Social Media/Social Network, Aims and Objectives - Essay Example

Dissertation Topic: Social Media/Social Network Executive Summary The paper focuses on understanding the competitive advantages gained by fast-food restaurants through the use of social networking activities in the form of growth in market shares and revenue margins and as well as relating to development of relationship with the consumers and other stakeholders. The paper in a more focused fashion works to understand the social networking activities carried out by McDonald’s and how the company aimed at gaining needed competitive advantage relating to its competitors. In that both theoretical or secondary and primary analysis would be conducted in the form of taking interviews to gain a holistic understanding of the same. Needful inferences are gained from the analysis conducted to comment on the effectiveness of the social networking platform of McDonald’s to gain a global competitive advantage. Contents Contents 2 Introduction 5 Background 5 Aims and Objectives 5 Research Statement 6 Methodology being used 6 Literature Review 7 Social network in business perspective 7 Use of social network by fast food brands 8 McDonald and social network marketing 9 Research Methodology 10 Secondary Research Analysis 10 Primary Research Analysis 11 Case Study Based Research 12 Data Analysis 12 Secondary Data Analysis 12 Primary Data Analysis 18 Different Social Networking Tools Employed 18 Competitive Advantages of McDonald’s in Incorporation of Social Networking Tools 18 Cost Incurred in the Employment of Social Networking by McDonald 19 Requirements to Incorporate Social Networking Tools 19 Problems with Social Networking and Action Called 20 Social Media marketing in Comparison to Traditional Advertising Activities 20 McDonald and Legal Cases Relating to Social Media Networking 21 Social Networking Activity of the Company in Comparison to its Competitors 21 Increase in Market Share and Revenue for McDonald’s 22 Innovations in Social Networking to gain Competitive Advantage 22 Analysis and Evaluation of the Interview 23 Company Policies 23 Company Performance 24 Conclusions and Recommendations 25 References 27 Bibliography 31 Appendix 32 34 Introduction Background Social networking has been an emerging way of promotion of leading fast food brands. Social networking through mainly Facebook and Tweeter has become a mandatory activity of people across the world. It has been easier for people to share about their most activity to their friends, family and relatives. Therefore, they shares important and special activities daily through Facebook updates and Tweets (Maranto & Barton, 2009, p.39). Tweeting or Facebook updating by a person after having food from a multinational fast food brand like McDonald indicates that the person visit there three, four or five times in a week. This type of information sharing in social networking sites not only spreads among all the friends and followers of a person but also it stimulate the desire of a few percentages of people in the total network for having food from the same fast food chain. It is an effective promotion of the food brands done by the customers only and it has major positive impact on the business. Aims and Objectives This study is about social media and social marketing. Objective of the study is to identify the impact of social networking on fast food business. It can be elaborated as how the leading fast food brands use social network as efficient medium of marketing of their brands and can maximize their competitive advantage. Social media marketing has been an emerging trend among the fast food companies because customers of these brands often share their feedback in their social network. Therefore, this study will identify whether use of internet network as a platform of promotion leads to higher competitive advantage. Research Statement The research paper focuses on evaluating in how the restaurant and fast-food companies operating worldwide tend to gain in on competitive advantage through the use of social networking tools. In that the paper explicitly would focus on the social media marketing strategy of McDonald’s where the company acts as a global leader in the fast-food industry. Thus the paper tends to understand the different competitive advantages gained by restaurant and fast-food chains through social media networking strategy with special emphasis on McDonald’s. Methodology being used The methodology being used would comprise of both secondary and primary data analysis. Secondary data analysis conducted with the help of journals and books would assist in the gaining of large scale authentic data sources relating to the issue. These data sets tend to serve as a backbone in the conducting of the primary research on the basis of selecting a sample population size and formulation of questionnaires to gain a pragmatic understanding of the issue in contemporary times. Finally the research paper also gains resort to a case study relating to McDonald’s. Use of case study based research refines the understanding of the issue in a more analytical fashion needed for gaining effective inferences. Literature Review Social network in business perspective If all the Facebook members become the constituents of a single country, then the country would be the third largest country in the world after China and India. Therefore, one advertisement can be penetrated to a target population of more than more than 100 million within a single week. This is the strength of a social network like Facebook. A social network has tremendous ability to amplify word of mouth throughout the network. There are very few business and executives that are aware about this efficiency of social network and also very few marketing managers use this efficient platform