Trends in PR
Twitter: Wendy’s New Battlefield
#Awesome#publicrelations#summerclasses#papertowrite. Social media has hit this world by storm. Facebook came out and the frenzy began. The way people communicated with each other changed drastically and soon was followed by new “norms” on how people communicate. Social media is growing faster every day and companies have started to embrace social media as a means of a platform to do business.
Many organizations or companies use social media to advertise, connect or even communicate. The earliest example of the new trend of businesses using social media to respond is seen from the creator of Help A Reporter Out. Peter Shankman was tweeting about how he wished Morton’s would give him a steak on his layover at an airport. What happened when he showed up at the airport? “He was greeted in the terminal with a full dinner, hand delivered by a tuxedo-wearing server,” (Hoffer, 2011). Morton’s had read Shankman’s tweet about wanting dinner and decided it would be fun and great publicity if they tracked down his flight, contacted the closest Morton’s Steakhouse and then sent a server to give him his bag of food when he arrived. This act from Morton’s helped start the trend.
There are a few companies that have embraced social media more than others. Fast food chains have become big users in social media, mainly Twitter. Wendy’s has been in the media a lot due to its “savage” comebacks online and the way they interact with their consumers online. Forbes did a piece on an interesting Wendy’s Twitter response. A young man tweeted asking how many retweets he would need to receive to get a lifetime of free nuggets and Wendy’s actually responded with “18 million.” Carter Wilkinson received over 3 million retweets and Wendy’s decided that was enough to get free nuggets for a year. “Our voice is Chris Pratt's in Guardians Of The Galaxy. We don't have any superpowers and we're not superhuman. We're just a regular guy who happens to be funny and a little sarcastic," said Brandon Rhoten, Head of Media, Advertising and Digital/Social for Wendy’s when Forbes asked about insights into the company’s social media success (Ward, 2017).
Wendy’s is not just about giving away free nuggets, it also roasts other fast food chains and when people post comments it makes sassy retweets. Wendy's believes social media is an important factor in our society. Brands can’t underestimate the power of social media -- it connects us, “Either you embrace it or you allow it to engulf you,” entrepreneur and author R.L. Adams shares (Leadem, 2017). Wendy’s gets a lot of media attention specifically when it “roasts” customers online. An example of this is when somebody tweeted “you’re food is trash.” Wendy’s responded: “No, your opinion is though,” (Glean, 2017). Many believe the way Wendy’s uses social media is odd. It’s an unusual strategy in corporate social media marketing where marketers and customer service teams typically worry about appeasing customers and being politically correct (Comcowich, 2017). With social media being a huge part of this generation and many consumers having either Twitter or Facebook, Wendy’s has the right idea in becoming a huge presence online and in a way that the people who use social media the most enjoy. Ultimately this presence will boost revenue and bring consumers to Wendy’s door. According to Google Trends, searches for the fast food chain have reached an all-time high (Chaudhry, 2017). Wendy’s is creating a path that many businesses and companies will want to follow so they too can appeal to the social media world and the billions of people who come with it.
Anything that can cause billions of people to get the same information in a matter of minutes can be great or it can become problematic. There is a line between being funny, making a joke or trying to be sassy, and being completely disrespectful or rude. The things that people find funny on social media have limits and change everyday. One day somebody telling somebody their opinion is trash could be hilarious but said on another day to another person, this same “joke” could lead to an uproar. In Entrepreneurs’ “These Social Media Fails Got People Fired,” it goes through different events where people either posted something on social media or saw something on social media that got them fired or in trouble. In a Taco Bell case an employee posted a picture of himself urinating on food. Even though he said it was fake, he got huge backlash on the internet. What he thought was funny did not seem funny to millions of others. Wendy’s has even posted some things that people have been questioning. Wendy’s had somebody tweet at it to post a meme and when it posted a Pepe the Frog meme people were not happy. The image ended up being taken as a white-nationalist symbol and a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League (Whitten, 2017). The problem with social media is people can take things out of context. What somebody wanted to convey could be lost in translation. Wendy’s obviously did not intend for that image to be taken the way it did and ultimately deleted the image and the tweet.
