The Concept of Social Media and Its Impact on Business
In every business arena, technology has become the language of communication, with its impacts affecting the international business community both directly and indirectly. The use of internet has increased globalized the business community leading to increased performance, productivity, efficiency, and competition in the business arena. As a result, every business organization focuses on the best strategies adopted with the aim of reaching a large base of customers in the global market. The business adopts tools such as social media platforms as advertisement opportunities to help the business reach the global market. This paper hence evaluates and presents the use of social media in business with a focus on Kentucky Fried Chicken as a case study organization. It focuses on the social media channels adopted by the company in carrying out its business and how each channels is applicable. It then concludes with recommendations for a planning strategy on how improvements are achievable.
The rate of internet usage in today’s life has increased transforming the whole world both in the personal and the business activities as it connects the business with the consumers directly. Many small businesses such as Kentucky Fried Chicken have embraced the use of internet network in conducting their daily activities such as marketing, recruitment, sales, and creation of presence awareness. Social networking sites are definable as a group of internet based applications that developed on the ideological and technological foundations of Web that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content. Social media, on the other hand, is the environment that allows the social networking to take place hence connects the brands and consumers to offer a personal channel and currency for user-centered interaction .With the assistance of the Web, internet users are capable of creating their accounts and uploading different contents on the particular websites “. It is observable that among the Australian population, 90% of the internet users are on Facebook, with 41% on Twitter. Facebook is a site that tells others who you know while twitters a site that shows others whatever you is doing.
Kentucky Fried Chicken is the world’s second largest an Australian fast food restaurant after McDonald’s that mainly specializes in fried chickens. KFC founded in 1930 by Colonel Harland Sanders today has 20,000 global locations in almost 123 countries serving more than 2 million customers a week. KFC embarks on social media platforms to conduct a number of its activities such as marketing and sales, job advertisement, a creation of presence among the Australians. According to Yellow Pages Social Media Report 2012, a large number of Australians of about 71% have integrated with the different social media, making it easy for the business in Australia to engage with potential stakeholders directly. The purpose of this article is to look at the impact of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google+ on the KFC operations such as job application and recruitment, sales, marketing, and advertisement. It also looks at the additional social media tool adopted to enhance the performance of the business .
Kentucky Fried Chicken: A Case Study
Online marketing is definable as the group of Internet-based applications, built on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, thereby allowing the creation and exchange of user-generated content. The marketing strategy is a new concept embraced by KFC and other companies through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Google+. The online marketing has been prone because of the today’s increase of the consumer’s technological use in both home and workplaces thereby giving the marketers opportunity to use it to reach the various targeted groups with their products and services. The study shows an increase of online marketers from 29% in 2009 to 38% in 2016.
KFC Restaurant has great number of customers that visit the various locations, among that great number 38% of the customers came awareness of the restaurant through their Facebook fan page, 30% through twitter, 22% and 10% through Instagram and YouTube respectively . KFC’s Facebook fan page has the greatest significant number of followers of about 389,486 than any other social media tool making it the most efficient method used by KFC to do the marketing in Australia. The fan page helps the restaurant to create awareness of its presence thereby new customers who might not know its existence, through uploading various updates and references from the potential customers. It is observable that many customers tend to buy particular food after seeing the delicious photos uploaded in the Facebook fan page.
Through, the account, the restaurant uploads fried chicken, French fries and any other fast food items that are on promotions; as a result, customers get attracted by the delicious and yummy foods, turning up to the restaurant. The uploading of the pictures of the food exposes the business to a large number of consumers, creating awareness and improving on sales. The marketing personnel, through the Facebook page, address all the questions asked by consumers regarding the prices of the food items posted, creating a personalized online customers service. When customers get responses on the issues they raise, they tend to feel valued by the management of the restaurant, thus creating a virtual community. The virtual brand community created by KFC share same business interests thereby promotes the name of the business through referring friends to buy food from the restaurant; as a result, the number of customers increases. In totality it is observable that the restaurant sales rate increases from 20% in June to 55% in August, due to the marketing done through the fan page.
The Impact of Social Media on KFC’s Sales and Marketing
The virtual community creates a greater degree of communication among the customers, who thereby tend to persuade or influence others to buy from the restaurant, who automatically accept because of the trust among them. It is observable that people with more positive attitudes and comments on the fan page are more likely to buy from the restaurant and are more likely to maintain a strong brand commitment than those that have negative comments.
