Digital Coffee? Starbucks Lets Users Tweet Coffee To Friends

I love coffee.  I mean, I LOVE it.  My wife calls me a coffee snob, but I don’t mind at all.  I like all sorts of flavours and all sorts of strengths.  I am the last person in the world to turn down a free cup of wonderful, hot, java juice!  Which is why, when I heard that Starbucks have tried their hands at online marketing using social media giant Twitter, I sat up and paid very close attention, only to be disappointed that I live in the UK and the campaign is only available over the pond!

Starbucks new @Tweetacoffee Twitter program is just as simple as it sounds.  All you have to do is log in at the Tweet-a-coffee’s Starbucks landing page with your Starbucks account.  Next up, you enter the Twitter handle of the recipient you’d like to send this sweet gift of caffeine to and tweet it to them! When the recipient logs in, they will find a nice and shiny $5 gift card tweeted to them from Starbucks that can be redeemed in store with a quick scan of the bar code at the register.

There is no information on how long this campaign will continue for, as Starbucks says it’s simply beta testing the service for U.S. users at the moment.  This is another great example of Twitter being used as an engine for commerce. This simple yet effective, social exchange comes with only a few strings attached and it is an instant gateway to buying or gifting.

Of course with all online purchasing, there’s always caution, but credit card and personal information are built into the Starbucks account platform and that puts a strong wall between Twitter and your bank account details. As with all things, nothing is ever 100 percent safe and secure, but for free things, people will always give it a go.  Now where is my coffee cup? All this talk of coffee is making me thirsty.

[Image via data-informed]

SOURCE: http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/starbucks-tweetacoffee-campaign-lets-send-sweet-sweet-gift-caffeine/