Wendy’s : Capitalizing on Emerging Social Media Trends

1. What are the key elements of Wendy’s social media strategy?

One of the most important elements of their strategy in my opinion, is the way they engage with their
customers(or audience). The Company was very active in engaging with them on social media (especially
on Twitter) and tried to respond to as many messages, customer queries and complaints as it could as
fast as possible and trying to resolve them (with the example when the person said they had not been
seeing bacon in their order for the past two orders) and they also engage in playful conversations and
roasting with users who teased the company and supported challenges (like the one with the 18Million
retweets and free nuggets) which only made them more engaging and entertaining and also they used
the user generated content to their benefit. This amount of responsiveness had a very positive impact
on their brand image and how people related to them. Also, the way they responded to each message
with humor and a kind of human touch which made it like it wasn’t like a robot really showed their
authenticity which help them make real connections with the customers. They also managed to find the
sweet spot in terms of the frequency and consistency of posting which was challenging to the other
companies. The company also leveraged the content (tweets) created by other brands and managed to
“make the story about them”. They also had playful banter and roasting with competitors which helped
Wendy's stand out and generate increased engagement.

2. Is Wendy’s reaching the appropriate target markets with its Twitter campaign?

I believe Wendy’s target customer audience is people between the ages of 18-50. The case mentions
that “In particular, about 39 percent of Internet users in the 18–49 age range were on Twitter”,
therefore Wendy’s Twitter campaign has been appropriately targeted towards the favorable
demographic and the humor and engagement with trends have been really helpful in engaging with this
segment.

3. Did Wendy’s Twitter campaign increase the company’s sales and profits?

As the case also mentions, it is difficult to find a direct link between the sales and Twitter campaigns and
the company was seeing a lot of fluctuations in revenue and sales in the period when the Twitter
campaign was active. I did some extra research and it shows that the company’s revenue did started
increasing since 2017 with an average of 12% yearly so it is safe to say that the Twitter campaign had a
positive effect on the its financial performance. It is difficult to assign the revenue increases only to the
companys’ social media activities but I think it is possible that Wendy's engaging and entertaining
content on Twitter has helped its overall brand image, customer engagement, which has led to
increased sales.
Wendy’s Revenue 2010-2023 | WEN. (n.d.). MacroTrends.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/WEN/wendys/revenue

4. Can Wendy’s replicate its Twitter campaign on other social media platforms?

I believe the company can replicate its Twitter campaign on the other social media platforms to some
extent. For example, the Wendy’s signature which is their authenticity and consistent brand voice and
tone can be applied to their strategy’ on other platforms as well. The company can use the same
strategy of promptly responding to the users and engaging with them on other platforms like Instagram
and Facebook by using Threads and stories on Instagram and Status updates or stories on Facebook,
while considering that they need to make adjustments to their content form to adapt to these platforms
(like more visual content). They can encourage the users the same way they did on Twitter to create
User Generated Content related to their brand and also leverage social media influencers on platforms
like Instagram or YouTube to promote their brand.
5. How can Wendy’s improve its social media strategy in the future?

What they are currently doing on their social media (prompt response, UGC, influencers etc. ) is very
good but there are areas they can improve:

the company can expand to other social media platforms to reach a broader audience(like TikTok, and
YouTube) are popular among different demographics and offer opportunities for creative content. The
company can also invest in visual content like images, videos, and Stories to perform well on visual
platforms like Instagram and TikTok which are highly engaging. Wendy's could use them to create
visually appealing content while maintaining its unique voice. Since these visual platforms like Facebook
and Instagram have the shopping option, Wendy's can explore new ways to sell products directly to
users and also use targeted ads to reach people more accurately. They Can also use ads on the platforms
they are currently on and include special links to purchases on the ads so that they can track how many
people used the link to make a purchase and track the effectiveness of their campaign. They can
continue analyzing social media performance with different analysis tools to monitor metrics like
engagement, reach, and conversions to identify what works and what doesn't. Also, while I see that they
know how to respond to customer messages (with the right use of language), it is important to provide
training for the social media team to avoid any mistakes or use of wrong words or hashtags that might
have a very negative effect on their reputation (like what we talked about in class about McDonalds
hashtag that got out of hand). They can also follow and keep an eye on the trends on different social
media platforms and use those to their benefit. They may also be able to collaborate with different
brands and collaborate with them.