Analyzing Social Media Events And Developing Better Twitter Campaigns For McDonald’s

Advantages and disadvantages of using social media for a firm

The purpose is to analyse the social media campaigns carried out by McDonald’s and make future recommendations.

Hence, the following memorandum is to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social media for a business and the way it should be used effectively in overcoming the issues and make the campaign successful.

First, the advantages and drawbacks of social media are discussed. Then the audience that must be addressed by McDonald’s is identified. Further, the way a better Twitter campaign developed for the firm is discussed and lastly, a communication plan is developed for building stronger media relations.

Social media can be an important tool for business in terms of increasing involvement with audiences and increasing traffic. However, there are some disadvantages too that must also be considered for selecting the best strategy to social media for the business (Swani et al. 2017).

Advantages of social media are (Dijkmans, Kerkhof, and Beukeboom, 2015):

• Brand awareness and reputation- Relevant and compelling content help to grab the attention of prospective customers and enhance brand visibility. Through responding quickly to the industry developments, a firm can display itself as a thought leader and thus, can improve its brand reputation. For example, the Twitter campaign of McDonald’s helped it gain the attention of a large number of audiences, as they were eager to know the sources of ingredients used in McDonald’s offerings.
• Cost effective-Trainor et al. (2014) stated that it is a much cheaper method compared to the conventional process of promotional and advertisement. It requires a minimum cost for maintaining a strong presence in social media.
• Customer interaction- Effective customer service can be offered through responding to their feedback effectively.

The disadvantages are (Ngai, Tao and Moon, 2015):

• Resources- Companies need resources to manage a positive presence in social media by developing new content and providing responses to the feedback. It may include recruit and train employees, spend in paid advertising and pay for developing the image and video contents as done by McDonald’s.
• Evaluation- It is difficult to analyse and measure the monetary value on brand reputation and awareness brought by social media. It is hard to evaluate the way in which, social media affects in-store sales.
• Ineffective use-Using social media just for increasing sales without maintaining a proper connection with the customers and failing to respond properly to the negative comments can damage the reputation of the company.For example, McDonald’s received negative comments and reaction for changing the name of its Twitter campaign from ‘#MeetTheFarmers’ to ‘#McDStories’.

While carrying out a social media campaign, McDonald’s must address the following audiences, who are the stakeholders of the company as well. They can be categorised into two parts are as follows (Ainin et al. 2015):

Internal- As McDonald’s has been facing severe issues and negative reactions toward its social media campaigns like the Twitter Campaign on #MeetTheFarmers’, the company must focus on addressing the internal audiences such as management, employees and delivery staff. The firm must consider ideas offered by the employees and delivery staff, as they are the people, who interact and deal directly with the customers. Hence, they can offer better ideas on how to make a social media campaign effective. Regular meeting with the managers of sales, social media, finance and marketing departments are critical for making critical decisions regarding social media campaigns effectual.

External- External audiences include suppliers, customers and media activists (Wamba and Carter, 2016). McDonald’s must build a strong relationship with these audiences before launching any social media campaign so that it can have a clear idea pertaining to the emotions, feelings, perceptions, demands and expectations of the customers, media activists and suppliers from the firm. It will help the organisation to develop the contents of the social media campaign accordingly and gain success and positive reactions.

According to Jussila, Karkkainen and Aramo-Immonen(2014), Twitter is a great marketing network for influencing traffic and producing leads, as 42% users follow companies or brands. However, companies must consider the limitations of social media before launching any new campaign and so as Wion. For example, if the social media content contains any offensive or controversial facts, then it may damage the brand reputation as well as affect the sales rate negatively.

Wion can follow the following steps for developing a superior Twitter campaign in future without facing the issues, it previously faced:

• Wion needs focusing on three areas including, demands of customers, needs of customers and what the company can offer.
• Wion must not forget that customers are giving their attention and time and hence, the company must provide tangible value by offering them important information and making them surprised and delighted by the ads.
• To reach to the hearts and minds of the targeted customers, Wion needs to develop the content of the Twitter campaign according to their wants and desires and it must be appealing to them. Scott (2015) stated that people skip ads, but they do not generally skip experiences. Hence, McDonald’s can develop its future Twitter ads in such a way that allow the audience to know others’ experience as well as share their own related to McDonald’s. Thus, it can grab the attention of its targeted customers positively and generate leads significantly.
• For ensuring all these are happing effectively, the firm needs developing a better relationship with the media, so that media thinks twice before making any negative headline about the firm in future.

Wionis suggested using the following communication plan for developing a better media relation:

Timing- The date can be between the month like 10^th day of the Month

Audience- Social media users, especially the consumers and the news media who identifies wrong aspect in every advertisement or campaigns

Sender- Company top officials namely the CEO or Public Relations Worldwide Manager

Key message- To understand the inherent meanings of campaigns before making negative comments or statements

Desire outcome- Audience will be able to evaluate advertisement campaigns before making statements

Medium- Social media

Materials- Not applicable

Frequency- Every month

Conclusion

Social media has both positive and negative sides and before developing any campaign on social media, a company must not avoid the drawbacks of social media. If planned properly, social media can bring significant positivity in business.

References

Ainin, S., Parveen, F., Moghavvemi, S., Jaafar, N.I. and MohdShuib, N.L., 2015. Factors influencing the use of social media by SMEs and its performance outcomes. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 115(3), pp.570-588.

Dijkmans, C., Kerkhof, P. and Beukeboom, C.J., 2015. A stage to engage: Social media use and corporate reputation. Tourism Management, 47(2), pp.58-67.

Jussila, J.J., Kärkkäinen, H. and Aramo-Immonen, H., 2014. Social media utilization in business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms. Computers in Human Behavior, 30(2), pp.606-613.

Ngai, E.W., Tao, S.S. and Moon, K.K., 2015. Social media research: Theories, constructs, and conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management, 35(1), pp.33-44.

Scott, D.M., 2015. The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly. John Wiley & Sons.

Swani, K., Milne, G.R., Brown, B.P., Assaf, A.G. and Donthu, N., 2017. What messages to post? Evaluating the popularity of social media communications in business versus consumer markets. Industrial Marketing Management, 62, pp.77-87.

Trainor, K.J., Andzulis, J.M., Rapp, A. and Agnihotri, R., 2014. Social media technology usage and customer relationship performance: A capabilities-based examination of social CRM. Journal of Business Research, 67(6), pp.1201-1208.

Wamba, S.F. and Carter, L., 2016. Social media tools adoption and use by SMEs: An empirical study. In Social media and Networking: Concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications(pp. 791-806). IGI Global.