable.
n.p. Web. 22 March 2012.
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