for promoting their brands (Perdue, 2010, p.5). Now days, it has become an emerging trend of the business that they diligently develop tweeter feeds and Facebook pages about their new brands and products. But very few of them exactly know in-depth understanding how to interacts with the target customers through social networking. The efficient users of social network has proved that social media platforms are very efficient for penetrating new product and brand and it drives faster growth of sales of new brands and profitability and loyalty (Divol, Edelman & Sarrazin, 2012, p.1). In busi8ness perspective, social networking has four different factions. These are responding, monitor, lead and amplify. All these collaboratively can stimulate the target consumer behaviour and their desire of purchasing. Therefore, the strategic marketing executives need to identi8fy how, when and where the social networking media can influence consumers for catalyzing buying decision for a product or service. The main theoretical approach in social media marketing is termed as online word of mouth branding or online word of mouth promotion. It is not face to face convincing by a representative of a company with a customer. OWOM i.e. Online Word Of Mouth marketing strategy is more efficient than face to face, print media and digital media (TV) in terms of faster penetration of brand and product awareness, more potential to stimulate the desire. The micro blogging is very much close to positive purchase decision (Jansen, Zhang, Sobel & Chodhury, n.d., p.2) Therefore, it should be the objective of the internet marketing managers that putting an advert of a new product or brand can stimulate the purchasing decision but they need to conduct micro blogging by the customers so that each customer can stimulate the purchasing decision of some percentage of the total members in their network. Therefore, social network marketing acts as viral marketing which has very strong and faster reach than any other promotional away. Use of social network by fast food brands It has been a growing trend among the leading multinational fast food restaurant brands to use social networks mainly Facebook and Tweeter as efficient marketing platform for promoting their brands. These companies have implement word of mouth marketing, viral marketing and buzz marketing through popular social networking sites like Facebook. Leading fast-food brands like McDonald, KFC, and Pizza Hut etc are famous for their competence in terms of their unique range of products and quality of the food products [Harris, Schwartz & Brownell, 2012, p.3]. These highly practice advertising practice through media. In twentieth century, a rapid change in the digital marketing practice by the3se companies from traditional medium of advertisement like newspaper and television. People are very much connected to internet than they spend time with television and newspaper. People access social networks very frequently to communicate and share their important activities daily. It is traditional approach of word of mouth marketing used by the fast food brands since long past and but it was not that much effective due to availability of inefficient medium of communication by the customers. Social networks are the efficient platforms of communication in terms of faster spread of updates by the users. Therefore, a positive feedback from customers of any food brand spread rapidly to all the members in customer’s network. This might stimulate the desire of having same brand food to the some people in the network and also many people are become aware of a new product if someone in the network have that food and share a positive experience. Therefore, online word of mouth marketing has high impact on sales of these leading fast food brands. Emerging trend of accessibility of internet in the mobile phones through wi-fi connectivity has made easier for the people to access internet. The internet users also can customise the social media pages according to their likes and favourites (Kaplan, 2012, Adage. 2012, p.130). Therefore, the food brands automatically high reach too many people who have customer their online pages as their likes. A new product advertisement in the food brand pages spreads all the linked members of the total people who liked the page. McDonald and social network marketing McDonald has been successfully grabbing the opportunity of borderless nature of the web. Since fast few years with the emergence of social media marketing the company has been highly focused on the internet marketing especially promoting their brands through popular social media like Facebook. It has trapped the social media to share stories about its food quality and concern of the company about hygiene factor in food processing (OJICA. 2009, p.3). In Canada, McDonald has released a series of videos to answer the frequent queries of the customers like why ads of the product different in looks from the original one available at McDonald outlets. Many6 people have shared their feedbacks on the McDonald page in Facebook and this activity has created a st5rong buzz among the users of the social network which has substantial impact on sales. The Big MC video has more than 1.9 million views which is successful response from the potential as well as existing customers of the company (Adage. 