Today, I read an article entitled, “The Most Engaged Brands On The Web”. All in all it was a great article and definitely gave an enormous amount of information to absorb regarding the top 10 movers and shakers in the Social Media world. Starbucks holding the #1 spot and Dell (surprising), Ebay and Google trailing closely behind.
However, I must say that while the article was interesting and informative Erick Schonfeld the writer made a comment that I would have to say I greatly disagree with. He stated the following as he was bringing his thoughts to an end..
“The “mavens” (examples: starbucks, google, ebay) saw revenues grow an average of 18 percent over the past 12 months, while the Wallflowers (examples: McDonalds and BP) saw revenues drop 6 percent. I really doubt that their level of social media engagement had anything to do with their revenue growth, it is just that the strongest brands are the most engaged.”
… to be honest I thought this insight was completely, let’s see, how shall I put it… wrong? With all of the recent studies, groups and marketing efforts showing the massive growth of Social Media in direct comparison to business’s growth in revenue, wouldn’t you agree with the exact opposite of what Erick had to say. I know I do. I cannot tell you how many Meet Up groups I go to and all I hear is how great Social Media has helped their business and how much their sales have gone up and etc. etc. etc. I mean who knows maybe they are all a bunch of liars just trying to ride the Social Media buzz train, but when you are comparing 2 giant corporations such as McDonald’s and Starbucks you would have to think that an 18% rise with Starbucks revenues and a 6% decrease in McDonald’s and then having them both on opposite ends of the Social Media involvement scale would make you logically think, “Hey McDonald’s should get more involved.” Am I wrong?
Some other obvious factors to consider as well would be that while McDonald’s doesn’t rapidly shut down dozens of their stores or decrease their operating hours, I find myself consistently driving up to a dark and empty Starbucks at 930pm on a Friday night and thinking dang their closed already. No wonder they saw an 18% increase in revenues, they have half the operating costs and half the payroll to configure and now there is just longer lines to wait in since Starbucks is now only on every other corner instead of every corner. Plus holding that latte looks a lot sexier then holding that 3000 calorie Big Mac with cheese. You know its true, no one WANTS to be seen eating McDonald’s, but everyone wants to be seen holding that mermaid emblem. Go figure.
Written by: Melissa Perea
