How McDonald’s Rocks the Social Media

Say fastfood and the first thing that comes to mind is McDonald’s. Or maybe no other names would come up next afterwards. If you think about it, they actually dominate not only the fastfood world but even the social or digital world and below are just some of the reasons why.

1. Handling criticisms well and turning them into opportunities

I’m a fan of McDonald’s, it’s food, the whole brand and how they rock social media. It is probably one of the brands that constantly face social media crises yet constantly successfully turn these crises into opportunity and PR win.

2. Engaging digital campaigns

They’ve got some of the most creative digital and printad campaigns, create the most engaging and heartwarming campaigns.

3. Not afraid to implement new social media strategies

McDonald’s is everywhere. With more than 30,000 local restaurants serving nearly 50 million people in more than 119 countries each day (According to the McDonald’s Corporation website (as of January 30, 2007), they’re also present in just about every social media platforms known and use them to bring in more traffic to their stores (through Foursquare for example).

4. Not afraid to rock and roll in the rough social media waters.

Just like any other brands, McDonald’s faces criticisms and various PR crises. Yet, they do a great job in turning these crises into opportunities to continually improve by listening to what their customers are saying and what do they really want.

How McDonald’s Rule the Social and Real World

McDonald’s is more than just the leading fastfood chain in the world. It’s brand that listens, communicates and engages to its customers.

In an article from SocialInfluence.com, I quote: “Universally-recognised McDonald’s is tapping into social crowdsourcing success, with its Germany-centric ‘Mein Burger’ (My Burger) campaign.

users built their own burger using a smart online application, choosing every detail from bread and sauces to meats and cheese. “We gave them the tools, they created the buzz,” says the accompanying review video, and create a buzz they did. After creating their dream burgers, users were encouraged to use the application’s poster, video and banner tools to generate noise about their tasty inventions and get votes from the German public. By the fifth week of the campaign, a burger was being created every 26 seconds (yep, even after five weeks), and 1.5 million people had voted for the burger they deemed worthy of the title of ‘McDonald’s First Crowdsourced Burger’.

“Never before has a campaign at McDonald’s brought so many additional customers, served more promotional burgers or, for that matter, earned more total revenue,” the video announces. Indeed, if campaigns across the board continue in this vein, many marketers may very well find themselves out of a job.

McDonald’s: A Brand that Listens, A Brand that Engages

Aside from the spectacular way McDonald’s handles it social media, below are some of my favorite McDonald’s TV commercials. Some of them are when I was in highschool.

McDonald’s Commercial: The Favorite “Apo” (Granddaughter)

McDonald’s Commercial: Girlfriend / Boyfriend

McDonalds Philippines Commercial “First Love” Huling El Bimbo

McDonald’s: A Brand that Turns Strangers Into Friends

There’s power in trying to connect to your customers through their emotions. Emotions influences purchase decisions especially when it involves family, love and passion. Connect them altogether and you have the most effective marketing plan in place.

Coca Cola has a similar marketing strategy. They have creative digital campaigns that truly touches the heart of its customers.

And below is a great video of how the brand that can turn strangers into friends.

McDonald’s knows how to connect with its target market in a way no other fastfood brands could. That’s why it dominates the real and yes, even the social media world.