McDonald’s recent social media campaign was a lesson in (#fry) love and Rashel Hariri’s desire to experiment and bring the brand to life in new and exciting ways was at the heart of it.
As digital social engagement manager at the fast food giant, one of Hariri’s many tasks is to look for new ways to bring value to the business across its existing social media channels, and to seek opportunities on emerging platforms.
From launching a customer service channel on Twitter to developing an internal centre of excellence for social media and launching engaging new programs, the 29-year-old is achieving this in spades.
For instance, in celebration of National French Fry Day (yes, it’s a thing!), McDonald’s Canada live-streamed an employee making fries at one of its restaurants during the lunch hour on Facebook and through the first promoted Periscope sold by Twitter Canada.
“Testing new programs in this space is a great way for us to innovate and discover what resonates with our fans,” says Hariri. Within the first hour, the broadcast had more than 75 retweets and 160 likes on Twitter and garnered more than 150, 000 views overall.
Additionally, McDonald’s created black and yellow T-shirts featuring the slogans “OK, but first fries” and “Fries and shine” and seeded them with influencers before offering 2,000 of them for free through its social channels. The shirts were gone in less than two hours, says Hariri.
Though fans whole-heartedly embraced the social effort – often using #FryLove – Hariri, like any great marketer, sees room for improvement. “One of my key learnings was next time we include a coupon so we can direct that to the business,” she says. “If we were an ecommerce business it would be easy to connect the dots.”
Hariri has also changed the way the brand handles posting to Instagram, moving away from promotional advertising to fun and flirty pictures of McDonald’s food. “We try to keep it as a user would perform rather than a brand,” she says. And, if the brand does post an advertisement, it needs to look “Insta-like,” she says.
It’s one of the social media guidelines Hariri has put in place since starting with McDonald’s two years ago as the social media manager in the external communications department.
She became social media lead the following year, when McDonald’s made a global commitment to strengthen its digital presence and formed an internal digital team. Prior to this, social media duties were shared among marketing, advertising and communications departments.
There wasn’t a formal social media marketing plan in place, so Hariri laid the foundation and developed processes to ensure consistency across social channels and when working with the aforementioned departments. She was also instrumental in launching a customer service channel on Twitter and training staff in the contact centre.
Hariri honed her digital chops during a four-year tenure at ING Direct and its namesake Tangerine, which is arguably one of the more digitally friendly and focused brands in Canada.
It was there, says Hariri, she learned the importance of connecting with various internal teams to push through ideas and get everyone on the same page. “You need to build trust and bring them along the journey with you.”
Her favourite part of the job At McDonald’s, she says, is “being able to bring new ideas to the business and try new things and push the envelope.”
“[Social media is] always evolving and that’s what keeps me on my toes, but platforms shift and there’s changes and it allows you to be creative and innovative… It allows you to have these one on one conversations with people and they give you candid feedback you can’t get anywhere else.”
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