Supersize This: McDonald’s Entering Blogosphere

McDonald's has been a trendsetter in the fast-food world, but it's behind the times when it comes to blogging. While numerous companies have embraced blogs as a way to draw customer response to their Websites, McDonald’s executives shied away from the medium.

That was until this past May, when Steve Wilson, senior director of global Web communications for McDonald's, showed them results of a recent blog search: During a 90-day period earlier this year, more than 675,000 posts in the blogosphere either were about the fast-food chain or were made by people identifying themselves as customers, employees, or franchisees of McDonald's.

"We showed the executive team that there were already members of our crews blogging, operators blogging, and customers blogging, and that got their attention very quickly," Wilson said during a session at last week’s BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit.

McDonald's piloted its strategy internally, using the iUpload platform, with a blog that it used as an internal communications tool. It was written by McDonald’s president Mike Roberts, and corporate employees were allowed to post comments during a two-hour period.

"You have to teach your people that blogs can create open dialogue and that you can create an ongoing dialogue to move from point A to point B," Wilson said. "That's not going to happen just by flipping a switch." Employee response, he said, was greater than during the company’s traditional Town Hall-style meetings.

Saying that McDonald's has to "learn to walk before it can run," Wilson did not give a timetable for an external blog rollout. He did give some advice for other larger companies that may want to enter the blogosphere: "Engage your legal department early and often."

Wilson said McDonald's also put a corporate blogging plan in place, based on policies that had already been developed by companies such as Microsoft. One policy was for external blogging that was already being done and stated a code of conduct for those identifying themselves as McDonald's employees. Another was for the internal blogging that had and will take place, and a third was for any future blogging that will be done on the McDonald's Website.

Wilson was one of several speakers who appeared at BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit. Here are some of the other advice speakers shared about corporate blogging:

• Looking at the 100 most-popular blogs, author and entrepreneur Seth Godin noted that none of the authors are "important" people. "It doesn't matter to readers who you are; it's what you have to say," Godin said. Godin was on hand for a live demo of his new platform for bloggers, Squidoo.com.
• It is important to determine who the influencers on blogs discussing your brand are, so that you can try to influence the influencers, said Randall McAdory, brand senior manager for Chrysler Minivans. If your brand gets criticized on a blog, and your company allows you to respond, "admit that you blew it. Your brand will gain a lot of credibility, and a human element."
• Marketers need to budget time to scan consumer blogs for feedback to find out what passionate consumers really think of their product, said Elizabeth Albrycht of Blogging Planet. target="_new">BlogBridge, Cymfony, Pluck, and Umbria are just some of the companies that specialize in reporting and scanning social media for marketers.