Crashing a Twitter Party

Twitter was on the whole a new experience to me. I created an account very recently, since it was a requirement for my assignment. But found it to be very interesting. People are very creative in Twitter, because of the word limit that they have. They are forced to tweet interesting stuffs in just two lines that can attract a lot of people. This becomes more like a short poem. A lot of tweets become so viral that they are quoted in print media and other places.

1. Tweeting to a company: 

I chose Comcast, whose network support is what I use. I had a real concern, which is, no network coverage from every corner of the house. I used to receive the signal only in the vicinity of the modem. I wanted to get the issue addressed, so tweeted them. It was on a Saturday, and I did not receive a response. I thought, may be they do not respond or may be they do not respond on weekends. But the next day, on a Sunday, I received a response from them and the screenshot is below:

They asked me to send the details to them through Direct Messaging and I said that I will do, but did not send them a message for sometime, so they followed up with me and later I sent them the message. They are now following up with me on the coverage issues that I have. The response was prompt and appropriate and it really showed me the power of Twitter.

I also tweeted to McDonalds, Uber and UPS, but in vain. I received a response from neither of them.

2. Tweeting to a famous personality:

I tweeted a Neil Patel, who is famous blogger of Indian origin. In the tweet, I mentioned him to be my mentor, and also I provided a link to one of my articles, quoting that he is the inspiration behind my blogging. The tweet is as below:

I did not receive a response. But one person liked my tweet, she is a Host of #Teen #Advice Social Network and #Podcast @journalsnetwork. Director of #documentary Family Band: The Cowsills Story. #drummer #songwriter#photographer. She has 1084 followers and 4330 tweets, and her name is Louisse Palanker. And also, I got few followers after this post.

3. Participating in a Debate:

I participated in a debate in twitter on my State election in India, it was all a heated conversation. I posted a subtle and safe tweet asking people to vote and not give up their rights for whatsoever reason. The post is as below:

Above is the Indian cricketer, Ashwin, supporting the campaign that works hard to create awareness among people on the importance of voting.

This is my experience with Twitter and I yet have to learn the nuances and techniques in building my social network through Twitter. Thanks Alice for the very useful class, I hope to build a strong social network soon.

 

McD Vs BK

In every industry we always have some top competitors, who sometimes turn out to be the popular rivals. In most cases they become the famous duos. Such a famous duo is McDonalds and BurgerKing. A Hootsuite analysis was performed between these two burger giants to understand how socially engaging they are and how they handle the complaints that they receive and turn them into positivity. Or, how do they turn every stone thrown at them into a stepping stone for success.

1. Number of tweets:

On performing the analysis on McDonalds, we found that they are on constant touch with people through social media. There is an average of four tweets per minute. While Burger King is not that very constant. The number of tweets a day are much lesser.

2. Numbers and Contents:

McD has far more number of posts, photos, videos and other media. While they also have a larger number of tweets, followers, likes and lists when compared to Burger King.

3. Creativity:

When the creativity in posts are considered, Burger King tops in the amount of creativity that a post carries when compared to McD. Most of McD’s posts are direct promotional, not attractive and has clear advertisement goals. While Burger King provides posts that are innovative and attractive with few twisting elements.

Examples:

Burger King:

The above are good examples of indirect advertising and the posts are engaging and creative.

McDonald:

Direct Advertising, not creative and purely promotional.

4. Responding to Positive comments:

McDonald is very prompt in responding to a positive tweet. But they repeat the same tweet again and again, trying to attract more people to the store and again here, they lack creativity. Their goal clearly is promotional and directly intended in increasing sales.

Burger King refrain themselves from responding to positive comments. Customers feel more or less detached, since they feel that their compliments are reaching nowhere.

5. Responding to negative tweets:

Both the companies do not respond to negative tweets at all, not even once. Customers will just have to keep shouting out their concerns and they can be very sure of not receiving a response or any socially visible action on their disappointment.

6. Answering the queries:

McDonalds do not take time to respond to the queries through Twitter, while Burger King digs down time to find and answer customers when they actually have one valid answer to provide to them. For example, they answer a tweet that was posted way back in August last year.

7. Hashtags:

Both the companies create good hashtags, but only few get a great response. Burger King and McDonald generally use hashtags to announce a new dish or a new offer to attract customers.

Some of the Burger King hashtags are:

#AngriestWhooper – a new dish

McDonald:

#alldaybreakfast – a new offer

These are the various parameter in which the companies were compared. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. In general, it is concluded that both of them should learn to respond to the negative tweets and criticisms and do their best to keep their customers happy. Whichever company proceeds first and takes this step ahead will turn out to be socially more popular than the other.