2012, p.1). Research Methodology The research methodology underlined for the paper would tend to comprise both secondary and primary research analysis. An elucidation of the research methodology to be used in the paper can be provided as follows. Secondary Research Analysis Secondary Research analysis would be conducted through the use of books and journals that would contribute in the gaining of authentic information from a plethora of sources. Large scale information related to the issue would be gained in a lesser span of time from the internet that would help the researcher in saving both time and cost. Similarly another course of research methodology pertaining to primary research would also be incorporated for the paper. The secondary data gained would serve as a primary support for conducting the Primary Research in that it would assist in the framing of the questionnaires to retrieve the required data from the targeted sample population (Kumar, 2010, p.138-139). Primary Research Analysis For the course of the Primary Research unstructured or open-ended questionnaire sets would be prepared that would be used for conducting the interview of the targeted population. Focusing on the research under question the targeted sample population would be taken as a single manager of McDonald’s from where potential inferences ought to be gained for conducting the research. In the mode of formulation of the research questions effective focus is rendered such that the research questions do not hint to gain any personal information from the sample population. The questions formed would tend to move down from a generalist to a more probing or narrow fashion needed for gaining focused inferences to the research query. Further ethical undertakings must be taken in that the inferences gained from the survey should not be used in other manners other than that informed to the people being interviewed for meeting the research objective. Here sample population size would be limited to only one manager pertaining to McDonald Corporation that would be taken in a random manner from a set of given managers. However stratified random sampling can be conducted in selection of the manager in such that the manager is chosen exclusively from the marketing department of the company. Stratified random sampling being incorporated contributes in the reduction of sampling errors that tend to occur on the dependency on simple random sampling for the research where the manager could have been chosen from any department whatsoever. Further the pattern of inferences gained from the sampling population would be employed in a qualitative fashion such that the same would not incorporate any quantitative or statistical tool for gaining inferences to the research query. Rather the inferences would be dealt in a narrative or descriptive form that would contribute in a more in-depth understanding of the practical use of the different concepts and theories that would be dealt of in the literature review. Through the use of qualitative research a researcher can gain hold of new thoughts or ideas concerning the issue and thereby can move on to creation of avenues for helping in future research activities (Nykiel, 2007, p.25-26; Green, 2000, p.11-13). Case Study Based Research Finally the research methodology used for the paper also principally focuses on a specific case of McDonald’s. The case tends to evaluate the specific competitive advantages and benefits that McDonald’s aims to gain in the realm of employing social media networking to expand its market share and revenue position in the fast food industry. Case Study based research like secondary research not only contributes in the gaining of considerable bulk of related information in a much quicker fashion to contribute in gaining of needful inferences to meet the research objective but also helps in reduction of potential research cost. Further case study based research also amounts in effectively analysing the issue from different angles that contributes in the gaining of needful data relating to the issue. The use of case study based research also contributes in enhancing the mode of research probe to gain subtle and needful inferences to the research issue taken. This strategy thereby helps in enhancing the quality of the research undertaken to gain potential inferences for future research use (Myers, 2008, p.81-82). Data Analysis Secondary Data Analysis In this 21st century the concept of implementation of social media has become an important tool in terms of marketing Warfield. Earlier day’s people with lesser demand were oriented with almost same kind of products and services because lack of advanced technology, lack of advanced media and most importantly there were limited number of brands. Gradually the story changed after the Second World War when globalization took place. Slowly and steadily the taste of people has changed due to increasing of variety products along with this the needs of people has increased too. As a result today we can see that the competition between different brands with respect to the almost same product or service (Grier & Kumanyika, 2008, p.1). Today the field of marketing is so saturated that different companies are being used to implement different marketing and promotional strategies to get customers’ attention. There are n numbers of media which are used to promote a product or service in market, mouth to mouth is very much familiar, then we use print media such as news paper advertisement, big hording advertisement to promote the products. But today due to many brands and competitions everybody wants to create a benchmark by using different kind of marketing strategy (Montgomery & Chester, 2009, p.20). Three major types of marketing strategies used in broad social media marketing are viral marketing, buzz marketing and most efficient WOM i.e. word of mouth marketing. Leading fast food brands like McDonald promote their brand through these efficient ways of marketing in popular social media like Facebook, YouTube etc. Different theories and models have been developed by empirical researchers in the new and emerging area of marketing which are implemented efficiently by the businesses. Businesses develop marketing strategy with a main objective to increase