Reflection on Social Media Case 1: McDStories

Sometimes things don’t go as planned. Sometimes even a big company like McDonald’s can make an innocent mistake that has some costly consequences.

In 2011, McDonald’s had the idea to create two hashtags to promote their company. The first one, #MeetTheFarmers, was to show consumers that the food was fresh and to make the farmers a big part of the company. The second hashtag, #McDStories, had the intention to get people to share good stories and memories of McDonald’s, but instead it had the opposite effect. People shared horrible experiences, such as the ones listed on Business Insider “-- Dude, I used to work at McDonald's. The #McDStories I could tell would raise your hair.”

I think McDonald’s didn’t think through this idea. Obviously, people love McDonald’s. It is a multi-national, multibillion dollar business. But surely, they had to think that there are people who have had bad experiences there. It is fast-food.

In a case study of this event published here, it points out that just because McDonald’s is the leader in sales, doesn’t automatically mean that people love it. They made some assumptions. They also pointed out that the hashtag was too general. It didn’t guide users where they wanted it to go, but let the consumer decide to be positive or negative.

The way the public picked this up clearly went directly against their goals. But, in my opinion, even bad publicity is publicity, so maybe it wasn’t a total waste. Maybe McDonald’s got a little more attention from that and it is hard to say that it actually impacted business negatively.


According to Forbes, McDonald’s Social Media Director did say, “As Twitter continues to evolve its platform and engagement opportunities, we’re learning from our experiences.” With the boundaries and uses of social media always changing, I think that is the best that anyone, including businesses can do with Social Media is evolve and learn alongside everyone else.

Comments

  1. UnknownJanuary 18, 2018 at 7:42 AM

    Awesome post Emily! I liked your comment how even bad publicity is publicity. Maybe it helped to humble a few of those executives who had forgotten that many people disagree with the quality of their food or even cleanliness of their buildings. It was nice to see it end on a positive note as well with the Forbes resource. Social media is still new and many companies will have to learn to adapt as it continues to evolve. Thanks for your post!

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  2. molly.ashbyJanuary 18, 2018 at 10:17 AM

    Great job Emily. I agree with the point you made about McDonald's failing to recognize that while they may be a multi million dollar company there are still many people you have had negative experiences at their establishment. I think it's easy for companies to get caught up in their success and see their company through rose colored glasses. I'm sure this experiences brought them all back down to earth.

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  3. UnknownJanuary 18, 2018 at 10:34 PM

    I love how thorough your post is. I feel like I would have understood the entire case just by reading your post! Consequences is an interesting aspect to bring to the table on this case. I think so many times people make decisions not knowing what the consequence will be and other times we make decisions because we know what the consequences will be. However, with this case the consequences were harsh for an innocent mistake. That is a reflection of how the world can be sometimes though. Thank you for your thoughts Emily.

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