With Wendy’s, a possible crisis can be that one day it responds to something in a way that pushes the line too far or actually is very rude. The ensuing backlash would be detrimental because Wendy’s has built up such a following on social media. The company already saw a touch of this potential backlash with its inappropriate image so it needs to be prepared for something with an even bigger public opinion reaction. If that happens Wendy’s reign as social media royalty could definitely come to an end. The crisis plan for if something like this happens should be relatively simple. First, Wendy’s needs to have in place a way to prevent something like this from happening. Due to its own error, the company’s social media advisors should already understand that images and memes need to be depicted in a way that is not disrespectful, degrading or in poor taste. Also, special social media teams need to be aware of the changing tones of social media every day. With different platforms of social media comes different tones. Twitter is normally a “hate” platform. People tweet about how they are disappointed in a product or a company and people bash on others. So with Wendy’s they can have a more sarcastic tone and can use the playful bashing of others...to an extent. Facebook is more “loving” in tone. An older generation of people are on Facebook and with that, the tone that Wendy’s takes needs to accommodate. So no sassy clapbacks and more of a friendly image needs to be depicted. Instagram is more of a picture sharing platform so just having some great photographs of their food and other things from Wendy’s with some clever captions will not cause any issues. Again, the photos need to be in good taste.
In Cases In Public Relations Management there is a case that discusses the backlash that social media can enable when two employees posted a YouTube video of them doing disturbing things with food at Domino’s. Although the response took some time, due to social media being fairly new, it still was an excellent response on the Domino’s team's behalf. Since the issue was a social media one the Domino’s team decided to respond with social media by posting an apology video on YouTube and used Twitter as a means to communicate quickly with concerned customers. Wendy’s needs to be able to take a page from Domino’s book because they rebounded and still have a high revenue in business. If Wendy’s were to end up in a situation where they posted something and the social media world became enraged there needs to be an immediate response like in the Domino’s case. Social media has a long reach and billions can be involved in a scandal in a matter of minutes. There needs to be an immediate removal of the offensive post, an immediate apology whether to a specific person or to the masses (it does not matter if it was not meant to be portrayed in a negative way), and then there, in certain cases, needs to be a reparation of some sort. Reparations could be something like a coupon that people can download and use or a giveaway. Domino’s didn’t do the reparations which in my opinion could have made their priority consumers happier than they were at the end of the scandal.
If Wendy’s can continue leading the way in social media interaction between companies and public while taking heed from the many companies which have had blowouts from social media then Wendy’s will revolutionize the way that social media is used to communicate and interact with publics around the world.
References
Hoffer, S. (2011, August 18). Peter Shankman Tweet Joke Leads To Morton's Surprise Steak Dinner At Newark Airport (TWEETS). Retrieved June 23, 2017, fromhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/18/peter-shankman-mortons-steak-tweet_n_930744.html
Ward, T. (2017, May 13). Nuggs And Sass: Inside Wendy's Social Media Secret Sauce. Retrieved June 23, 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomward/2017/05/09/nuggs-and-sass-inside-wendys-social-media-secret-sauce/#783366792828
Leadem, R. (2017, April 13). What You Can Learn From Wendy's Sassy Social Media Challenge. Retrieved June 23, 2017, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/292839
Wendy's Sassy Twitter Exchanges: A Game-Changer for Social Media Marketing? (2017, January 16). Retrieved June 23, 2017, from http://glean.info/wendys-sassy-twitter-exchanges-game-changer-social-media-marketing/
Wendy's Sets A Social Media World Record. (2017, May 10). Retrieved June 23, 2017, fromhttp://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/wendys-unintentionally-set-a-social-media-world-record/
Sun, C. (2016, March 18). These Social Media Fails Got People Fired. Retrieved June 23, 2017, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/271823
Whitten, S. (2017, January 04). A Wendy's tweet just went viral for all the wrong reasons. Retrieved June 23, 2017, from http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/04/wendys-saucy-tweets-are-hit-and-miss-on-social-media.html
Swann, P., & Swann, P. (2014). Media Relations . In Cases in Public Relations Management the rise of social media and activism (pp. 144-153). New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Ltd.