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Don’t Just Apologize, Act They say actions speak louder than words, and the “they” in this scenario, are consumers on social media. When tracking conversations about the Starbucks apology and their announcement to close 8,000 stores in May, we found that there was much more social interest in Starbucks’ action than their carefully worded apology.

71% of the conversation about the Starbucks apology was disgusted with it, as opposed to 38% of those discussing the actions were disgusted with that decision

Both progressive and conservative affiliations use the hashtag #BoycottStarbucks the most. However, those with more progressive leanings are using the hashtag in response to the racial profiling incident itself, whereas conservatives are using the hashtag in response to Starbucks taking a stance against the employee for calling the police, stating that it was an overreaction to the incident. Conservatives are also rattled by the store closures in May.

the new social model is simply to harvest social signals and sell personalized ads, however and wherever possible.

The purpose of Facebook’s upcoming mobile ad network is to sell ads outside of Facebook.com and its mobile app. This “multiple app” strategy often accompanies a network’s own app offerings — in Facebook’s case, Messenger, Facebook Camera and Paper. According to Elgan: If Facebook’s direction or strategy isn’t clear, let me spell it out: Harvest personal data from multiple apps, then sell personalized advertising in multiple locations.   Here’s an oversimplified example: An ad for a Starbucks promotion presented to you in a mobile game (sold through Facebook’s upcoming ad network) might be based on knowledge that you spend a ton of time at Starbucks — information harvested from the Moves app.   As you can see, there’s no Facebook — no social network — involved in this series of events. But Facebook gets paid anyway.

Katie Hooper, managing director and vice president of strategy at HZDG, agreed: "As soon as you say you're changing your loyalty program, an instant skepticism emerges. When you make the reward harder to realize, it feels like something that's just helping the companies improve their revenue streams. We recommend telling customers how this is going to improve their daily life. Before, Starbucks was doing it really well by rewarding them based on frequency. It said they valued the customer no matter what."

Changes such as these actually could make your loyal customers less loyal, said Susan Cantor, president of Red Peak Branding: "It erodes good will. If you make a change, it needs to be more in line with previous customer expectations."