Why McDonalds has 4.1 mil on Instagram

4 min readNov 5, 2021

McDonalds has 4.1 million followers on Instagram. 4.1 million real people follow an Instagram page for a fast food chain. So why do so many people follow McDonalds? Well it’s all about marketing.

Brands in 2021 market in an extremely different way than they did in the past. With such a competitive market and with the increasing influence of social media it makes sense that these companies would spend time as well as money perfecting their online image to appeal to the masses.

But who exactly are the masses that they’re appealing to? In a study done by Statista dot com over half of Instagram’s user base in July 2021 were under 35. So that means that most people on Instagram are either millennials or gen z. With this demographic in mind McDonalds marketing strategy is sweeter than a McFlurry.

People in these generations hate advertisements. They don’t trust traditional commercials and big name brands so how as a company can you get around this? Well, social media seems to provide an answer. According to the Influencer Orchestration Network 57% of millennials and gen z trust endorsements if it’s from a social media personality they follow. So McDonalds brand endorsement deals with Celebrities like BTS and Saweetie are an ingenious way to make people happy about buying those happy meals.

But brand endorsement is only a part of what makes McDonald’s Instagram so effective. The other part has to do with connection.

According to Refinery 29 one in two millennials and gen z regularly feel lonely. It only makes sense in a post Covid world that this lack of connection has been going on for a while. Brands know Instagram’s user base is mostly made up of millennials and gen z so they appeal to the lonely generations by cultivating a brand persona. So you’re not following McDonalds, you’re following McDonalds the person, your friend.

When looking through the McDonald’s Instagram page it’s uncanny how informal it is. There’s a distinct personality and flair associated with each post. A story highlight section labeled zodiac signs? Tiny bag jokes? Surrealist grimace memes? This seems too familiar, almost like something a gen z person would post. Oh wait! Coincidence? I think not!

This branding of being your friend is not unique to McDonalds. Wendys, KFC and many other fast food chains are starting to catch on with their Instagram pages being a similar combination of memes, witty captions and relatable content.

So what does this mean? It means that companies are smarter than we think and their ability to adapt and change to the current media landscape is a lot better than we give them credit for. If I had to rate McDonalds use of social media I would have to give them a 10/10 because I’m loving it.

Works Cited

https://www.statista.com/statistics/398166/us-instagram-user-age-distribution/

https://www.ion.co/millennials-and-gen-z-stop-clogging-social-with-ads

https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/millennial-gen-z-loneliness#:~:text=But%20as%20a%20study%20has,than%20that%20of%20other%20generations.

https://www.instagram.com/wendys/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/mcdonalds/?hl=en

https://www.instagram.com/kfc/?hl=en

Images

https://imgflip.com/i/1jnq42

https://giphy.com/gifs/schittscreek-pop-tv-schitts-creek-601-Y4KHr1sHylcfMbplKa

https://makeameme.org/meme/i-know-im-8aapfo

https://giphy.com/gifs/disney-model-finish-bZyPscgsIqWzK