In an emailed press statement Rick Wion, McDonald’s social media director, underlined that these unsavoury stories were in the decided minority amongst the 72,788 mentions of McDonald’s on the 18^th, although there were 1600 conversations about it at its peak and they still dominate the top tweets for this hashtag if you search today.

The coverage of this story has been widespread across the media and social media lovers alike, but one thing missing from most articles is this: what could McDonald’s do to respond to the stories heard via this hashtag?

Instead of hurrying to bury #McDstories, why not use the response generated by this hashtag as the impetus for a new social media campaign, asking consumers for their input and assistance in turning McDonald’s into the fast food restaurant that consumers want to see today. Rather than fleeing from the bad press, if McDonald’s were to turn to face their detractors, listen to their comments (the genuine ones) and use a program of consumer engagement to overhaul aspects of the brand, McDonald’s might find #McDstories to be one of their greatest social media successes.

One argument against this is that McDonald’s have been trying to show us for some time that they are healthier and contain real meat and fresh ingredients, but still receive this consumer response when they create a social campaign about it. Do they feel that it is not possible to change our perceptions of the brand anymore? Unlikely, or they would not be producing so many campaigns focused around healthy products and fresh produce. Our argument would be that it may be possible, not only to use the public as a product barometer, but also to use them to crack how to present the ‘new McDonald’s’ to the public in a way that finally pushes past our well-formed brand image and prejudices.

This twitter crisis started because McDonald’s was trying to promote the fresh ingredients used by McDonalds. It would certainly be a tall order, but if McDonald’s took #McDstories as the impetus for a new social campaign to reform the offering and image of the brand (without reusing the hashtag itself), this could be their biggest PR coup of the year.

The first challenge was of course to deposit bags of Christmas shopping in the cloakroom. We were instantly glad of this when we reached our seats in the Balcony, because they were the most uncomfortable that I have ever experienced and I’ve been to a lot of theatres. There was Victorian standard leg room as well as barely padded, straight backed wooden chairs with arm rests too high, small and hard to be of any use to me at least. As I was uncomfortable being only 5’6″ I cannot imagine how uncomfortable my 6″ companion was. However, I’ve never let a seat stop me enjoying a good opera.

Before I review the performance, albeit briefly, I should probably tell you my view of Puccini’s Tosca as an opera, otherwise my criticisms make little sense.

In my opinion, a good opera is a theatrical spectacle in which music, words and visual aspects (e.g. performance, staging) are given a roughly equal weighting. Which means it’s not all up to the composer to create a great opera. And one third of it is the responsibility of the director, to enhance the drama of the music and the words. However, the composer does have a significant effect on the opera’s libretto (words) because they have to agree to use them. They can settle for whatever they’re given, or they can push the librettist to give a text that creates deep characters and a dramatically functional plot.

In the case of Tosca, and arguably in much of Puccini’s work, I believe that Puccini shows a great talent for writing beautiful, dramatic music, but not for crafting a story or characters with depth and development. Put simply, the characters of Tosca are stereotypes: the two lovers, one a revolutionary, the other a jealous prima donna; a villain in the position of power and so on. These 2 dimensional characters are created not only by a poor libretto, but also by the music: Puccini writes beautiful, effective themes, but barely develops them throughout the opera – the characters do not change or learn from their story. Tosca shows no signs of ceasing to be jealous, she just isn’t given any opportunity to be so; Cavaradossi still loves Tosca and his revolutionary cause, and Scarpia dies as black of heart as he started.

Could the director, Catherine Malfitano, have created more meaningful characters through her input? I’m not sure. There were times when I laughed at Tosca’s sudden changes of mood, from ardent love to jealous rage, but the speed of the musical change between these moods leaves little room for pre-empting these ideas, and might even weaken the dramatic structure through such a contradiction. The most believable character was Scarpia, played by Anthony Michaels-Moore, who did justice to the dark and brooding character, with his superb acting, voice and diction. The latter of these in particular was lacking in other members of the cast, notably Tosca (Clare Rutter) when high in her range. Both Tosca and Cavaradossi (Gwyn Hughes Jones) were somewhat wooden actors, particularly in the love scenes, there did not appear to be much chemistry between them.

The staging of the opera was very well-done. Set within a tunnel-like construction of different part-circles, leading up to the final scene within a tunnel pointing straight towards the stars. The set combined the abstract and the realistic and this worked well most of the time. My only quibble would be that after having an anchor of realism in each scene, usually from furniture and large props, carrying out the final scenes in a completely abstract setting broke the flow of the production a little for me. Other than that I was happy with Malfitano’s decisions, costuming, lighting and blocking were effective and always added to the story, rather than detracting or distracting.

So that’s pretty much my verdict on the opera. What re-awakened my interest in the ENO? Twitter.

ENO have an exceptional Twitter feed. They post regularly, talk to followers, create regular competitions, and provide interest to followers. Their only real ‘failure’ in my eyes is that they only really post about ENO, rather than helping their 10,000 followers to find opera they will enjoy all over London and around the country. Given that ENO obviously have the human resources to man their twitter feed well, I really would like to see them take it one stage further and help to create a community for opera lovers by researching their competitors’ shows. They could also consider linking between their facebook and twitter feeds more frequently as well as linking to the website.

