Starbucks’story: Sharing Secrets of the Starbucks Partner Social Media TeamEvery office has the smart, witty person who

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Starbucks’story: Sharing Secrets of the Starbucks Partner SocialMedia TeamEvery office has the smart, witty person who knows what’sgoing on and can always make co-workers laugh. That’s the role asmall group of social media strategists has taken on for Starbuckspartners (employees) who communicate with each other throughFacebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It’s rare for a company toencourage employees to connect through social media. Starbucksdoes. Even more unusual, Starbucks wanted to be a part of theconversation, not acting as the watchful company but more like afriend at work.“We knew early on if we were going to be in thesocial space with our store partners, we needed to connect in arelevant way,” said Amy Alcala, vice president of Starbucks PartnerCommunications & Engagement. “We needed to have an authenticconversation with partners, we wanted to recognize our partnercontributions, laugh with them and give them a platform to telltheir story. It was time to drastically change the way we as acompany communicate.”This change began three years ago when Alcalaand her team in the Seattle headquarters wanted to connect withpartners thousands of miles away, across the Pacific Ocean, afterthe massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in March of 2011. Atthe time, Starbucks had about 900 stores and 20,000 partners in thecountry. In a show of support, Alcala’s team created StarbucksPartners Instagram account for sending encouraging messages topartners in Japan. Many on the Partner Communications &Engagement team worked as Starbucks baristas early in theircareers, so the decision about the kind of personality and tone toconvey through social media was an easy one. They would have fun,but never joke at a partners expense. The team would never marketto partners or talk down to them –it was all about talking with andlistening to store partners.“This social journey has been areinvention of the way we communicate. It’s not company-to-partneranymore. It is a partner-to-partner conversation,” said Regan,senior manager of Partner Digital Engagement at Starbucks. “I havea fundamental belief that something magical is going on in the waypartners connect with each other through social media on a globalscale.”After reading the story of Starbucks, you need to make yourgroup research and analysis to answer questions as below:
2.Analyse main features of small group(20 marks);Explainhow Starbucks’ small group of social media strategistsdid toconnect with each other(20 marks)