Abstract

The case discusses the social media strategy of the world’s leading foodservice retailer, McDonald’s. As of 2013, the company was serving more than 69 million customers each day in 118 countries and was the world’s leading global foodservice retailer with around 34,000 locations. Since 2008, McDonald’s had been active on the social media and was able to connect with digital savvy consumers and build customer loyalty. Two major social media platforms that McDonald’s used were Twitter and Facebook. Based on the customer engagement on these platforms, McDonald’s had developed various strategies and processes that helped it build customer loyalty. It used these websites to communicate with customers, keep them engaged with the happenings in the company, and indulge in interesting conversations with them. McDonald’s was highly successful in staying connected with its customers through social media. As of 2012, the company had 342,000 followers on Twitter. On Facebook, the McDonald’s US page had around 27 million fans in March 2013. The case discusses the origins of the social media strategy at McDonald’s and the efforts that the company took to be active on the social media platform in order to remain engaged with the customers and build their loyalty. It also examines how McDonald’s furthered its social media footprint by being active on other social sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and SnapChat. The case also examines how McDonald’s experienced the other side of social media when some of its campaigns backfired and received unexpected reactions.

Learning Objectives

The case is structured to achieve the following Learning Objectives:

• To understand the role of social sites in McDonald’s marketing strategy and the benefits accruing to the company in terms of increasing sales and customer reach.
• To understand the pros and cons of social sites for a global restaurant chain like McDonald’s.
• To analyze the company’s efforts in handling the positive and negative responses from the public on social media.
• To understand how the customers’ responses on social sites are different when the marketers ‘talk with’ the customers and respond to their doubts and queries. To examine the level of satisfaction the customers receive from such two-way interactions.
• To understand how to analyze the opportunities presented by the social media outlets and how to grab these opportunities.

Keywords

McDonalds, Social Media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, PInterest, business communication, marketing communication, social sites, digital strategy, customer engagement, brand building through social media