Green Mountain Coffee Takes Headfirst Approach to Social Media

The metamorphosis of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters from a low-end coffee brand found at many gas stations to a high-profile, gourmet coffee roaster and multifaceted corporation that’s cashed in on the Keurig single-cup coffee brewing machine, has been no secret in recent years. In addition to the coffee maker’s extensive retail distribution in some 17,000 department and specialty stores around the country, Green Mountain has built its brand through a 7.5 million annual catalog circulation (this year) and on the web.

More recently, Green Mountain has made social media a key element in its web endeavors, and on Oct. 7, its director of consumer direct, Ken Crites, explained the Waterbury, Vt.-based company’s approach during the Hudson Valley Direct Marketing Association’s fall luncheon in Greenwich, Conn.

In addition to maintaining a Facebook fan page as well as a Twitter address, Crites pointed out some social media wild cards that have served Green Mountain well. For instance, the company is active with HouseParty.com, a web-based facilitator of Tupperware-type parties that consumers can host to pitch the Keurig and its vast array of Green Mountain-branded, single-brew K-cup coffee ground containers.

Crites summarized Green Mountain’s approach to social media as such:

* Facebook: With a following of passionate and loyal coffee drinkers, Green Mountain posts briefs on its endeavors, as well as a recent series of “quiz” questions about fair-trade coffee.

* Twitter: “Our work on Twitter is based on searches,” Crites said. “We search Twitter to see if somebody’s complaining about our products. Then we respond with a 'here’s a link' on how to solve the problems. We also can automate it so our blog posts go on our Twitter page” with links to them.

* PowerReviews: “We love PowerReviews,” Crites said. Of course, it helps that Green Mountain products average a 4.5 out of 5 rating, he noted. “But we do get a lot of bad reviews, too.” For instance, K-cups are plastic and can’t be recycled, and Green Mountain gets a lot of flack for this. “We know it’s an issue that we can’t resolve yet. But it’s better for us to deal with it openly through social media.”

* YouTube: Like many other merchandise sellers, Green Mountain creates and posts short videos on YouTube to demonstrate complicated products. “Consumers don’t like to read through lengthy directions,” Crites said. So the marketer engages them by posting short how-to videos on items like the Keurig.

* Blogging: Because it offers so many different flavors of coffee for the K-cups that are used by the Keurig, a common blog theme for Green Mountain, Crites said, is a discussion with consumers on what the next K-cup flavor should be. But Green Mountain doesn’t simply leave its blogs on its site expecting all to find them; it emails links to its blogs to about a half-million customers.

*BizRate: “A great social media tool for us,” Crites said. “We get great quotes off it daily.”

Give Consumers Easy Access
Green Mountain’s overall approach to social media is to make it easy for consumers to access, rather than expecting them to go find it. With that in mind, the company soon will launch a microsite off its homepage that'll consolidate all of its social media endeavors, including Facebook, Twitter, its blogs, YouTube and others. “We’re trying to mush all the social media stuff to a single page with reviews, endorsements and tweets,” Crites said.

Above all else, social media “removes our webmaster from being the bottleneck,” he said. “It also empowers our employees to be the experts.”

In a follow-up interview, Crites laid out details on how Green Mountain staffs its various social media endeavors, noting that no one person handles everything.

Although Crites hopes that over the next 12 months he’ll hire a single, full-time staffer to coordinate all of Green Mountain’s social media endeavors, for now, “we really just have existing staff adding one or two social media tasks to their duties and haven’t hired a special person to do it,” he says.

• Two staffers in Green Mountain’s customer care department answer emails, search Twitter and respond to BizRate comments full time, which in total takes about 5 percent of their time.
• A different staffer on Crites’ team spends 5 percent of her time checking Green Mountain's Facebook page.
• Some 15 staffers write stories for Green Mountain’s blog — each spending less than 5 percent of their time on this. “This team is growing,” Crites said, “the more contributors the better.”
• The HouseParty.com initiative is a special marketing project led by a single marketer on Crites’ team, and it takes up about 5 percent of the staffer’s time. “These events occur at specific times,” Crites pointed out, “so it’s not an ongoing job.”
• PowerReviews is managed by two staffers from Green Mountain’s web team, each of whom spends less than 3 percent of their time on it.
• YouTube video posting is handled primarily by interns; one full-time staffer contributes as well, taking 3 percent of that staffer’s time.