Starbucks’ Vice President of Brand, Content and Online, Chris Bruzzo, appeared at Mashable Media Summit today and gave away a bit of a ‘secret’ – he revealed that last year’s Free Pastry Day drove more than one million people to stores to grab some free baked goods.  This promotion was almost entirely conducted via social media channels.  According to Mashable (who hosted the Summit), Starbucks has managed to dominate on Facebook, made news as the first company to offer a nationwide Foursquare deal, and was selected to try out Twitter’s Promoted Tweets ad platform before other advertisers will have the chance.

Love them or hate them, Starbucks is the brand to beat on social media channels.  Or at least the brand to take a closer look at and see what creative ideas you can glean from them…

As always, Mashable has come out with not only incredible information on social media for small businesses, they have compiled the best of the best into one concise article.  Article categories include:

• Social Media 101
• Blogging
• Video
• Mobile
• Productivity
• PR and Marketing
• Numbers and Stats
• Strategy and Management

While the first four topics may be in the cross-hairs for small business owners, items like productivity, strategy and management usually are not.  Gadgets and tools online provide instant gratification but long term goals (and a lot of tweaking along the way) are proven not just in social media, but advertising, public relations, and marketing.  After all, that is what social media really is – building of relationships with other people.

The list from Mashable is extensive, and if you take the time and follow what is already laid out, you can get very far in your social media endeavor.  Not all the suggestions will work for your particular industry or business.  There are millions of ideas and strategies that are not listed – because *you* have  yet to invent them.  That’s the great thing about social media, there aren’t many rules, and you can make up your own ideas as you go along.

The only way to fail is not to start.