The Cons of McDonald’s using of Social Media Marketing

Less easy to control. Since Facebook and Twitter are opened to public, customers can leave comments easily. It may destroy the brand image if customers leave some negative comments on Facebook or Twitter. For example, there are some negative comments on YouTube that related to McDonald’s post, people would have negative impression of brand.

More time for monitoring. Since Internet is 24/7 (24 hours per day and 7 days per week), McDonald’s need spend more time to monitor the online platform and share the news frequently to keep update customers.

Unable to reach mass audience. Traditional marketing is easy to reach public by commercials and print advertisements. However, Social Media Marketing only targets a niche audience through online platform.

Restrict to enter country. Facebook and Twitter are blocked by Mainland China. That means social media marketing restrict to enter in Mainland China. People can’t see the updated news or corporate information of McDonald’s when they are in Mainland China. It is difficult to build closed relationship with customers.
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Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZdALTZ6aA8

The Pro of McDonald’s using of Social Media Marketing

Enhance the interaction of customers. McDonald’s posts news on Facebook or Twitter, customers can express their opinions on immediately. Therefore, McDonald’s can get the feedback accordingly.

Build relationship with customers. It can show social responsibility to public when McDonald’s post corporate news that related to community or sponsorship on Facebook or Twitter. Customers may have good impression of McDonald’s.

Reach of niche market. Using of Facebook and Twitter are relatively low cost method of directly reaching a niche audience or a mass audience. It can reach a niche audience that use Internet frequently.

Relative low cost. Establish Facebook and Twitter account are free of charge. It is a low cost method to promote the brand and build close relationship between McDonald’s and customers.

Case Study (2) - How McDonald's Uses Social Media Marekting

Another channel is Twitter. McDonald’s establishes a team to upload the latest news, promotions and a few surprises on Twitter as well. McDonald’s team share their daily life experiences on Twitter especially. Followers can comment and quote their post to their blog. It can enhance the interaction with customers and followers can know the news immediately.

Moreover, there is another account of McDonald’s called “About McDonald’s”. McDonald’s team monitors it. People can find more news that related to McDonald’s as well. Sometimes, they would like to introduce corporate news in Twitter. For example, they mentioned “McDonald’s Shek Forever After Happy Meal launched today in France”. It is a one of the promotional channel to public.

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Sources:
http://twitter.com/AboutMcDonalds
http://twitter.com/McDonalds

Case Study (1) - How McDonald's Uses Social Media Marketing

To use social media marketing effectively, company should update their news frequently to build long-term relationship with customers. Moreover, company can share their knowledge, sharing and entertainment to deepen and enrich the brand’s relationship with customers.

McDonald’s ranks number 62 out of a list of the top 100 “most social’ brands in 2009. McDonald’s establishes Facebook account to share latest news. There are 2,393,114 people become fans of McDonald’s as on 1 July 2010. And the number of fans is increasingly time-to-time. People can receive the latest news when they become fans of McDonald’s.

There are different pages in Facebook to introduce the products including Burgers, Dollar Menu, McCafe, Happy Meal etc. Customers can know more about the promotional news and the corporate news from McDonald’s Facebook easily. It is a public way to share their information on Facebook.

Moreover, there is some interesting news on Facebook posted by McDonald’s regularly. For example, McDonald’s posted its commercial on facebook, more than 650 fans left comments and 2,800 people liked this. It is a good way to communicate with people and McDonald’s can get the feedback from customers immediately. People left comments on facebook and shared the posts with their friends. It can spread out the message through Internet immediately.



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Sources
http://www.facebook.com/#!/McDonalds?ref=ts
http://www.bizreport.com/2010/01/which_brands_were_the_most_social_during_2009.html#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZdALTZ6aA8

The Definition of Social Media Marketing

Social Media, which are defined as “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content”

Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. By utilizing the social aspect of the web, social media marketing is able to connect and interact on a much more personalized and dynamic level than through traditional marketing. And it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

Nowadays, many companies use social media marketing as a tool to communicate with customers since the cost is lower than traditional marketing and easy to build relationship with customers. As the following, I will discuss McDonald’s how to promote the brand through social media marketing. Finally, there is a Pro and Cons sections to summarize the case.

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Sources:
Kaplan Andreas M., Haenlein Michael (2010) Users of the World, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media
http://www.escpeurope.eu/nc/faculty-research/the-escp-europe-faculty/professor/name/kaplan/-/research/
http://www.doshdosh.com/the-importance-of-social-media-marketing/
http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/what-is-social-media-marketing.htm