Wendy’s and Arby’s have had a
longstanding twitter feud for the past couple of years and there are many
passionate people on who’s account is better for one reason or another. Well I decided
to take the time and really break down these two accounts to see whose twitter
is really the better twitter account.
Social media
marketing is a growing area in many businesses. However, most businesses like
to keep their marketing on social media very professional and straight forward.
Posting discount codes, deals, and just putting their name on their follower’s
timeline. Wendy’s and Arby’s are both different than this. Many people like social media marketing because they can interact with organizations directly on them. The problem with this is often times the organization won’t reply or even
like tweets. There’s still no real engagement.
Wendy’s and Arby’s are
different, they both interact with their followers regularly. Arby's is much better at liking the tweets people send to Arby's. While this is good, and better than what most companies do, its not as good as Wendy's. Wendy's will reply to people's tweets. Replying to tweets is the perfect way to make sure that people feel like their voices matter and are heard by Wendy's. Wendy's will also reply to tweets that hold no real significance and will joke along with the original poster just to keep up a good image. It really makes Wendy's seem less like a big organization and more like a person, which works very well in Wendy's favor.
The other crazy thing Wendy's does, is make fun of its competition. To make fun of competition is not commonplace on social media. Most accounts will stick to themselves and just post their deals and discounts, but Wendy's will post things like this.
Clearly a tweet attacking McDonald's, and something Arby's will never do. The initial response would be that it would be inappropriate and shouldn't happen right? Well, surprisingly, this tweet was one of Wendy's most liked, retweeted, and commented on tweets in the first two weeks of November. Their followers love this.
With Wendy's having such a unique twitter page, Arby's isn't able to keep up. Wendy's isn't that much bigger of an organization, yet they have a full two million more twitter followers than Arby's. Wendy's interacts more with its followers, tweets more, and has a very personable twitter account. It's only fair to say that Wendy's is winning this twitter battle, and Arby's needs to step up their game.
Completely agree! As an avid Twitter user, I can absolutely verify that Wendy's has captured my attention more so than Arby's. It's fascinating to think that before Twitter, your only interaction with a corporation like Wendy's was probably with the cashier ringing up your burger. But now you can literally communicate with the company (I mean, someone from their marketing department, but still) and receive feedback. The personal touch is nice, and helps me view them in a better light than I might have otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a twitter person, but I could definitely see why an audience would like to be more interactive with a company. I would also say that having an audience that is willing to be interactive with you makes your job as social media manager infinitely easier. I wonder if having an active twitter makes people more likely to eat at Wendy's though. Usually when Wendy's is mentioned people only really think about getting a frosty and fries and even then they probably haven't had that in at least a year. I far more often hear people talk about how good Arby's is over Wendy's. Maybe being a joke on the internet has turned their food into one too?
ReplyDeleteWhat a topic that somehow affects us and our social media lives. No, I'm serious because what is it that these companies are doing to be effective and to reach the most people. WE can learn form this as students, future employers maybe even marketing managers who needs something fresh like actually responding to customers! What a great way to feel like an engaged system. So, I wonder, why haven't more companies or fast food chains gotten on board? Are they too good or too busy to get free advertisement? I want to know, who sparked this feud and how can it continue and not die out? Will it doe out? Is it even worth it?
ReplyDeleteI love that you wrote about this, because I’ve been following the two accounts for awhile and have been extremely amused! It is crazy to think about how fast food restaurants have such a huge presence online and to see how they impact their followers and fan base. I wonder why they feel the need to interact online like this and how this has possibly damaged their business.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this applies to personal branding. Will a employer, company, friend, follower, or love interest like you better if you double tap back or reply to their comment. It would be interesting to see if you would have an influx of followers if you started to comment or or reply to most people on your social media. Would their friends see all your comments and think "I like their engagement I'm going to follow them too?". It sounds silly but it might actually be true. Our entire lives on social media exist so we can brand ourselves so maybe we should be taking notes form big corporations.
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