The latest brand to join the ephemeral messaging service, Snapchat, is none other than fast food giant, McDonald’s. In signing on, the burger chain joins a growing list of companies like Taco Bell, American Apparel, Juicy Couture, and even Bloomberg’s Businessweek.
Are you following the action on @Snapchat? Add us! Username: mcdonalds
— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) February 25, 2014
Snapchat boasts more than 350 million active users, makes sense for brands looking to go after the young mobile demographic — an estimated 77 percent of its college-aged users use the app daily. Although the platform doesn’t have basic tracking tools or a concrete way for brands to measure engagement yet, some brands have found the app useful for revealing sneak peeks to users. Juicy Couture, for example, sent out snaps of their spring campaign.
One of McDonald’s first Snapchats looked like a mix of shots through a PlayPlace tunnel and behind-the-scenes footage of a filmset. Hand scrawled text throughout the chat reads, “Best of the best!” Keep trying, guys.
“In this initial mode, we’ve gotten several thousand followers in a couple days,” Rick Wion, director of social media for McDonald’s, told Mashable recently. “We think it’s a good sign that this has long term viability.” McDonald’s currently has 2,200,000 followers on Twitter, and more than 30,000,000 on Facebook.
Digiday reached out to McDonald’s for comment on their plans for Snapchat, but has yet to receive a response.
More in Marketing
Hyve Group buys the Possible conference, and will add a meeting element to it in the future
Hyve Group, which owns such events as ShopTalk and FinTech Meetup, has agreed to purchase Beyond Ordinary Events, the organizing body behind Possible.
Agencies and marketers point to TikTok in the running to win ‘first real social Olympics’
The video platform is a crucial part of paid social plans this summer, say advertisers and agency execs.
Where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stand on big tech issues
The next U.S. president is going to have a tough job of reining in social media companies’ dominance and power enough to satisfy lawmakers and users, while still encouraging free speech, privacy and innovation.