McDonald’s Corporation: Analysis of Social Media Strategies

This case study analysis evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of social media campaigns for McDonald’s Corporation. It suggests a communication plan for better media relations and accurate reporting.

Business Case Study Analysis for
McDonald’s Corporation
Assessment 3
Session 1
Student Name:
Student Code:
Subject Name: Management Communication
Subject Code: MNG81002 SP3 2018
Date Due:
Professor Name:
1

Memo
To: Rick Wion
From:
Date: 1st September 2018
Subject: McDonald’s recommended course of action
Companies globally are adopting varied social media promotion strategies (McGuire & Kampf,
2015). Social media strategies are generally selected by companies as it has a wider range of
audiences. Social media campaigns serve a wide range of purposes such as building public
relations, communication, customer service, and marketing and at varied times corporate social
responsibility. McDonald’s initiated their Twitter campaigns to build better relations across the
social media. The Twitter campaign failing to attain its goals, it became necessary to diagnose
advantages and disadvantages for an organization while using social media (Gaspar, Pedro,
Panagiotopoulos & Seibt, 2016). Social media has several advantages as it can target large
population and brand name. Allow extension of the brand image, allow regular interaction with
consumers and overall builds public relations However, there are certain disadvantages of using
social media campaigns as well. An organization while using social media must be aware that it
needs to commit resources for managing the social media. Staffs and employees needs to be
hired and trained along with paying for advertisements, image content and video content
(Pfeffer, Zorbach & Carley, 2014). Evaluation of success directly through social media is
extremely difficult as there are no direct parameters to record direct sales. The most crucial
disadvantage is the ineffective use of social media to engage customers in a positive manner.
Customers with negative feedback might damage repute of the Company as in the case of
McDonald’s, hence all pros and cons has to be evaluated prior to investing. Negative feedback
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while using of social media can have tremendous negative impact on the brand image of the
Company and can easily deter other consumers and users. Various contemporary organizations
currently are losing out on substantial market share due to negative feedback and criticisms that
they receive online. In case employees in the social media are not able to revert back in a
positive manner then the tarnished image prevails. This often makes it difficult for the Company
to bring back its image and flow of customers. Organization’s has to always remain focus to be
able to develop positive interaction and image with the consumer and other stakeholder group.
The interaction of the Company with varied stakeholders on the open platform has to be positive.
McDonald’s has to realize pros and cons of every post to evaluate reactions from potential
stakeholder groups. The Company has to realize that the posts they make are on wide open
platforms and are visible all over the world. Any critique of the Company can come and easily
impact the posts and image of the Company as it is connected.
McDonald’s can devise better devise marketing strategies by targeting appropriate customers.
The Company’s social media promotional strategies has to cater to large segment of audiences,
including youth as well as other age groups, consumer from varied income groups, male, female,
diverse geographic locations and so on (Wang, 2012). While designing market campaign the
Company needs to engage its customers and avoid facts that could possibly create a negative
impact. McDonald’s future Twitter campaign can include the various CSR initiatives that the
company engages in. For example Coca-Cola never engages in details of its product as there
have been several instances where the quality of water used in the product has been criticized.
McDonald’s can make use of a communication plan so as to devise a strategy to engage in better
media relations and more accurate reporting (Doerfel, Lai & Chewning, 2010). A
communication plan generally includes varied methods of communicating to diverse groups of
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stakeholders. An effective communication plan is able to anticipate the information that has to be
communicated to specific audience segment. As in case of McDonald’s the communication plan
was not effective for targeting to a wide array of consumers, some of them who were satisfied
and some were dissatisfied with the products of the Company. It also includes different types of
communication instrument used while communicating. However in this case communication
using social media as Twitter is included in this plan. The effectiveness of social media plan is
that it can attract almost instantaneous feedback hence has to be devised carefully. The various
challenges which McDonald's has experienced when using social media will be taken into account
while adopting this communication plan. The following is a brief communication planning steps
that the Company needs to make use off;
Stakeholder Group Objectives
(Actions Desired)
Message
Content
Delivery
Method (s)
Delivery
Time
Consumers Attraction and
brand penetration
Offers,
discounts, new
products
Twitter and other
social media
engagement
One post
every week
Shareholders Raise funds,
expand business
Company growth
and brand image
Board meetings Quarterly
Employees & Staffs Appraisals,
Promotions,
Succession
planning
Brand identity
and brand growth
Memos,
meetings,
dashboards and
other interactions
Monthly
Agencies Brand name Brand name and Twitter and other Half- yearly
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identity social media
engagement,
journalism
Food Safety Board Brand performance
and adherence to
standards as well
as norms
Regulatory
requirements
Email & Letters Annually
Government Brand name Brand name No direct
interaction apart
from general
modes
Regular
The Company’s brand name has to be extended so as to include a greater brand image,
showing various CSR initiatives undertaken by the same. A specific and detailed communication
plan would allow the Company to establish its brand identity in a better manner and also expand
the same. Recommendations for the Company also include devising an interactional social media
content through which a positive brand image can be devised. Employees handling social media
platforms such as Twitter needs to provide reply to users by helping them resolve their queries
and also to re-establish the positive brand image that has been tarnished by the Company.
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Reference Lists
Doerfel, M.L., Lai, C.H. and Chewning, L.V., 2010. The evolutionary role of interorganizational
communication: Modeling social capital in disaster contexts. Human Communication
Research, 36(2), pp.125-162.
Gaspar, R., Pedro, C., Panagiotopoulos, P. and Seibt, B., 2016. Beyond positive or negative:
Qualitative sentiment analysis of social media reactions to unexpected stressful
events. Computers in Human Behavior, 56, pp.179-191.
McGuire, M. and Kampf, C., 2015, July. Using social media sentiment analysis to understand
audiences: A new skill for technical communicators?. In Professional Communication
Conference (IPCC), 2015 IEEE International (pp. 1-7). IEEE.
Pfeffer, J., Zorbach, T. and Carley, K.M., 2014. Understanding online firestorms: Negative
word-of-mouth dynamics in social media networks. Journal of Marketing
Communications, 20(1-2), pp.117-128.
Wang, H., 2012. Six P's of youth social media from a young consumer's perspective. Young
Consumers, 13(3), pp.303-317.
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