Recommendations for McDonald’s future Twitter campaign

Management Communication
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To:
From:
Date: 01.09.2018
Subject: Recommendations for McDonald’s future Twitter campaign
Purpose:
The purpose is to analyse the social media campaigns carried out by McDonald’s and make
future recommendations.
Hence, the following memorandum is to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of social
media for a business and the way it should be used effectively in overcoming the issues and
make the campaign successful.
First, the advantages and drawbacks of social media are discussed. Then the audience that
must be addressed by McDonald's is identified. Further, the way a better Twitter campaign
developed for the firm is discussed and lastly, a communication plan is developed for
building stronger media relations.
Questions
1. What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of using social media for a firm
Social media can be an important tool for business in terms of increasing involvement with
audiences and increasing traffic. However, there are some disadvantages too that must also be
considered for selecting the best strategy to social media for the business (Swani et al. 2017).
Advantages of social media are (Dijkmans, Kerkhof, and Beukeboom, 2015):
 Brand awareness and reputation- Relevant and compelling content help to grab the
attention of prospective customers and enhance brand visibility. Through responding
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quickly to the industry developments, a firm can display itself as a thought leader and
thus, can improve its brand reputation. For example, the Twitter campaign of
McDonald’s helped it gain the attention of a large number of audiences, as they were
eager to know the sources of ingredients used in McDonald’s offerings.
 Cost effective-Trainor et al. (2014) stated that it is a much cheaper method compared
to the conventional process of promotional and advertisement. It requires a minimum
cost for maintaining a strong presence in social media.
 Customer interaction- Effective customer service can be offered through responding
to their feedback effectively.
The disadvantages are (Ngai, Tao and Moon, 2015):
 Resources- Companies need resources to manage a positive presence in social media
by developing new content and providing responses to the feedback. It may include
recruit and train employees, spend in paid advertising and pay for developing the
image and video contents as done by McDonald’s.
 Evaluation- It is difficult to analyse and measure the monetary value on brand
reputation and awareness brought by social media. It is hard to evaluate the way in
which, social media affects in-store sales.
 Ineffective use-Using social media just for increasing sales without maintaining a
proper connection with the customers and failing to respond properly to the negative
comments can damage the reputation of the company.For example, McDonald’s
received negative comments and reaction for changing the name of its Twitter
campaign from ‘#MeetTheFarmers’ to ‘#McDStories’.
2. Who are the different audience McDonald’s need to address while using social media
campaign?
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