To all of you silly, sad caffeine addicts who line up like lemmings for your overpriced lattes every morning: there are some things you should know.

1. We are not your friends. We are usually not your neighbors. In most cases, we absolutely loathe you,

[Added note:  15 hrs after this post, Starbucks removed Veronica's comments.  But added no comment as if it didn't exist, Added note:  I don't think Starbucks removed the comments now.  I think the comment author did as other employee rants still exist.  Which would mean the board is still unmoderated.]

The absolute worst faux pas in employee communications that I’ve ever seen.  One that will likely cost her, her job or more.   Its damaging to the brand, its talking to over 1MM loyal Starbucks fans from around the world and it was posted over 15 hours ago with no response so far. 

I’m a fan of Starbucks, and I’ve written a few posts now about the Facebook Starbucks fan pages [1st post 1MM fans, go wild] and [2nd post Still ignored] .    But even I have to admit the Starbucks facebook pages are poorly run.   It is an example of a corporate communications effort rushing out to use social media but not putting in place the right resources, strategy plan nor risk mitigation plans for engaging in the conversation. 

Starbucks is a great example of what not to do on Facebook – chiefly, ignoring and not moderating the discussion board which has gone absolutely WILD with complaining employees, to unaddressed loyal customer complaints, to passionate feedback about pike place roasts and via instant coffee. I’ve been searching and I’ve only seen one moderator commnent (on a via discussion I think).

Moreover, I find the event pages very North American focused when I find the fan base is quite international.   Facebook with its continued global growth will require business to communicate using a global voice.  I suspect we will see some cottage industries emerge as loyal fan and employee moderators from around the global will be needed to support the pages.

At the moment, I dont’ really know a lot of examples of well run Facebook business pages – certainly, I’ve seen a lot of tweets  asking for FB business examples.

Want a great website example that incorporates loyal fans?  Go to Moleskine and mymoleskine pages.  Absolutely fantastic and all on the Moleskine website.

@sachac [Sacha Chua!] tweeted about Le Gourmand [@legourmandyonge] sending tweets on when the cookies are fresh out of the oven – which is having the bloor & yonge crowd following along.  Deadly – and fantastic.   Love those cookies.  When I worked at Yonge & Bloor – I would have loved a tweet from the softie ice cream truck – though we used to just do instant messages for ice cream and baked goods in the kitchen.

Ben McConnell’s Church of Customer Blog highlights a great public apology by Domino’s to interactive Amy .  Its a bit over the top – however a quick read thru the comments to Ben’s post shows that the vocal opinion is pretty positive on the whole video.  What I like, however, is an operation serving a local area supposedly offering a twitter feed for feedback.   A low cost solution to manning a customer service phone line (albeit doesn’t serve all audience types).

Whole Foods is also twittering with over 646K! followers.   Interestingly – a look at their website shows a lot of different twitter addresses.  Clearly a retailer committed to twittering.

Will look for more but time to watch Weeds with the hubbie.