Green Mountain Coffee Takes Headfirst Approach to Social Media

* YouTube: Like many other merchandise sellers, Green Mountain creates and posts short videos on YouTube to demonstrate complicated products. “Consumers don’t like to read through lengthy directions,” Crites said. So the marketer engages them by posting short how-to videos on items like the Keurig.

* Blogging: Because it offers so many different flavors of coffee for the K-cups that are used by the Keurig, a common blog theme for Green Mountain, Crites said, is a discussion with consumers on what the next K-cup flavor should be. But Green Mountain doesn’t simply leave its blogs on its site expecting all to find them; it emails links to its blogs to about a half-million customers.