What we can learn from Wendy’s viral tweets this month

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By Tara Bolger  You may have seen the tweets from fast food restaurant Wendy’s that went viral this month. The Twitter account kicked off the New Year with hilarious and seemingly unfiltered responses to a Twitter user who questioned the brand’s never frozen burgers.

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The Twitter exchange blew up online with coverage across the web and with increased brand engagement on the social network. In fact, for that first week, retweet, replies and likes on Wendy’s tweets accounted for 98% of total engagement, with 2% for @mentions.

When it comes to social media, brands typically have their teams focus on sharing content and answering questions – in a precise tone. But maybe we should take a step back from what we think we know when it comes to social media ‘rules’ around brand etiquette.

Taking it to the viral level that Wendy’s has been able to take it to isn’t going to work for every brand and every company. But there are a few things we can take away from this:

  • Questions you should ask yourself. Is there more we can be doing? Are we missing a conversation? Take a look at your social media accounts. What are you posting and what type of engagement is happening? If you feel like you could be doing more, look at new ways to participate on social media.
  • The language you use. It’s really important to be authentic. The language Wendy’s social media team uses isn’t something we can all get away with, but it’s become authentic for their brand. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try to find ways to insert personal touches in to your communications.
  • Negative responses. There’s always going to be negative responses online. But what about trying to turn it into a positive? It all depends on the comment and you’ll have to judge it and determine what the appropriate response for your company is. It can be tough to even recognize the difference between trolls and people with legitimate concerns, let alone what negative responses you can open up to a little more than others.

Not all brands can take the Wendy’s approach to social media, but we can certainly appreciate and learn from their social media presence and way of communicating.

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