McDonald's Twitter Campaign Case Study Analysis

This analysis provides answers to the four questions given in the instructions and develops a communication plan that McDonald's can adapt to efficiently use social media. It discusses the advantages and disadvantages of social media for businesses, the different audiences McDonald's needs to address, and factors that can help in designing better future Twitter campaigns. The communication plan template is also provided.

McDonald's Twitter Campaign Case Study Analysis1
McDonald's Twitter Campaign Case Study Analysis
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McDonald's Twitter Campaign Case Study Analysis2
TO: McDonald's management (author: Rick Wion).
FROM: Student Name
DATE: September3, 2018
SUBJECT: McDonald's Twitter Campaign Case Study Analysis
In the current business environment globally social media usage has grown so rapidly and many
organizations are using this platform as a key communication tool. However, social media usage
comes with a broad range of advantages and disadvantages for business organizations, (Chaffey,
2016). This memo is an analysis of the McDonald's Twitter Campaign: Hype versus Reality case
study giving answers to the four questions given in the instructions and develop a
communication plan that the organization can adapt so as to efficiently use social media.
There are potential advantages and disadvantages for an organization when using social media.
Social media is a cheap way to make consumers and help the organization create a strong brand
name that the consumers would like to associate with, (Tuten and Solomon, 2017). Social media
also helps business organizations to reach a large population to advertise their new products and
services. Social media platforms offer an interactive environment where companies can
communicate with their customers directly and this helps in understanding their needs and wants,
(Chernev, 2018). Understanding customer needs and wants will help an organization to develop
innovative products and services that achieve the customer satisfaction objective. The interactive
environment offered by social media provides a business organization with an opportunity to
collect data and figures that can be used to analyze the population demographics and the
consumer purchasing behavior. Such information is very crucial since it helps a company do
market segmentation and this can really determine the survival or success of the company,
(Tanner, Jeff, and Mary Raymond.2015). Therefore, considering all these advantages social
media is a very essential marketing and advertisement technique that can be used by an
organization to gain and maintain a competitive advantage.
Social media also brings several disadvantages in a business organization. There are many social
media platforms and using all of them to connect with consumers is cumbersome. The
organization needs to hire employees to deal with social media selling and this introduces
additional cost to the organization. Social media also requires an organization to be posting
timely updates about their products and services and this really requires spending a lot of time
connected to the consumers. Social media also involves a large audience and this means the
organization has to be dealing with so many people directly, (Ashley and Tuten, 2015, p25).

McDonald's Twitter Campaign Case Study Analysis3
Competitors can also use social media and pose as potential customers just to tarnish the brand
name of an organization. Therefore social media has demerits that organizations should know
how to deal with.
There are different audiences that McDonald's need to address when using social media
campaigns. In their social media campaign, McDonald should address the people or
organizations that have a positive perceptive about the brand as well as those that have a negative
perceptive of the organization. There are frequent consumers who will always follow any social
media campaign of the organization such as promotion thus the organization should always
address such consumers and make them interested throughout the promotion, (Chang, Yu, and
Lu, 2015, p780). There are also organizations, for instance, the Asiatic American Justice, which
may be interested in the social media promotion of McDonald's thus the organization has to have
good cooperate social media relationship.
McDonald's should also address organizations and people who have a negative perception of the
company, (Felix, Rauschnabel, and Hinsch, 2017). These organizations may include the US
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and
any other organizations whose mission and objectives may be contradicting with McDonald's
activities in one way or another. Such organization can use any social media mistake to attack
McDonald's thus whenever the company is doing social media campaign it should careful and
consider such organizations and people.
I think there are several factors that Wion and his team can consider to help in designing better
future Twitter campaigns for McDonald's. Wion and his team have to start by looking at the past
campaigns of their rivals and analyze which one was successful as well as those that failed. This
analysis will help in identifying the reasons for failure or success which is has to be considered

McDonald's Twitter Campaign Case Study Analysis4
in future campaigns. The # meetthefarmers run was successful but it could have done better. I
would wish that Wion and his team try to be originative. Also, it would be good if in future
design the team will show their campaigns to other people as a trial before official
implementation as a way of identifying anything negative and do renovation before it can cause
losses to the company. Brand image is an asset that every organization wish to possess in order
to have a competitive advantage and once it is tarnished it can be difficult to restore, (Schulze,
Schöler, and Skiera, 2015, p8). For instance, it seems the Super Size Me campaign took away so
many consumers away from McDonald's and winning them back will be a difficult task.
The communication plan template below has been used to devise a strategy for Wion to
encourage better media relations and more accurate reporting. Wion and his team have to work
with the media even prior to the launch of the campaign so as to increase positive consciousness
about their promotion campaign.
Timing – 10/10/2018
Audience- Mainstream Media
Sender- McDonald's Management (Wion)
Key Message- The uniqueness of McDonald's products and the focus on customer satisfaction.
Desired Outcome- increased positive consciousness about their social media campaign.
Medium- Television and newspaper articles
Materials- The campaign should leave behind messages that will create a negative impression.
Frequency-The messages should be sent on a daily basis to ensure that there is enough
sensitization about the campaign.

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In conclusion, social media is a marketing tool that comes with both advantages and
disadvantages, therefore, organizations should master how to utilize it efficiently and effectively.
Thank you for considering my analysis.
Regards, student name
Bibliography
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27.
Chaffey, D., 2016. Global social media research summary 2016. Smart Insights: Social Media
Marketing.
Chang, Y.T., Yu, H. and Lu, H.P., 2015. Persuasive messages, popularity cohesion, and message
diffusion in social media marketing. Journal of Business Research, 68(4), pp.777-782.
Chernev, A. 2018. Strategic marketing management. Cerebellum Press
Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media marketing:
A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.
Schulze, C., Schöler, L. and Skiera, B., 2015. Customizing social media marketing. MIT Sloan
Management Review, 56(2), p.8.
Tanner, Jeff, and Mary Raymond.2015. Principles of marketing. University of Minnesota
Libraries Publishing.
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage.