Branding - The Social Media Way : Part 2

In the last post on this topic, we talked about the growth of the Social Media spends by various brands as they have begun to realize the power of engaging customers through the online media. We also talked about how various firm follow different strategies for their Social Media activities. In this post, we'll talk about how McDonald's is trying to woo its customers and compete with other brands on this virtual platform.

According to Heather Oldani and Steve Wilson from Social Media Business Council, McDonald's digital strategy (for consumers and employees) has been based on four principles, which are:

1. Go to them and foster THEIR communities
2. Be multidimensional
3. Continue engagements
4. Be transparent

This thing is indicated through their Listen, Participate, Lead policy for their communications. The conversation strategy adopted for the various social media channels also varies in the Type of conversations, Primary owner and the Target audience.

Conversation strategy of McDonald's for various Social Media channels

McDonald's has executed this strategy for engaging its customers in 6 prominent ways:

• Cross promotion with Facebook Apps: The best thing (and the most successful thing) employed by McDonald's is 'The Quest' app on their Facebook page. It acts as a cross promotional tool for both Facebook and Twitter. Fans play a game on the Facebook application, unlocking various product based incentives. Fans are also encouraged to share their achievements through Twitter hashtags.  

The Quest app on McDonald's Facebook page

• Involvement through Social games: McDonald's added a virtual restaurant that fans can add to their city in the game Cityville. The rewards and bonuses for the fans depend on their ability to manage the restaurant. The popularity of the game is being leveraged by McDonald's in a fantastic manner.

• Sharing Videos: McDonald's has numerous YouTube channels on varied themes by employees and fans. These channels increase the engagement levels and enhance traffic on their other Social media channels. As McDonald's displays the actions of real people (employees and customers) there is a high likeability of fan interaction on Facebook and Twitter as well with comments, tweets and likes flowing in abundance. One such campaign asked customers to upload one's photo as part of an online game. This image was turned into a video using 3D mapping technology, in which the person was shown doing awesome football tricks. The video ended with the person kicking the trash (ball) into a McDonald's bin. Users could share this video on their Facebook profile/ page. This helped McDonald's reach a wider audience with over 1 million page impressions and 5,700 fuller bins than normal (interesting fact, but how did they measure this?).

• Expanding their Social reach: The Facebook page of McDonald's also provides a feature in which the customers can change their language to Spanish. Called 'Me Encanta', this feature has been included to target the Hispanic population in the U.S., thus providing a wider reach transcending language barriers.

McDonald's Facebook page with 'Me Encanta' tab targeted at the Hispanic population

• Personalized replies on Twitter: The team handling the McDonald's Twitter handle respond to individual questions, compliments and comments despite having close to 0.2 million followers. Interacting in a direct manner with the customers increases engagement levels.

McDonald's Twitter Page

• Involvement of Community: McDonald's has been constantly engaging its customers through competitions, polls and events. One example of this has been the use of Facebook and Twitter to promote the Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC). When McDonald's launched the 'Day of Change' campaign in 2010, they used the Social Media to generate awareness and engage customers. The results were impressive as the online donations increased by 130% in August 2010 compared to August 2009 and also impacted the physical donation boxes in a positive manner.  Also, the E-newsletter subscriptions grew by 748% during the campaign, thus providing a way for the charity to keep in touch with new contacts. 

RHMC Facebook Page

Thus, we have seen that McDonald's has worked actively in branding itself through the Social Media and its continued efforts will lead to higher fan interactions, leading to higher traffic at stores and eventually better returns for the brand.

Branding - The Social Media Way : Part 1

With the advent of the Social Media, marketers have come to believe that it is the 'IT' tool for reaching their target audience in the future. With over 800 million active users on Facebook and 380 million users on Twitter, the marketers believe that Social Media as a platform provides a high Return on Marketing Investment when compared with other traditional mediums.

A report by Forrester Research indicates that by 2016, Social Media spends will grow to 26% of all advertising spends. A study by Nielsen called 'State of the media: The social media report' (Q3 2011) found out that nearly 4 in 5 active internet users visit social networks and blogs. Also, 53% of active adult social networkers follow a brand. Another finding was that Social Networking apps are ranked no. 3 on the most used list for U.S. smartphone users.

Another study done by Charlene Li and Ben Elowitz (in July 2009) analyzed various brands based on their presence on different social media channels including Blogs, Branded Communities, Discussion forums and External social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. This was followed my measuring the engagement levels of customers across these social media channels and find the engagement levels of these brands per fan. Based on their research they found that Starbucks was the best global brand in Social Media followed by Dell. These researchers also developed a framework for profiling these brands based on customer engagement and no. of channels used.

Engagement profiles of Brands

The four profiles are classified as follows:

1. Mavens: Above average engagement score. Present on seven or more channels. Robust strategy and dedicated teams for social media.
2. Butterflies: Lower than average engagement scores. Present on seven or more channels. Tend to invest in few channels while ignoring other channels (being inactive).
3. Selectives: Higher than average engagement scores. Present on six or fewer channels. Lightly staffed social media initiatives.
4. Wallflowers: Below average engagement scores. Present on six or fewer channels. Have ventured recently in this area and are testing things through a few channels.

Another thing done by these researchers was looking at the financial performance of the brands observed  in Q4 ’08, Q1 ’09, Q2 ’09 and Q3 ’09. The conclusion was that the higher the engagement of the brands were, the higher the financial performance was. Mavens were found to have sustained strong revenue and margin growth despite the economic slowdown. It was also found out that social media reach alone caused a positive impact for a brand as more touch points caused a ripple effect for the brand. The authors also suggested that deep engagement in less number of channels could also prove to be an effective and successful strategy.

Financial returns for the brands with the above profiles

 The above results are indicative and not conclusive, but this surely tells that every brand should operate with a concrete strategy and not lie in the south-west portion of the brand profile map.

According to The Virtue, McDonald's has slipped from 32 to 62 to 66 from 2008 to 2010 on the list of Top Social Brands. In the next post on this topic, we'll talk about McDonald's current engagement strategies to help it jump back to a higher stead on the Top Social Brands index.