Today marks the beginning of a new relationship between caffeine and social networking. Twitter and Starbucks have partnered on an ecommerce effort that will allow you to Tweet-a-Coffee to a friend (or even strangers). If this sounds familiar, it is because Starbucks and Facebook have had a similar program since 2011.
Tweet-a-Coffee works by tagging @tweetacoffee and the Twitter handle of your choice after linking your Starbucks account to Twitter with a credit card. To lend this new partnership some hype, they are giving away free $5 gift cards to the first 100,000 individuals to link their accounts.
What about retweeting and @replies, or in other words, potential for abuse Luckily, the system is savvy enough to know the difference. The $5 gift cards will be sent to the recipient of your choice only, provided you follow the rules.
“We view it as the first step toward many things we can do with Twitter that are commerce related,” said Adam Brotman, Starbucks’ Chief Digital Officer in a statement to Fast Company. “It just feels more conversational [than traditional ecommerce]; it feels more authentic; and it feels more in the flow of how we’re actually using digital.”
{video link marked “private”}