sells volume. But it is a broad objective and business has specific objectives for specific marketing strategies. The companies have identified that social media marketing is a successful way to build rapport with the target customers, increases the brand awareness and brand value, increase traffic of company websites which leads to increase sells and it is the fastest way to reach message to the target demographics. Effective communication between the business and customers is main goal of marketing activities. Social media marketing is highly efficient in terms of developing effective communication. Social media integration theory model is an efficient theory for social media marketing which mainly consists of four factors. These are exposure, engagement or connecting, feedback and sharing. Marketing activities through online social media are conducted through these four processes. This theory is highly applicable for interactive social media platforms like Facebook, Tweeter, LinkedIn, YouTube etc. These platforms have radically change the way and effectiveness of marketing activities conducted by businesses. Social media integration theory mainly focuses on the both way communication between the businesses and their target customers. Four major components of social media platforms have changed the traditional communication process of marketing activities. The response from the target audiences of online marketing activities is very much higher than traditional marketing activities and customers engagement and response is the main output from a marketing activity. (Source: Social Media Today LLC) Traditional, academic marketing theories acts as one way road i.e. communication flows only from businesses to the customers and customers response is negligible compared to repetitive engagement of business. But social media has become emerging trend of marketing only because of huge response from the customers. Therefore, Social Media Integration theory indicates the both way communication i.e. information from businesses to the customers and response and feedback from the target customers to the businesses. It helps the businesses to measure number of potential and interested customers among the target audiences which was previously done through number4s of assumptions and qualitative signals of consumer behaviour. Currently, the fast food brands like McDonald, Pizza Hut, KFC etc focuses on services along with new product development in the similar line of their unique types of product portfolio. Therefore, the traditional marketing strategy i.e. 4Ps of product marketing is extended to & 7Ps of product with service marketing. Therefore, they have focuses on people, process and physical evidence along with four major areas of marketing i.e. price, product, place, promotion. This is the revised theory of marketing of fast food brand which is integrated mixed of food and hospitality industry due to rethinking of marketing myopia i.e. businesses’ major shift from only product quality to quality service for better customer relationship. Leading fast food business like McDonald has similar design and colour of outlets, similar pattern of food service by the employees and their dresses and similar transparent food processing. These lead to more demand of its products. Promotion through a social media is accepted by maximum people in today’s word. McDonald’s is very familiar and popular brand in world in terms of first food industry. Today’s young generation love to have first food because mainly it consumes time and moreover it adds calorie, fat to health and it’s sugar-sweetened beverages attracts the young generation even the kids to have the fast food. The big Mac burger is the popular first food to the people of all ages around the world. McDonald is a reputed brand and the company itself has done a differentiation among his competitors. There are several big names in this segment like KFC, SUBWAY etc. But the promotional strategy itself created the benchmark among his competitors. McDonald’s first achieved the success path through social media in Canada but the brand created the benchmark in USA by using the Web marketing Strategy. Today people can travel anywhere anyplace through the internet, McDonald’s applied this theory properly. At first McDonald’s started follow up in Canada asking to the consumers about the food and giving the answers to their questions, like this way they started the social media marketing seriously and at that plot “Our Food Your Question” this website became very much popular (Boggs, 2011, p.12). Gradually the viewers of this website increases and the burgers of McDonald rapidly liked by the people of all ages. This viral marketing through social networking promotion of Big Mac burger spreads all over the United States after Canada. People love to have big Mac and seriously the market share of McDonalds suddenly went up in the segment of fast food industry. Especially the company used to attract the young generations evens the kids by the attracting promotional activity through social media. Fast food was popular mainly among the Americans but now-a-days almost everywhere we can see the McDonald’s outlet in this world and the main reason behind this success of this company is the promotional activity. Even the competitors are using this social media intern of marketing but the creativity to use the media makes McDonald’s different from others. The company has been using online word of mouth marketing, viral marketing and buzz marketing through popular social media network like Facebook. Today we can see that the social media covers many marketing promotional strategies through the social networks. Now-a-days almost everybody is interconnected either by Facebook, Orkut, Hi-Five or they are following the blogs in Twitter. Even