From the KFC Facebook page, the management can tap the wisdom, personal feelings, and attitudes of the consumers towards certain food products, enabling them to create a concrete conclusion on what to address on the products to grab more customers. KFC management believes that the best food product results from the critics of the customers on the taste, presentation, and service as a whole. Facebook provide consumer to consumer approach that enables the users to share experiences and create a shared knowledge on a particular brand, and at the same time, it provides the manager an opportunity to have a direct communication with clients through the traditional consumer approach. For the success of the program, there has to be a healthy positive attitude and trust between the business and the customers.
KFC uses YouTube in marketing the food product through uploading the short videos of events; customers experience on the restaurant hospitality or even a testimonial by a celebrity about the restaurant that goes viral . A large number of people that access the videos create a pool of potential customers that are more likely to visit the restaurant to have the same, thereby increasing awareness and sales of the restaurant. The YouTube marketing approach is significant because the message targets different customers and is more entertaining than the pictures of the foods. KFC launched a viral marketing video is known as “Finger Lickin” a campaign meant to urge consumers to go for the high-quality Australian free Chicken that is yummy and delicious. It created an influence on a great number of consumers who turned up in the KFC restaurant to lick their fingers too.
From the data, it is observable that many people about 80% watched the video of “finger lickin” in Youtube, and 60% of them liked the video. Among those who liked the video, 50% were likely to buy the drink with only 10% who were not likely to buy from the restaurant. From the statistic, it is derivable that the social media tool was applicable since videos make more impacts than pictures.
The Role of Facebook in KFC’s Marketing and Sales Strategy
Snap chat is an image messaging and multimedia mobile application that enables the users to upload a picture of a preferred item and share it with other users that access them for a short time before they become inaccessible. KFC has chosen a youth-oriented social platform, snapchat to launch its Double Soft Shell Zinger Taco making the snaps to be viewed for over, 3000 times within the first three hours of activation. KFC realized that most of the consumers are millennial and therefore tries to create moments and memories of the best foods that are available in the restaurant. For example, the selfie pictures of KFC founder; Colonel Sanders and followers, blended harmoniously with the “out of home” campaign. A campaign aimed at persuading people to embrace the trend of dining away from home. As a result, many people turned up with their families in different locations of the restaurant for their lunches and supper and have the in-restaurant experience.
Another snapshot campaign organized by KFC was the “Freeze Frenzy” that aimed at marketing a carbonated drink to capture the young adults. The snapshot aimed at reaching the targeted audience, which was the young adult to have an outdoor freeze experience with the drink. It required them to participate in a game entitled Freeze Frenzy, a mobile application that allowed the users to see a ten-second video and access the game through swiping up the video ad. During the game, the users assumed to be a KFC staff offering service to customers who make a combination of menu including the frozen drink. The user was to correctly add the order to the KFC serving tray and serve the customer by tapping. A correct order earned the player points with the shift of 60 seconds. The game progresses through different levels and becomes complicated when the user has to serve varying number of menu items. The other objective was to provide an opportunity to showcase the products and resulted in about 3,260,798 participants which converted to an average swipe rate of 14.43%. from the data , it is observable that the rate of participants was very law of about 10%, that had effect on the rate of sales of the carbonated drink, but through the weeks, the rate of participation increased gradually to about 35% , as a result, the number of those who bought the product increased too.
The application helps the KFC to announce already existing and the new products to their customers who make the positive response. The temporal availability if the uploaded pictures of the fried chickens tend to encourage frivolity and emphasize on the natural flow and interaction between the restaurant and the consumers. Today KFC has launched on a door to door delivery as a way of making sales and attracting more customers in Australia. The program is enabled through the use of advanced program known as KFC Express application that enables customers to make a pre-order, pre-pay for both the cost of the food and delivery if need be.
YouTube: A Tool for Viral Marketing
KFC twitter account helps it to highlight customer’s testimonials that have a positive impact on its daily operations. Through the twitter handle, KFC can update the all the events and promotions that are to take place. The management is also able to follow up the comments on the twitter updates, analyze them to come up with a conclusive customers’ attitude that are useful in improving the business.
