Taco Bell’s Social Media Win

I think we all have that one friend in our friend group, that somehow whenever you happen to be eating or drinking a sip of your drink, they always say something absolutely hilarious, to the point that you end up either chokingly swallowing it or spitting it out with a coughing fit.

I personally think that whoever runs Taco Bell’s social media accounts, is this hilarious friend that we all have in our friend group. They make us laugh, they give us good advice and they definitely serve their purpose as a friend, and that is being there for us. These relationships are what I like to call successful relationships.

So this poses the question of, what makes a corporate social media account successful? Personally, I find that a successful corporate social media account is one that relates to an audience without trying ‘too hard’. Now you might ask, what does trying too hard look like? It is kind of like that random uncle at family parties that tries to talk to the millennials using slang and ‘street language’ but sounds absolutely ridiculous. You know they bring up references in the most awkward ways, they strongly emphasize on words like ‘lit’ and ‘fleek’, and for some reason they have to mention Drake. They don’t necessarily relate to you, instead they just seem a bit unnecessarily over the top.

Moreover, I believe a successful corporate social media account uses the platform to serve its intended purposes, such as:

1. Addressing any customer problems in a timely manner
2. Bringing in new revenue by attracting a new clientele
3. Enhancing brand image through various means, such as having celebrities retweet tweets, or interacting with the brand
4. Creating postive feedback from other social media users
5. Being relatable

So now you might thinking, how has Taco Bell done this? Well let’s take a look.

Taco Bell has definitely checked the box of with being a relatable brand on social media. For instance, Taco Bell perfectly relate to the various sub audiences that follow them, such as the romantically single followers out there like me.

(On the side note- this was me this Valentine’s Day)

Or better yet, Taco Bell relates by using references that are familiar to their targetted markets. This can definitely be illustrated through the tweets in which they use movies that many of us have seen, especially everyone’s favourite- Mean Girls.

Moreover, Taco Bell keeps their social media accounts comedic by sassily replying back to other brands and competitors when being faced with a bit of a showdown. This adds comedic value to the corporate brand, thus making it much more interesting to follow them on social media. Often times I find that corporations on social media are rigid in their responses, and they do not engage in comedic conversations for the purpose of maintaining a professional front. At times, this can come off as being bland and uninteresting. However, I personally find that when they do engage in interesting conversations this element makes the brand more relatable and it shows that a company is unique in how it operates. Open communication enables the brand to interact more with the audience and mold the image of it as being friendly and open new ideas. It definitely indicates that the brand is adaptive and willing to take a risk.

Nonetheless, Taco Bell’s social media account shows its success by interacting with many celebrities, in positive ways. These interactions definitely expose the brand to various audiences that may not have been familiar with or willing to try the brand.

Taco Bell has received hundreds of thousands of retweets on social media and has been circulating on various news and entertainment sites as social media’s best corporate account. Companies such as BuzzFeed and Huffington Post have created various articles pertaining towards the success of Taco Bell’s social media posts and actions online. Thus, enhancing Taco Bell’s social media ‘win’.

A great deal of Taco Bell’s social media success has to do with their planned approach to the content that they release via Twitter. From the examples above it is evident that Taco Bell uses various planned elements, such tailored contextual and authentic content. The content responds back to specific messages, as it is tailored for specific individuals. Each response is unique to the poser of any question or remark. The responses created by the social media team are evidently creative and highly relevant in regards to the context of time. For example, in the case of the Mean Girls tweet, it is evident that the company is aware of the context in which the individual was speaking in and thus they knew how to adequately respond back, in the same terms. Another example of this could be the response to Tyler Oakley’s reference to Frozen, in which the company responded back with altered song lyrics to the popular song of Love is an Open Door. Other elements of planned content illustrated by Taco Bell were of custom crafted value building content that did not compromise the brand integrity. This can definitely be illustrated through the various sassy and quirky ‘comebacks’ that Taco Bell had to Old Spice and Men’s Humour. The content they responded back with was not attacking any of the other social media accounts. Instead, it was comedic and very well crafted, which led to further conversations and retweets. All of the tweets sent out by Taco Bell are all relevant in context as well in time. The tweets are sent out in a timely manner but also in appropriate relation to what is happening in current events.

Overall, I definitely agree with Huffington Post when they say that whoever runs Taco Bell’s twitter account definitely needs a raise.

Sources for Images:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/28/taco-bell-tweets_n_4856259.html

https://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-best-of-taco-bells-twitter?utm_term=.gtNE2an4X#.qaKOEWQwB

http://www.ranker.com/list/best-taco-bell-tweets/joswo