people are viewing and sharing their thoughts through the videos in YouTube. Everywhere McDonalds is there. Moreover the user himself or herself does the face to face marketing through social networks by sharing the experience about having an Big Mac burger and it helps to attract the consumers because on the very next day there might be a possibility of that individual’s friend or any belonging may visit the nearest McDonald’s outlet to test the Big Mac Burger. Even in YouTube we can see the advertisement of McDonald’s before starting of any video. Like this way people are choosing the outlets for Lunch or dinner or any get together. In one word the value of McDonald’s has increased by promoting its quality products through the unique social networking promotional strategy. Like this continuous excellence McDonalds can maximize its competency among its competitions (Thomas, Peters, Howell & Robbins, 2012, p.88). Primary Data Analysis The objective of the Primary Data Analysis is to gain needful inferences based on the open-ended questions framed for conducting the interview of the manager. Different Social Networking Tools Employed The company manager stated that McDonald’s tends to use a plethora of social networking sites for conducting its external marketing and promotional communication to large group of consumers on a worldwide basis. The company manager reflected that McDonald’s tends to use tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a number of blogging sites for conducting its external marketing communication. Similarly the company also works through the use of an internal social networking tool like StationM to help encourage the flow of interpersonal communication among different employee groups spread along global regions. This social networking site also contributes in enhancing the perspective of organisational communication in the multinational food chain. Competitive Advantages of McDonald’s in Incorporation of Social Networking Tools The manager of the company responded to the question that McDonald’s tends to gain significant advantages pertaining to development of business networks in both existing and new markets owing to the use of social networking tools. The enhanced use of such social networking tools helps the company in gaining on activities relating to collaboration and coordination where the company management can effectively coordinate the efforts of the different stakeholders to help in gaining needed growth in terms of market share and revenue. Similarly another competitive advantage gained in by the company relates to the enhancement of the employment scenario of the regions where the company has set up its branches thereby helping in the development of potential relations with the regional authorities for business development. Cost Incurred in the Employment of Social Networking by McDonald In providing an example of one such social networking campaign carried out by McDonald’s the manager stated that during April 2010 the company incurred around $1000 to render gift cards to customers the value of which ranged from $5 to around $10. These gift cards rendered in a random fashion to around 100 customers happened to cause a huge uproar in enhancing social media networking activities in the form of several blogs and tweets in favour of the company. Requirements to Incorporate Social Networking Tools The company focused on broadly incorporating the social media networks in its marketing and promotional campaigning to help generate more additional revenues in terms of encouraging in the increase of cross-promotional ventures by other companies on its Facebook page. Again the use of social media networks tends to increasingly incorporate innovation in the mode of involving consumers to play online games or creating a virtual restaurant environment. Similarly the interest of the consumers can be further enhanced in the mode where they can share their own videos or feedbacks thereby helping in the development and sustainment of virtual communities. Problems with Social Networking and Action Called The manager stated that McDonald’s faced a charge owing to the creation of the social networking application that enabled a child to intercommunicate with friends and relatives in the mode of sending posts and videos. Parent communities complained that such social networking activities featured in by McDonald’s tended to create a wrong habit in their children that was failing to be monitored. Thus the company undertook a serious stance of removing the application and thereby met its social responsibility goals. This was a serious instance as stated in by the manager that posed problems and grievances pertaining to the viral marketing campaign of McDonald’s. Social Media marketing in Comparison to Traditional Advertising Activities The manager stated that the global or international nature of social media marketing by the company helped the concern in clearing the doubts and queries of many people pertaining to the quality of its food products. The manager responded that use of traditional marketing tools like print and visual advertising would have failed to serve the purpose for the same would not have contributed in enhancing the mode of transparency involved or in developing the pattern of relationship with global consumer communities in an enhanced fashion. Thus the use of the social media marketing network helped the company in clearly advertising a clearer and consumer responsible consumer image. McDonald and Legal Cases Relating to Social Media Networking The manager stated that during 2011 the company had to counter severe criticisms from members of law for a viral marketing endeavour in which the company was caught in rendering abuse to a transgender woman. The manager further stated that the company took