You may remember the panic which ensued last spring when Starbucks shut down their stores for a mid-afternoon, company-wide meeting. It was around this time that Starbucks launched My Starbucks Idea which is nothing short of a coup.

In the sake of full disclosure, I drink Starbucks about once a year. I first learned about My Starbucks Idea last April at a PRSA Maryland conference on social media. Although the site was only a month or so old, Starbucks had built an active community with their customers.

The premise behind My Starbucks Idea is simple. Starbucks customers post ideas for a better Starbucks which are then voted on by other users. The most popular ideas are evaluated and possible adopted by Starbucks.

Ideas include everything from asking employees to wear name tags to making ice cubes out of coffee. The site also offers daily surveys such as “What is your favorite sugar free syrup?”

And there you have it. Starbucks is conducting marketing research which used to cost thousands for practically nothing. They have created an open line of communication allowing them to develop products in direct response to customer’s desires.

If you or your company is still struggling with the idea of social media, browse the Starbucks forum from a marketing perspective. If that doesn’t change your mind, nothing will.

By now you probably know that one of the quickest ways to bring traffic to your website or blog is to leave good comments in the right places. An interesting comment will often lead readers to click on the commentators name (you do leave your web site address don’t you) and in turn, find out more about you.

What makes this interesting is that you never know for sure which comment is going to be the one that drives traffic.

On something of a whim yesterday, I submitted a haiku to Copyblogger’s Twitter Haiku contest. For those of you who don’t know, Copyblogger has a very active readership and has really generated some buzz with this contest. In a great example of blog promotion, Copyblogger is giving away a Mac Airbook to the best Haiku submitted through Twitter. As of this morning, they have received more than 650 submissions.

I submitted my Haiku late last night and mine was buried way down at comment number 641. While I spent a little time reading the Haiku’s, I didn’t think anyone would make it that far down the page.

However, I woke up this morning, signed into my site (www.jalcommunication.com) only to find that the traffic had seen a huge spike. I had no idea why because I hadn’t done anything spectacular in the past day to cause the spike. As I looked deeper, I found the incoming link from copyblogger and sure enough, the traffic was being driven entirely by people clicking on the link in my comment.

Who knows what was leading readers to click on my link. Maybe the Haiku was that compelling but I doubt it. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m in the running for the Mac but again, I doubt it. It is more likely due to the fact that the Copyblogger contest has generated a ton of attention and my link is accessable on a very active web page. Get enough people to look and somebody is bound to click the link.

The important thing to take from this is that if you try to hard with your comment, it shows through. Comments designed strictly to bring people to your site come across as what they are – advertisiments. When it comes to commenting on your blog or forum, be yourself.

As I’m sure some Zen master somewhere once said, don’t overthink it, let it happen.