Kentucky Fried Chicken has been actively and aggressively using the various social media platforms to promote their menu offerings, promotions, contests, new product launches and most importantly focusing on the freshness and juiciness of their chicken compared to its competitors.

1. Analysis & Outlook
Social Media Marketing Strategy @ Kentucky Fried Chicken- Customer Service & Engagement
Kentucky Fried Chicken has been actively and aggressively using the various social media
platforms to promote their menu offerings, promotions, contests, new product launches and most
importantly focusing on the freshness and juiciness of their chicken compared to its competitors
“It’s really about connecting with fans and making sure the brand remains relevant,” said Rick
Maynard, manager of public relations at KFC. KFC is active on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube,
etc. and all of these channels play a crucial role in connecting with consumers all over the world.
KFC has a highly loyal customer base who loves their food as they go to their restaurants across
the world and also engage actively on various social media platforms. This prompted the
company to actively build and maintain social media presence and engage with customers on day
to day basis. Most of the fans, followers and likes that KFC garnered on various social media
platforms are due to their loyal customer base and they did not spend much on building this
except for occasional promotional offers and discounts to enhance customer engagement.
The KFC Facebook page has millions of likes, thousands of people talking about the company
and thousands of them are checking in and updating their Facebook status.KFC has restaurants in
more than 100 countries and KFC’s Facebook pages of specific countries highlight their
international audience and customers actively post KFC-themed photos of their KFC restaurant
visits from around the world.KFC only posts about 15-20% of promotional content and most of
the posts are customer generated content uploaded and shared by customers mostly their
experience in the KFC restaurants. The KFC Twitter feed has a good following and the focus is
not on pushing sales but most of the tweets are related to genuine fun which most of the
company fans appreciate and the two-way communication is working well for the
company.Twitter campaign presented a high school senior with a $20,000 Colonel’s scholarship
based on a 140-character Twitter application which also highlighted the Colonel Sanders’
dedication to kids and education. The company received nearly 3,000 tweet applications,
national news coverage for the program that awards 75 $20,000 college scholarships each year.
KFC manages its corporate social media tools internally, with a cross-functional team and the
strategy: to connect and engage with KFC followers, cultivate relationships and respond to any
inquiries.Customers are actively contacting through social media platforms both positively and
negatively which forced KFC to use social media for customer service purposes. The company
does not remove negative posts and if any customerposts a negative comment/post via social
media instead of a phone,company ask for details, handle it and thank them for bringing it to our
attention.Since customers are looking for quick response on social media platforms the company
has exclusive people online for customers’ service during all normal business hours.KFC sees
the social media scene as more of an opportunity to interact and engage their customers, not
much focus is placed on the return on investment the activity generates. We don’t get a lot of
pressure to justify [the return on investment]. It’s a very important customer-service element, and
that’s enough for us. It’s about cultivating relationships, and that has a real business output,”
Maynard said.
Rajesh Prabhakar
Analyst Bio @ http://socialmediacases.blogspot.com/