Analysis on Disney
The analysis I will be conducting will be no other than the Walt Disney Company. Started as an American animation industry under entrepreneur, film producer, animator Walt Disney. Started as The Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923, now as the Walt Disney Company, established in 1983.
The Disney company is known for its award-winning animation movies like Beauty and the Beast, Lion King, Aladdin, and many others. Disney is also known for its amusement park Disneyland,opened in 1955 in Anaheim, California. People all over the world go to travel to this theme park for its popularity. Leading it to four other locations: Orlando, Florida, Tokyo, Japan, Paris France, and it’s most recent one in Shanghai, China on June 16 2016.
Through out Disney’s success, it expanded to purchasing other studios and companies like Marvel Studios, Lucas Films, Pixar, 20th Century Studios and cable television networks like, ESPN, National Geographic, ABC broadcast network. With streaming services as a common ground, they now have Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. Currently Disney is a giant enterprise with so many subsidiary operations, it is consider as one of the “Big Six,” media corporation.
Having social media for the Walt Disney Company has to be run successful, due to their main value is entertainment and have a demographic for all ages. Addition to the fact, they have other subsidiaries like Marvel studios for their comic books and films or Lucas Films that has the Star War franchise and other networks combining multiple accounts for the use of social media platforms.
Since 2010, Disney has been dominating the social media worked, utilizing Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. They run a 24/7 online presence and diversify the use of each platform. They have a strong brand for instance for YouTube, they make videos for entertainment value than to pitch for merchandise. Their biggest media account will be Facebook, with 267 pages including individual pages for Disney consumer products, they are constantly posting and talking to consumers. These Facebook pages have been created for people across different countries and are mostly aimed at individuals aged 13 and over. (Giraffe Social Media).
Disney’s engagement plan to reach families, Disney enthusiasts, which would encourage sharing there social media content and market beyond. Disney once teamed up with the Make A Wish Foundations campaigning #ShareYourEars that got social media audiences to sport their Disney’s ears. Each piece of content contributed $5 dollars to the charity. This example of social campaigning increased their Instagram audience to 13 percent and facebook’s audience to 15 percent. (Disney.com)
Disney has 286 social media profiles. 141 Facebook pages, 55 Twitter handles, 31 Instagram accounts, 44 YouTube Channels, and 15 LinkedIn accounts. Their performance is dominating strongly they diversify their social media accounts with photos, videos, surveys, while marketing their strategies how to value their ideas through their accounts. On Facebook they have over 52 million total fans and Instagram over 10 million likes from their accounts. (Unmetrics)
SWOT
Strength:
The company has been around since the 1920s so it’s fan base has been developing for generations. It’s a development of customer loyalty and would repurpose their films with nostalgia like the live action films of Aladdin, Lion King, and Jungle book. Using social media marketing has been utilize in various ways. Like tweeting studio sets for one of the Star Wars films, or to have an Instagram account called “Disney Eats,” a direction of branding Disney food to attract fans and foodies alike.
For being a media enterprise social media is a big key in their marketing for its films, theme parks and other studios they have ownership upon. Having a dynamic demographic for age groups also helps them create opportunities for fans to engage to social content, promotional or not.
Weakness
As dominating Disney it is hard to find weakness, unless it involves poor display in public relations. For instance, the unofficial holiday “May the Fourth,” dedicating to Star Wars as a pun to the phrase “May the Force Be With You,” was used as a Tweet from Disney where it had some backlash from Star Wars fans, presuming Disney is trying to take ownership of the phrase. (SM Perth) Fans being outrage, it shows Disney out of touch and was a bad direction in order to promote their franchises.
Opportunity
Disney has a four theme parks around the world in order to appeal international consumers and help fans to get the opportunity to witness the fun and captivation of the parks. Throughout the years, while Disney was buying other studios, they have made expansions to their theme parks to generate returning attendees.
Threats
What can oppose a market like Disney, in order to compete with them, are other high entertainment markets. Universal Studios with Harry Potter can be their biggest competitor as it jump start a different generation of kid book readers and created six live action films. Though, Universal Studios amusements are not as vast compare to Disney. Another direction is diversification as using nostalgia can only be limited. Buying other studios to help develop revenue (Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel) will help Disney to last for another generation.
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