KFC has been doing various online advertisements that aim at increasing the total sales of the chickens at every restaurant locations. The various tools such as Google+, an internet-based social network site operated by Google that is also used in most of the businesses to enhance the performance. Google+ has been the leading social network in marketing search engines that is providing an opportunity to connect to all audience and create follower. KFC Google+ has a high number of followers that act as evangelic agents to the restaurant. The food blog posts by the restaurant help in creating health awareness of particular food, giving nutritive information “. The uploaded photos of the fried chicken and other food products help to catch the attention of various customers, hence luring them to go to the restaurant for a taste. The application has visual makeup that is used by the restaurant to spice up the photos and videos, leading to a large number of likes from the followers. The Google+ application has a search tool that provides adequate information about a particular food, for example, the price, or the restaurant’s locations in various countries “. Therefore, users can use the search to look at the directional information, job vacancy and any other information that may be required.
E-recruitment processes have revolutionaries completely due to the global usage of internet. A large number of today’s generation spend more time on the web, hence an opportunity for a large pool of applicants without any form of geographical restriction. E-recruitment is also known as online recruitment is the new technology of using web-based resources in the process of finding, attracting, assessing, interviewing, and hiring new employees. The constant impacts of social networking sites on communication and socializing draw attention on how the companies carry out the recruitment process.
Previous research shows that about 26% of job seekers prefer the old option recruitment process while 43% are looking at the online job sites. Study shows that among job seekers shows that 85% are using LinkedIn while 74% and 39% of the respondent use Facebook and Twitter respectively, therefore making LinkedIn as the most popular social media site for both the employer and the employee to engage. LinkedIn is more like an expanded resume that is explicitly usable for connecting with one another in a professional manner including the recruitment. Linkedln is usable in different ways such as identifying the business contacts or potential candidates, to a canvas on particular subjects, to advertise the available job opportunities and to reconnect with former colleagues. Initially LinkedIn was a free service, but currently, it requires a membership fee that is less than advertisement fee and easier to screen than other social media platforms.
Snapchat: A Youth-Oriented Social Platform for Marketing
KFC attracts most of the potential employees through the online job advertisement on their websites and social media sites more than they do through the traditional methods, 45% and 20% respectively as a result, KFC tend to do more online recruitment through Linkedln. The main purpose of the online recruitment is to make the process more effective, efficient, and less costly as it can reach a larger pool of the potential employees and conduct the selection. Companies can get employees faster than paper-based process companies can arrive at a larger number of potential employees through casting a wider net, the businesses can post a more detailed information concerning the vacancy and as well as answer FAQs, the job advertisement and has longer lifetime hence many potential employees can make applications. However, the e-recruitment has the following disadvantaged, such as; the companies are unable to reach job seekers who are not on the Web. There is a high level of competition for candidates among the companies since there is less confidentiality, due to a larger pool of applicants, there is a large number of resumes that are to be screened by the firm. Research shows that e-recruitment recognition continues to grow in the world due to the wide range use of the internet by many business enterprises.
WhatsApp is the world’s fastest-growing social messaging service with a half a billion people around the worlds being active users. The application is straightforward to set up and use, quick and reliable, less costly to both users and shares the media files very quickly. The application enables the users to share photos and videos every single moment and days. KFC can use the application in many different ways to enhance its operations; first, the application can be used for internal communication among the staffs when passing certain information to all. The internal social grouping creates closeness among the staffs hence having teamwork. The application is usable by KFC for customer communication, whereby the management can make a follow-up on customers without making phone calls, and it gives an opportunity to be a little informal with the customer that may create quicker responses to certain issues. KFC express application is used to enhance marketing and promoting the KFC’ products, through uploading the best and attracting images. of the cooked food thereby creating an appetite among the customers. The application is also be used by customers to place orders for the type, time of the food they want.
Conclusion
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is obvious that social media is significant to the success of much business enterprise and is no longer debatable. The social media powers derived from the rapid growth of internet usage in the global exposing large number to accessibility. The social media platforms enable the business to create its awareness to a larger pool of customers, help in establishing a stronger company brand, enable the business to receive valuable customer’s feedback and enables free advertising. Not all the social media platforms are suitable and effective for business. Therefore, each one should understand the targeted group, the aim of the social media and the repercussions it can pose.
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