I have to say that in British opera there are many companies who provide an interesting twitter feed that is worth following and provides value to their followers, but ENO are a very good example for anyone in the theatre or music industries looking to start working on twitter.

The Brief

Following a success debut sponsorship season with Honda Racing getting good TV and press exposure alongside highly successful drivers and a winning team, Yuasa asked Purple Frog to promote the brand further using social media. Yuasa was predominantly a manufacturing business with its core activity in the UK focused on B2B solutions within its industrial division. With a strategic change of direction for its automotive division from OEM to aftermarket, new brand awareness opportunities became available with consumers, and the sponsorship deal became the focus to maximise exposure as well as continue the increase in aftermarket market share.

The Solution

The decision to renew the sponsorship deal was made weeks before the start of this current season, creating the need for a quick response as well as a successful solution. The big idea was to be the Team’ biggest fan, making the partnership between Yuasa and the Team as close as possible.

The main core of activity was developed at www.yuasabtcc.co.uk away from the corporate website and be the destination for race and driver blogs linking in with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.  Facebook was the ideal arena to nurture and engage with a growing community. Twitter was used to whip up excitement about the divers, the cars and the Team before, during and after races.

The Outcome

Half way through the season it is already apparent that the association with Honda Racing has blurred the boundaries between Team and Sponsor, with fans, press and other teams making reference to Yuasa as part of the team.  Writing articles for each race weekend and being the first in the country to publish content has been well received with fans and BTCC supporters. Page views over the first 5 races have already exceeded 1600, with Facebook and Twitter significantly contributing visitor traffic to the content.

One of the goals at the start of the activity was to create a social community made up of motor racing / BTCC fans with engagement with Yuasa a top priority.  Twitter is on course to achieve 1000 followers by the end of the first season, with direct links and engagement with the drivers Matt Neal, Gorden Shedden and with Honda Racing helping to whip up excitement. On course tweeting and image Twit pic feeds from within the Honda Racing Team garage have created an immediacy to the content, encouraging dialogue from armchair ITV4 viewers and fans at the course hungry for the inside stories.

Purple Frog have also encouraged fan suggestions and initiatives to help increase brand awareness and an maximise the association with a winning team.  Most notable to date has been the development of social network backgrounds for the drivers (see Matt Neal) and for the fans, available for desktop and mobile accounts.

The season-long campaign is being supported by national press advertising, banner advertising from the corporate site, PR and POS.

Social Media Marketing is now a vitally important ingredient in the marketing mix and our team understand how to build a strategy and leverage social media and social networks for the benefits of your business either using campaigns or conversations online. We can help you influence and engage with architects, building product manufacturers, surveyors, project managers and contractors plus get the most out of the associations that are their trying to help and advise you.

To be able to fully benefit from Social Media you need to have a Strategy and above all a strategy that recognises the importance of Social Media and does not just treat it as a separate part of marketing that needs little attention.
The purpose of social media is to:

• Raise awareness of your brand and/or company
• Help you manage and enhance your reputation
• Develop relationships with industry leaders and peers
• Increase your online visibility so as to
• Increase traffic to your web site

You need to create a simple strategy which enables you to deliver a return on your investment of time and cash which not only works with your other marketing activity but also informs it and increases your overall effectiveness.

The Purple Frog approach to Social Media Marketing is to give your help you understand your current position with respect to your competitors and then to ensure you have a strategy which will lift you above the crowd.

We believe that social media is a circle, that once you start you can continue to grow and expand your influence at a pace which suits you and that you can influence big areas and small areas together or in isolation.

Our Social Media Marketing Circle will enable you to develop and then apply a strategy either as a creative campaign or as a conversation based campaign. The end objective is to have those you want to influence and engage with talk about you and your brand in a positive manner without you being involved and the 5 steps of the circle are:

• Listen – understand where those you want to influence are talking this is not necessarily Facebook and Twitter but can be industry forums, blogs and trade association feeds and newsletters.
• Respond - answer the questions and concerns of your target audience and make them aware that you are aware.
• Converse – create a dialogue either with individuals or groups, gain insights and data to help you make informed business decisions.
• Lead - encourage debate and conversation, use it to help you decide on new products and services.
• Multilogue – devolve power to your audience so that they are doing your talking for you whilst you go back to listening.

We look to ensure that your social media strategy is embedded within your organisation and that you are running it, controlling it and managing it with our help.

Even if you think social media is not for you, your brand will be being talked about, issues that are important to you will be being talked about and issues that are important to your customers will be being talked about.

• Can you really afford not to be involved?
• Can you really run your business in isolation?
• Can you really afford not to understand your customers issues?

If you can’t then talk to Purple Frog about Social Media Marketing, call us now and speak to David Finch on 01844 295170 or email david@purplefrog.co.uk

Brick Development Association – A client who have benefited from a new advertising, direct mail campaign & social media campaign created by Purple Frog in fact the B2B Marketing Campaign of the month for March 2011. To read more about this campaign visit Built to Last – an Award Wining Campaign.