Fast Food, Fast Marketing

Technology today is important, whether you want to admit it or not, it is important and it is growing. If you're anything like me you're guilty of having a slight addiction to your phone, I blame social media. Something along the lines of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, for those of you who don't know), where you might feel like, if you put your phone down, even for the slightest of seconds, you will miss every important thing to ever go on in the lives of the people you choose to follow. The constant checking, the scrolling, the refreshing, all the follows, the likes, the favorites, retweets, the tagging; just the consistent need to know what is going on in other people's lives has become a part of our everyday routines and companies have caught on, fast food companies especially. I focus mostly on Taco Bell because, let's face it, who doesn't love tacos, but there are also other companies that deserve mentioning.

One of the most involved fast food chains on social media is Taco Bell. They are a company that seem to always catch peoples attention, including my own. On Twitter, Taco Bell is always having competitions and trying to get consumers involved with decision making. They team up with different organizations, such as the MLB, for contests which also promote consumer involvement, most contests being about games in real time. With the MLB, Taco Bell has created the "Steal a Base, Steal a Taco" promotion, where if a player in the World Series steals a base, everyone tuning in to the game and waiting to see if a player does steal a base will be offered a taco deal at certain times on certain days.  The more consumer involvement they have, the more "shares" they get, which turns into Word of Mouth Marketing. Taco Bell uses their social media to strategically promote new products as well. Taco Bell uses Instagram to showcase their menu items, with clever, witty and "punny" captions that catch followers attention.

Instagram is a good outlet for free marketing when it comes to fast food restaurants because so often you see the "basic white girl" post their Starbucks coffee, and the "post what you eat" pictures, which I have to admit I'm guilty of myself. If you like to travel, or have some friends and family on the west coast, you're probably aware of some people that also post their food, especially when it comes to a fast food chain restaurant called In-N-Out Burger. Which, when my sister went to California she not only instagram'd it, but she also, tweeted, posted on Facebook and snap chatted it. All that exposure from just one customer doesn't hurt, and it made me want to travel to the west just to try a burger for myself.

Picture Credit to: Taco Bell: Twitter & Instagram,  My sister: Instagram (shout out to you Jes)