Social Media Strategy Case Study @ Nestlé – Digital Acceleration Team key to success

Nestle faced a severe back lash on various social media platforms from customers in 2010 when Greenpeace boycotted and posted a viral video which highlighted the company’s use of palm oil produced from unsustainable practices which destroyed rainforests major  habitats of orangutans. Nestle strategy of forcefully removing the viral video and improper handling of Facebook pages protests failed which forced the company to relook at its social media strategy as a whole. Nestlé embraced a new social media strategy based on principle of open engagement to rebuild its reputation and an ethical code implemented that promoted open, honest engagement and this strategy was communicated to employees worldwide. Company developed a new framework using data and insights gained from social media activities on various platforms and used it to develop new successful and innovative campaigns. Social Media monitoring and engagement on various social media platforms by a dedicated team has enabled the company to engage with consumers and public and avoid negative sentiment and social crisis.

Nestlé created the Digital Acceleration Team (DAT) which continuously tracks consumer sentiments in real-time and instantly responds to any negative trends they identify on various social networking sites. The DAT team is responsible for listening and monitoring worldwide social media conversations and identifies early warnings about negative sentiments. The DAT team is also responsible to strategize and determine which the best approaches to social marketing both in terms of driving reach and engagement. DAT also produces training videos for Nestlé operating units worldwide, and also manages an internal social networking system that enables employees to find and work with others sharing similar interests. Blogging is encouraged, and the firm has its own YouTube-like, internal video-sharing system called DigiTube. DAT also conducts a program for company executives working at different parts of the world to the company’s headquarters for eight months of intensive training in digital trends and the skills learned there are taken to regional offices worldwide. DAT members have ‘hack-a-thons’ to solve problems, anticipate trends and search for ideas.

Nestlé’s social media strategy has been successful as the company successfully manages 1,500 pieces of content being posted every day on social media, 50 percent of all Nespresso capsules being sold online, 180 million Facebook “likes” (with growth of 5-7 percent every month) and 200,000 employees on an internal social media platform. The company has more than 170 million fans across over 750 brand pages on Facebook alone. Post the DAT model success company scaled it worldwide and launched in India, China, and Italy with plans for 12 other locations. Company has been focusing on active employee engagement on various social networking sites as content is critical and employees are the best source of the content as the company do not want to totally rely on professionals and media agencies for social content. Nestlé sells 1.2 billion products a day across the globe and significant numbers of customers are active on various social networking sites and company has to engage with them on such platforms and respond to their opinions and interests.

Social Media Strategy @ McDonald’s – Real time monitoring & quick response

McDonald’s engages actively with their customers and fans actively on various social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. and is a complex task for the company to do so as it operates in 118 countries across the world. Company has to make sure it is sending a consistent and uniform message to its customers across the globe.  According to McDonald's Global Director of Digital and Social Media Sosti Ropaitis, McDonald’s is global decentralized brand and the local marketing teams within each market take their own decisions exclusively for those markets. It is even more required because of the social, cultural changes that each market has and also the different menus that company customizes according to each market requirements. But the company headquarters will take care of the global campaigns related to global sporting events like Olympics and World Cups. Some of the regional or country specific campaigns like the McDonald’s Canada Campaign “Our Food. Your Questions” giving people a chance to ask the company anything about its food are highly successful.

Real time monitoring is essential part of McDonald’s Social Media strategy. Every month, McDonald's tracks between 2.5 million and 3 million conversations on social media sites in an effort to identify consumer trends. The company uses tools like Radian6 and Sprout Social that helped in increase the speed and visibility of certain issues as they emerge.The company relies on true engagement, which is a function of content, context and timeliness. Lot of time is spent on creating real-time content; create unique transparent campaigns that connect with audiences. Internally with the help of Legal teams, company developed guidelines that help in taking advantage of real-time marketing opportunities like celebrities walking into McDonald’s Restaurants and taking pictures with the company products or tweeting about their experience with McDonald’s, the company retweet the original tweet without adding anything to the tweet.

McDonald’s adopted the constant test-and-learn mode, wherein the company tests and evaluates the different marketing messages whenever they are rolling a new product. Company constantly talks about the various attributes of the product rather than the product itself and this engagement drives significant volumes for the new product. Quick response is also essential for the company to survive as the customers have to be answered and also the company needs to control the social conversations across the various social media platforms. McDonald’s also had certain bad experiences earlier with their social media campaigns and the company seems to have learnt lesson and realized the fact that it is better to keep a constant monitoring on the social conversations and respond as and when there is a negative conversation and try contain the damage or else the company’s brand reputation will take a beating. The biggest learning from McDonald’s Strategy is that for quick response on social media platforms first social conversations have to be monitored on a day to day basis and create an internal framework, guidelines and teams that can respond without wasting time.