strict action against the person that was responsible in rendering such abusive remarks and also responded through the rendering of tweets to green wash its image in the front of the global consumer community. Social Networking Activity of the Company in Comparison to its Competitors The manager queried stated that the company focuses on enhancing the prospects of its sales and promotion activity for its food stuffs prepared through largely using the social networking activities like rendering Tweets in Twitter. Tweets rendered by the company are created with one single focus to help the consumers gain enhanced knowledge of the different types of promotions or new type of menus that are being introduced by the company in its different outlets. McDonald’s, states the manager focuses on gaining larger number of customer entries to its different outlets through the use of its online sales promotions and cataloguing activities. On the contrary the manager stated that the social networking activity of one McDonald’s close competitors, KFC relies more on socialising with the customers in the form of reflecting the tweets rendered by them in the company’s account. The manager further reflected that where the endeavour of McDonald’s is to increase the percentage of sales of its products and promotional offers rendered the endeavour of KFC’s social networking is to enhance the socialising effort with the consumers. However still the manager stated that the company is focusing on to enhance its socialising effect through the incorporation of more coloured images and decorative contents to reduce the level of monotony involved. Increase in Market Share and Revenue for McDonald’s The marketing manager of the company being interviewed stated that the company by dearth of its social networking activities have tended to gain on in global market and sales growth and also in terms of operating income through the enhanced use of its social networking. The company tended to gain a total growth of around 5.6 percent in terms of market share and $8.5 billion in terms of Operating Income during 2011 owing to the support gained from social networking activities to track a global customer base. The rise in the amount of market share and revenue of the company was possible owing to the rise in the number of customers along United States and other European and other Asian nations. Increased customer socialization and interaction were made possible by the company through the integration of social networking activities in its operating and marketing sphere. The manager stated that the incorporation of social networking in the organisational platform helped the company effectively manage and coordinate the relationship with both the external and internal people thereby contributing to the growth in market share and revenue margins. Innovations in Social Networking to gain Competitive Advantage The manager finally stated that the company is working on to promote large scale innovations and value additions pertaining to its social networking sphere to help get real time consumer data and feedbacks. The company tends to integrate the social networking platform with those of the consumers’ through the use of broadcasting media like YouTube and Facebook where the company tends to gain videos and current posts shared in by the people. Moreover the company also works along these social networking mediums to reflect behind the scene activities pertaining to development and processing of food and other socially responsible activities thereby enhancing on the dimensions of transparency. Analysis and Evaluation of the Interview Company Policies The manager of McDonald when interviewed stated that the company policy rests on gaining private data from its consumer groups relating to adults and children below 16 years pertaining to the category of name, address and electronic mail addresses. The company does not necessitate gaining of other private information relating to profiles rendered in the Facebook and Google. Electronic mail addresses along with the mailing address are taken hold off to send mailers both in electronic form or in the physical level pertaining to any type of promotions or events held by the concern. The website of the company only encourages the people to render only the above information types to the company. The manager further stated that such personal information is only used by the concern to intimate the people on promotions or offers rendered by the restaurant from time to time. However again if the customers happen to reflect any type of complaints to the frequency of mails or intimations sent both online and on the physical level the company promises to take instant action as to stopping such activities. For children the company only endeavours to sent wallpapers and other promotional features online but does not endeavour to encourage them to participate in any online games or events without the permission of their parents (McDonald’s, 2012). Focusing on the above company policy underlined by the McDonald’s manager it is observed that in the interviews taken the respondents stated that the company put a cease on the online events planned for children on being complained in by the parents. Similarly again the respondents to the interview taken also reflected on the point that the company took strict action against the person that had used the social networking site to render remarks of transgender customers. Company Performance The manager also reflected that in terms in growth in sales during the 2011 period the company gained a percentage growth of around 5.6 percent. Moreover in terms of earning on a per share basis the manager reflected that the figure reached to around 11 percent during the 2011 period. Again the Operating Income for the company during