Future of Social Media In Danger ⚡, 

Here’s Why!

Future of Social Media In Danger, Here’s Why!

I’ve been telling creators and businesses to build an exit plan before it’s too late. The way social media algorithms are evolving. There will be only a content engine.

No Influencer, No Creator, No Social Media business. What we would have left is an AI-controlled content engine.

That engine never gives a creator or business enough time to build that connection. Or brand messaging. We all are going to be affected by this. Me too.

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June 29, 2023 - 9 min read

Wendy's Social Media Strategy

When you read a blog about growing on twitter, you will never find an example of Wendy's social media strategy. But comparing Wendy's twitter follower growth to other marketers giving basic advice on twitter marketing. You will be confused like should I have a twitter strategy like Wendy's or listen to a random marketer on Internet.

 

As a social media strategist, I would suggest listen to both and understand dynamics of these different social media strategies. I will explain what that means for businesses and young marketers looking to market a business on twitter or any other social media platform.

 

The starting point is to not overcomplicate strategy work and learn the basics of social media in 2023.

 

Understanding A Brand Social Media Strategy

 

How you market a brand on social media is completely different than how you market a new business or an Influencer. The social media marketing strategy differs a lot. Here's a short brief about those different aspects:

 

Brand Social Media Strategy: A business that has achieved a brand level is different. Because they have figured out brand messaging outside the social media world. Now they have the ability to create content around that message, to make those outside audiences resonate with it.

 

Wendy's here is an established brand that builds content around their existing brand messaging on Internet. And their social media strategy capitalise on that message to reach newer audiences.

 

A very simple yet complex strategy. As connecting content to pre-built messaging involves creative strategy, Social listening and consumer Insights. Wendy's has mastered this formula to build an effective social media strategy.

 

New Business Social Media Strategy: If you understood everything I mentioned in the Brand strategy section. You now know that a new business strategy on social media doesn't involve messaging. You have the responsibility to work with brand teams to build that messaging.

 

Early on, you have to resist social media trends, a business only known for trends will fade away like dust. A great example will be any business you can't remember now when you think of X.

 

It wasn't that they were not good enough to scale on social media. It was their new business social media strategy that never resonated with the people. Because it takes time and they gave up too soon.

 

What a great social media strategy requires the most is patience to build that relevancy with first 100,500 and 1,000 followers.

 

Influencer Social Media Strategy: I have talked to many influencers in my career and coached a few of them 1:1 to help with growth and business. An unfiltered opinion will be most Influencers don't have a strategy like Wendy's or a successful new business.

 

The reason why Influencers don't have that is they are always in the figuring out part. Most Influencers start at that figuring out part of growth and from there with experimentation. They achieve new goals.

 

To creators looking for strategy and the most important segment of your strategy is figuring out sustainability in posting content regularly. Because Influencers run a content business.

 

An Influencer is first a creator and their  business is to share and distribute content. Secondly, through that creation they build an influence allowing them to charge for that creation.

 

By building that influencing strategy on social media. They can give up that consistent and sustainability part. But their content business will take a dip. The reason for this explanation of an Influencer strategy is that creators and influencers are experimental and originators that always are actively changing audience opinions. For that reason, strategy that works for them is mainly no strategy.

 

They generally need more of a mentorship & coaching element as Influencers. And strategy parts are important for brand and new businesses.

 

Expanding on Wendy's Strategy

 

In the style of Wendy's twitter, I can say it is only a meme. But does that mean you should go and tweet funny stuff on twitter or TikTok trying to scale?  Extremely No.

 

Wendy's follow a social media strategy built on CCP structure that I love. The structure was named by the one and only Jaskaran Saini in 2021. What it stands for is Consumer Content Preferences.

 

Wendy's Instagram or Facebook feed looks way different from what they are doing primarily on TikTok and Twitter. The reason is preference of their consumers is different on each platform.

 

A person consuming content regularly from Wendy's twitter is likely to be inactive on Instagram. As each individual  person devotes their time to only one or two social media apps. And why they are spending Time on twitter instead of Instagram is consumer content preferences.

 

And majority of Twitter users engaging with brands like Wendy's and McDonald's are familiar to this meme culture on Twitter. 100s of brands jump on a social media or meme trends to be more relevant and engaging towards the consumer.

 

It might look like humour is not a strategy, It is, As humour marketing is known to make people recognise your brand even more than before. As humour catches their memories. When consumers come across your business again. The probability of them choosing you over the other brand increases.

 

Why you shouldn't copy this strategy?

 

A simple callout will be humour marketing social media works, for example this is my own TikTok being funny and it works to get clients engaged.

 

 

 

@jaskaransainiz Stop chasing virality on TikTok or another irrelevant marketing practice because you need to figure out your overall content That a marketer is trying to do while you continue to ask them questions about going viral. . . #socialmediamanager #marketingmanager #marketer #socialmediamarketing #ugccreator #ugcontent #socialmediamanagement ♬ original sound - Jaskaran Saini

 

It works to get clients and business is because Wendy's, McDonald's, Ryan Air and marketers like myself have a different social media sales strategy and bottom of the funnel strategies for other campaigns. Without these two, the first meme strategy will never deliver the best results.

 

Can you pull off this tweet and get people buying?

 

 

 

YESSS! When you have a strategy to post clever product integration alongside meme posts. These were the next few tweets from Wendy's after the first tweet above!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Binge-watch Wendy's twitter feed after few minutes you will find on average how often they promote their products versus them being funny on Twitter. That data analysing part will tell you a lot about having a 80/20 frequency for product selling + social media growth strategy.

 

Practicality of Wendy's Strategy

First point is to put the work into social listening and online trend tracking practices. The space moves really fast, if you don't there is going to be a problem.

 

Second, get into your network bubble on social media. All of the big brands on twitter have created a cadence to interact with each other. You have to do the same with your network and engage with that audience. get familiar with newer audiences from other brands network.

 

Here's an example from Twitter, In the tweet replies you can find many brands interacting with McDonald's:

 

 

 

 

 

Third, Compare your social media strategies for Instagram, TikTok & Twitter. To find a common point between which segment works and how the audience reacts on each app. If the common sentiment about your brand is different on each platform. You need to work on your overall social media strategy before going comedic on twitter.  Because conversational platforms like reddit and twitter can get your brand cancelled or backlash for going over the line.

 

An example is Shein, a brand with negative sentiment around their messaging and products. They can't do the same meme strategy like Wendy's because of that negative sentiment. That shows importance of gathering consumer insights from marketing team before doing humour marketing.

 

Fourth, Teach yourself about culture and trends in real-time not the internet ones. Try to follow news and research publications like McKinsey, The Social Juice, Gartner and Insider Intelligence, etc.

 

These will help you more on the marketing side to gain further experience on how the overall state of social media and Internet is changing.

 

Jaskaran's Personal Bite

 

(This includes bias) For most brands Wendy's social media strategy might never work if they don't understand how social media works. And if they aren't patient enough to achieve success over a time period.

 

You have to be patient and believe in yourself or social media manager working on your account. Social Media is no magic, it is all truth and meaningful connections.

 

I believe Wendy's social media team interacts very consistently with their audience to constantly improve their strategy and that should be the main takeaway from this post.