News

Most social media conversation about QSRs is positive

September 14, 2012

A new report from monitoring company Sysomos shows that most social media conversations about quick-service brands are positive. All conversations analyzed – branded and non-branded – had an 80 percent or higher overall favorable rating.

Sysomos researched social conversations in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada from May 1 through July 31.

Specifically, Sysomos's "Industry Insider: Fast Food" looked at social mentions about McDonald's, Burger King, KFC and Taco Bell.

Report highlights include:

• General chatter about QSRs produced more than 6 million mentions. McDonald's, the brand that received the most mentions, surpassed 1 million conversations, while KFC, the brand with the fewest mentions, still garnered more than 450,000 conversations;
• All QSR conversations analyzed (branded and non-branded) had an 80 percent or higher overall favorable rating;
• McDonald's was mentioned in conjunction with other brands as a point of reference the most often;
• Burger King was talked about the most often as a standalone brand;
• Twitter was the top source of mentions for all of the QSR brands as well as for generic talk because of its quick and almost-always-accessible nature;
• People between the ages of 21 - 35 dominated the conversations. Men tended to talk more about specific brands in the QSR space while women talked more about quick-service food in general;
• People let brands know if they disagreed with what they did. The largest conversational spikes around McDonald's came from people who criticized their sponsorship of the Olympics.

"Social media monitoring is a must for today's companies, especially for those in high-profile industries like fast food, where a tweet can run rampant through the Internet, boosting or tarnishing a reputation faster than wildfire. Staying on top of those conversations is critical to identifying and averting crisis situations as well as in shaping business decisions," said Sheldon Levine, Sysomos community manager.

Read more about social media initiatives.