the 2011 period recorded a total operating income of around $8.5 billion (McDonald’s Corporation 2011, p.1). Moreover the company gains the potential of opening a large number of restaurants of around 34,000 on a worldwide basis that tends to employ around 1.8 million people spread on a global base of around 19 nations. The manager reflected that the productive and growth potential of the company had been further enhanced through the use of social networking activities. Social networking has largely contributed in enhancing the market share and revenue growth of the company in the global market for fast food products (McDonald’s, 2010-12). The interviews taken of the respondent groups also reflect the same theme in how social media networking contributed in advancing growth and sales of the company in the fast food market. The respondents also reflected that cost incurred by the company in terms of both online and physical marketing activities is met through the huge rise in consumer demand for its food products and services. Conclusions and Recommendations The paper endeavours to study the benefits and advantages gained in by fast food restaurants through the use of social media networking to augment the level of competitive advantage. In that the paper reflects on relevant theoretical models and thereby tends to draw a link between the incorporation of the concepts underlined through the evaluation of the social networking activities in McDonald’s. It is learnt that McDonald’s effectively uses social networking activities to develop its relationship base with consumers and other external stakeholders. Similarly the social networking activity of the company also contributes in better monitoring of employees and other internal stakeholders spread along global branches. Increased socialisation with its target consumer base assists the company to gain on in market shares and operating revenues in the form of creating customer hypes. Both secondary and primary analysis is carried out in the paper to gain an enhanced study of the different types of social networking platforms used by restaurant companies and especially McDonald’s. The analysis also reflects seeming problems and troubles faced in by McDonald’s in its social networking operations and the manner the company countered such to create a more transparent image. In the course of the primary analysis an interview carried out with the marketing manager of the company through the use of unstructured questionnaire sets contributed in gaining an in-depth understanding of the same. The research conducted in the paper is however limited to the understanding of the advantages and benefits obtained by McDonald’s in the course of using social media marketing activities to gain on revenues and market share. The paper fails to render further focus on the marketing and promotional activities conducted by the company based on different national cultures relating to the region where the company has set up its restaurant outlets. In the same fashion the paper also fails to reflect on the different types and natures of social media networking activities that the company needs to carry out based on different local cultures to gain the right stand. Further research based on use of marketing models can be rendered to gain an ideal understanding of the marketing position of the company in the different target markets. Thus further research can be introduced pertaining to the use of strategic marketing tools like PESTEL Analysis to understand the adaptability of the marketing and promotional ventures of the company in the larger markets. The analysis would reflect on the effect of different macro-environmental factors on the operation and marketing activities of the company around the globe. 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Available at: http://sloanreview.mit.edu/feature/social-business-value-media-and-technology-industries-see-value/. Spraggon, D. M. 2011. Think Before You Tweet: Social Media Best Practices for Undergraduate Business Schools. [Pdf]. Available at: http://people.umass.edu/resec/workingpapers/documents/ResEcWorkingPaper2011-1.pdf. [Accessed on December 12, 2012]. Appendix Q.1. What are the different social media networking tools that are being incorporated by your company to gain significant competitive advantages? Q.2. What type of competitive advantages have your company earned in the incorporation of social media tools relating to your competitors? Q.3. How much cost does your company incur in the employment of social media marketing tools or networks in gaining competitive advantage? Q.4. What strategic objective required you to broadly incorporate the social media networking tool rather than depend on existing marketing and promotional tools? Q.5. Did the strategy selection pertaining to the incorporation of a social media marketing tool ever falter leading to a business loss? What was the company’s reaction to the event? Q.6. How does the use of social media network as an effective marketing, advertising and promotional tool for your company transform the existing marketing platform based on print and visual media? Q.7. Did your company ever countered a law suit or public discontentment owing to the message the company endeavoured to transmit through the use of social media networks? Q.8. How does the advertising, promotional and marketing campaign carried out by you through the employment of social media networking differentiates from that conducted by your competitors? Q.9. What is the level of increase in revenue and market share currently owing to the use of social networks in its marketing activities? Q.10. What further innovations are your company planning to conduct in the realm of using social media networks for gaining on in competitive advantages? Read More