McDonalds’s
McDonald’s is certainly one of the most recognizable brands around the world. And it’s always been a leader in the fast food industry. The brand has a strong social media strategy to communicate with fans and build a active image. Here is a quick look at how McDonald’s play with different social networks.
The McDonald’s US fan page has nearly 30 millions fans and France fan page has more than 1 million fans. It’s other local market pages also attracted several hundred thousand likes.
The brand post relatively frequent and each post always attract thousands likes. That shows that McDonald’s is one of the most liked brands on Facebook. Unlike most of the brands, McDonald’s post not only product promotions, but also interesting social style photos related to the brand and social activities to help children. This is a smart way to show that it concerns people and the world instead of just concentrating on the brand.
For the fan page France, McDonald’s is more concentrate in the promotion of products. But at the same time, they also post some news regarding the new films and art activities which tends to be more attractive for French people. The brand really use the same strategy to adapt national needs and interests to bring more customers. On the Facebook pages, McDonald’s makes no apparent efforts to respond to comments it receives which is a field to improve.
On contrary to its Facebook page, McDonald’s makes more efforts to keep interactive on Twitter. The brand is also more active on Twitter with several posts each day to share with nearly 2 millions fans.
The posts on Twitter are mainly product promotions and events that were held by McDonald’s. It also uses hashtags to create buzz and events. The team makes efforts to respond to followers. It responds about 20 to 30 followers per day, but based on the comments it has, the brand can be more interactive with customers. The brand has the same strategy to have local Twitter account, but they less active than the US account.
On Pinterest, McDonald’s only has one main account while it has separate accounts for its local markets on Facebook and Twitter. Most of the contents is pinned from the brand’s websites. It has more than 500 hundreds images and 18 boards.
McDonald’s tries to invite users to pin related photos to the board. It’s a good way to make people feel involved and an opportunity to build a community. But McDonald’s didn’t use Pinterest to hold contest like many other brands did. It could be a good way to increase engagement and interactivity with followers.
McDonald’s has also different accounts for national markets on Instagram. The USA account has 77 thousands followers but only 66 images which is not a big amount. Instagram is a simple and effective place to share photos and videos. On Instagram, the brand posts mostly related life style images and videos which is correspond the use of Instagram. But McDonald’s should take more advantage of this popular social network and be more interactive with followers.
One thing need to mention is the fact that, on Instagram, the brand receive more negative comments than other social networks. Sometimes the comments are really offensive. But the brand didn’t do any responses for this. This is very dangerous for brand image and makes no added value for being present on this social network.
Burger King
Regarding Burger King’s social medias strategy, we will focus on the US market since it is their first market and that the brand is not yet presents in France.So, we will analyze here the strategy of the corporation in the main current social media’s platforms. Actually, this path was taken just when Russ Klein took the position of President of Global Marketing, Strategy, and Innovation at Burger King Corporation in 2003. It was a difficult time for the company. In fact, with profits and sales decreasing and franchisees unhappy, he had to take some drastic actions in order to redefine the brand’s perception. Indeed, the BURGER KING brand had lost their popularity since the vast majority of consumers were aware of the Burger King brand but no longer found it interesting.
So, Klein’s mission was to rejuvenate the Burger King brand and rebuild relevance to the consumer. What followed was a series of strategic decisions and innovative even risky marketing campaigns that would give freshness to the brand image. Instead of traditional advertising, the company created Burger King related content intended to entertain consumers, give the brand social currency and also create a sense of mystery. The firm chose then an inexpensive non-traditional media channels such as internet micro-sites and social networking sites to reach target consumers. Many of the innovative marketing tactics used by Burger King relied on interactive and digital media channels. The most talked about of these initiatives was a website called: The Subservient Chicken. Here is the link to the mini-website : http://www.subservientchicken.com/pre_bk_skinned.swf
This website became an internet phenomenon, attracting hundreds of millions of visitors and winning various awards for its ingenuity as a viral marketing campaign. BK went on to establish highly trafficked Burger King branded MySpace pages, special programs where users could create their own Burger King( as you can read on the « community » post) ads online, and other non-traditional marketing programs. The Subservient Chicken campaign was quickly proclaimed a success, based on critical acclaim from advertising critics as well as significant traffic to the website. In early 2006, Burger King was known as an innovator in content driven marketing and for their creative use of social media thanks to such campaign.
We will know study the presence of the 2nd major actor of the fast food industry.
Burger King’s Twitter account hack.
Of course, just like their main competitors, Burger King has a Twitter account which helps the brand to convey all of their news in terms of products, promotion or campaigns. Therefore, the company recently was been the victim of a misadventure. Indeed, the fast food company’s avatar was changed and name to “McDonalds” and sent a McFlurry of questionable and offensive tweets. This accident was not all bad news for Burger King since the account added 5,000 new followers in the first 30 minutes of the hackers took over. Surprisingly, this accident was a major buzz and fun-filled many followers.
This is the official Twitter’s account page of the fast food:
And here is the page was hacked:
And we can read here ones of the most funniest tweets from this misadventure:
The info-graphic here bellow describes pretty well how the brand handle the problem but especially what are the astonishing results of this mishap:
Regarding Burger King presence on Facebook, we can underline here the fact that the brand detains less “likes” than the french Facebook’s page of Mcdonald. Actually, this screen shoot here above is the U.S Burger King’s Facebook fans page. On Facebook, the number two on the fast food industry has a page for each of his markets and implements difference types of campaign in order to entertained their fans and affecionados. Plus, on this platform, the brand regularly posts pictures of new products or current promotions.
As regards, the brand Instagram activities, we can see thanks to both screen shoots place above that Burger King has two distinct Instagram’s accounts. The first one, is the one is dedicate to sale promotions and the second is completely reserve to the customers. In fact, on this account the followers can tag their own pictures in orders to win free burgers.
On this platform, the clients are put in the center of a attention and are the ones who leads the account really. Actually, they have to prove through their pictures their love to the brand but also that in each Burger King’s restaurants : “TASTE IS KING”. Furthermore, this a easy way to gain a larger fans community and also bring value to their clients while they are enjoying themselves. However, the brand detains also others accounts for the others countries where they are implemented.
When it comes to Pinterest, the fast food firm also has an account for their main market like the U.S or the United Kingdom.Concerning the American’s account, Burger King in this platform aim to show their products but also to put on the front once again their clients like with their #tender moments hastag. This content sharing service allows the brand to have another fun virtual experience and relationship with all of their customers.
Authors: Viriginie Mialon, Bingying Zhang, Marvy Lungyeki, Maya Al Chaarani, Sandra Essafi
Sources:
http://business.time.com/2013/10/02/the-web-hates-burger-kings-fake-name-change/
http://mashable.com/2009/02/06/social-media-smartest-brands/
http://mashable.com/2013/02/18/reactions-to-burger-king-twitter-hacked/
http://mashable.com/2013/02/18/burger-king-twitter-account-hacked/
http://mashable.com/2013/02/18/burger-king-twitter-account-hacked/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/caroltice/2013/09/26/what-burger-king-got-wrong-with-low-fat-french-fry/
Burger War 