Designing a Social Media Strategy for McDonald's: Advantages, Disadvantages, and Target Audiences

This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using social media for businesses like McDonald's, target audiences for social media campaigns, and recommendations for designing effective Twitter campaigns. It also includes a communication template for the future social media strategy of McDonald's.

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Management Communication in
McDonald’s

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Introduction
The paper focuses on designing a memorandum associated to the case of failed Twitter campaign
of McDonald’s. The memorandum would focus on reflecting the potential advantages and
disadvantages concerning the use of social media. It also would focus on evaluating the fashion
in which the Twitter campaign needs to be redesigned by McDonald’s for attracting potential
customers. Herein, the memorandum is required to specifically reflect on the target customer
base of McDonald’s for designing of effective contents. Further, a communication template also
needs to be created for reflecting on the future communication and social media strategies of
McDonald’s.
To: The CEO
From: Rick Wion, Director of Social Media
Date: 1st September 2018
Subject: Social Media Strategy
Potential Advantages and Disadvantages of using Social Media
The use of social media in business ideally contributes in reducing the marketing and
promotional cost for the firm and in enhancing its sales revenue. It also helps in attracting greater
consumer traffic while also in effectively responding to customer queries and in providing and
getting needed feedbacks. Again, the use of social media also helps in improving the rank of the
firm along the different search engines (Mutuku 2018). Development of relationships of the
business with its different stakeholders made possible through use of social media ideally helps
in generating customer satisfaction and loyalty for the firm. Finally, the use of social media can

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also be made for carrying out a market research regarding consumer behaviour and preference
patterns (Australia Government 2018).
Despite the stated advantages the use of social media by business institutions also generates
potential disadvantages in terms of not having an effective ROI (Return on Investment) for
estimating the revenue of the marketing and promotional events. Further, the use of social media
requires daily and continuous monitoring and management for generation of needed results.
Again, the exposure of the firm to the viral sphere can potentially affect its image in events like
information leakages and also owing to growth of negative publicity (Mutuku 2018).
Audiences for Social Media Campaigns of McDonald
The different audiences that McDonald’s is needed to target in terms of developing its social
media campaigns consists of youth customers, employees and staffs and also the farmers
responsible for supplying fresh farm products to its stores. Targeting of millennial customers
would help the company in attracting larger audiences to its stores. It would also help in
generating an effective word-of-mouth marketing owing to development of effective interaction
with the millennial customer groups and communities. McDonald’s can encourage feedback and
also participation of employees and staffs in development of the social media campaigns while
also reflect their services for the firm and also for the customers (Bhushi 2018). Employees and
customers can also be invited to participate in online surveys carried out by the firm through use
of social media campaigns. The use of social media can be carried out to reflect the contributions
of the farmers in portraying the sourcing of fresh materials directly from the fields. The same
would help in boosting the level of confidence and satisfaction of the farming communities while
also in attracting consumer mindset for the availability of fresh and quality ingredients (Yeomans
2018).

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Designing of Future Twitter Campaigns
For enhancing the effectiveness of the Twitter campaigns, Wion and his team are required to
follow and implement the following tenets of social media marketing based on use of Twitter.
-Firstly the Tweets are required not to encompass more than 140 characters. It is analysed that
the bringing about of shorter tweets tends to contribute in generating around 17 percent more
customer engagement. The rendering of short tweets helps in encouraging customers to provide
their personal comments and feedbacks on the same.
-Secondly, it is observed that tweeting between the period 8AM to 7PM contributes in generating
customer interaction greater than 30 percent. Further, the level of user engagement on Twitter is
also observed to be more during the weekends (Doctoroff 2014).
-Thirdly, Wion and his team need to significantly focus on the incorporation of videos and
pictures associated with the stores, farmers, food products both existing and new launches and
also internal and external events and campaigns carried out by the company with the textual
messages on Twitter. It is evaluated that the incorporation of audio-visual contents in tweets
triggers the growth in re-tweets by around 150 percent (Pulizzi 2015).
-Fourthly, Wion’s team also needs to encourage the tweeters to retweet their feedbacks and
opinions on the tweets made (Bigus 2013). The provision of a link on the tweets for retweeting is
observed to have triggered the customers in retweeting by around 86 percent.
-Fifthly, the frequency of the tweets needs to be increased. The increasing of the frequency of the
tweets helps in providing customers needed space and thereby does not give an impression that
the company/brand is trying to push its image, services or products to the market (Hanke 2016).

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Development of a Social Media Strategy
The communication plan that needs to be carried out by Wion and his team for development of
effective media relations and also generation of accurate reporting is presented as under.
Better Media Relations and Accurate
Reporting
Task Name Responsibility State Current Status Due Date
Objectives
1. To enhance the level of customer engagement Jack On track 09/16/18
2. To prevent the case of media fallouts Mary Not started 09/20/18
Deliverables
Development of Twitter Campaign
1. Rendering small tweets Bob On track 09/16/18
2. Use of pictures and videos Jack Not started 09/20/18
3. Encouraging retweets Mary Not started 09/15/18
Development of Facebook Campaign
1. Creating interactive posts Henry On track 09/17/18
2. Using of pictures and videos Jack Not started 09/20/18
3. Providing feedbacks and replying to customers Mary On track 09/17/18
4. Updating information about new launches and
campaigns Caroline Not started 09/25/18
Development of Blogs
1. Generation of new information regarding
campaigns and launches Jack Not started 09/18/18
2. Rendering of pictures and videos Mary Not started 09/20/18
3. Inviting feedbacks from customers Henry Not started 09/18/18
The communication plan reflects the different deliverables that can be planned for enhancing
better media relations along the different social networking platform and also the identification
of different task holders along the different stages (Hanke 2016). The green colour is provided

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to highlight the tasks that have already commenced and are being tracked while the yellow
colour is added to denote tasks that are yet to commence by Wion’s team. Further, the due date
for the different tasks are also generated which would account as specific target dates for the task
owners for potentially completing the tasks assigned. The identification of the different task
owners is made for carrying out individual monitoring of the progress of the different tasks.
Conclusions
The memorandum specifically highlighted the advantages and disadvantages concerning the use
of social media by business institutions like McDonald’s and also its target audiences that needs
to be targeted by social media campaigns. Different recommendations were put forward to reflect
the fashion in which the Twitter campaign designed by Wion’s team can be bettered of in the
long run. Finally, a communication template is designed in the memo to reflect on the different
stages of the social media strategy that needs to be undertaken by McDonald’s. The
communication template highlights on the different tasks, task owners and objectives and also
the scheduled plans for completion of the same.

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References
Australia Government 2018, Pros and cons of using social media for business, viewed 1
September 2018, <https://www.business.gov.au/marketing/social-media/pros-and-cons-of-social-
media>.
Bhushi, K 2018, Farm to Fingers: The Culture and Politics of Food in Contemporary India,
Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom.
Bigus, P 2013, 'McDonald's Twitter Campaign: Hype Versus Reality', Richard Ivey School,
Ontario.
Doctoroff, T 2014, Twitter is Not a Strategy: Rediscovering the Art of Brand Marketing, St.
Martin's Press, United Kingdom.
Hanke, M 2016, Airline e-Commerce: Log on. Take off., Routledge, New York.
Mutuku, C 2018, Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Social Networks in Business, GRIN
Verlag, Germany.
Pulizzi, J 2015, Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and
Create Radically Successful Businesses, McGraw Hill Professional, United Kingdom.
Yeomans, M 2018, Trust Inc.: How Business Wins Respect in a Social Media Age, Routledge,
New York.