Social Media Strategy Review: KFC India

Kentucky Fried Chicken, the biggest competitor of McDonalds in terms of product offerings has had a tough start in the Indian market. A restaurant chain which has the word “Chicken” in its name is ought to face some hindrance in a country like India. But KFC has come a long way from its inception in India.

Overall strategy

KFC played the watch and watch game in India and it soon realized that it needs to work on “Price” and “Customer Satisfaction”. To highlight these aspects KFC has used three of the many social media platforms- Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Platform-wise Strategy

KFC on Facebook

KFC India’s Facebook page is extremely high on interactions with customers and is even used as a medium to educate their customers with new product offerings, discounts and other schemes. It is also used as a medium to solve customer grievances.

The brand is high on product oriented content. Online ordering facilities are being promoted on social media which is a smart move. However, most food and beverage brands tend to follow a set pattern in Facebook marketing instead of executing innovative ideas.

On the occasion of 26th January-Republic Day, the KFC’s Facebook team had created a sort of an animation in which they used images to portray as if three MIG fighter planes are travelling across the page. It included a series of 13 photos in which you just need to keep on pressing the right arrow key and the planes would move across the page from left to right.

This whole animation of photos received tremendous response and gave a patriotic appeal to the page and helped them connect with the audience on the occasion of Republic Day. They also got a good level of interaction on the post.

If you look at the fan page engagement details, the page has 250,141 likes and 7088 comments during the study period, with a total engagement level of the fan page being 5% which depicts that the page is quite interactive and engaging.

As interactions on Facebook page play an important role in audience engagement KFC India’s Facebook page managed to do a decent job and the page received 93.73% likes, 3.62% shares and 2.66% comment.

I also found the team handling KFC’s Facebook page to be extremely interactive and quick in responding to customers. They even encouraged customers to log a complaint if they were unhappy with the service at any of their outlets to which even the customers responded graciously.

KFC on Twitter

After some positives from the Facebook page I moved on to the Twitter handle of KFC which turned out to be as interactive as the Facebook page. The team looking after the handle was prompt and excellent when it came to pacifying unhappy customers.

The engagement level was extremely high. They were interactive and had a contest which was running (integrated across Facebook and Twitter). They were prompt while tackling a customer grievance and used the portal to promote new schemes and discounts.



But on the negative side some of the tweets didn’t make any sense at all and these tweets didn’t engage the audience as well. The number of retweets or conversation on these tweets was extremely low.

Possibly because KFC needs to move beyond displaying products on their handles.

KFC can have more engaging tweets where they involve their customers to interact with the brand and get some returns in terms of audience behavior.

KFC on Youtube

The YouTube Channel of KFC lacks in content big time. There are just advertisements which are aired on the Idiot Box which are present on the channel.

With a good number of subscribers KFC could have used YouTube as a medium in a better way. KFC’s last year’s campaign- “25 me khao, kha ke bolo WOW” was an excellent one but KFC couldn’t take it to the next level by using its YouTube channel more frequently.

Youtube should not be used as a secondary medium to show its ads but as a medium to attract customers and engage with them. Though KFC has used YouTube as a medium very efficiently in the past, lately there has been no effort.

Comparison with competitor

McDonald’s being the toughest and the biggest competitor of KFC has not been able to capitalize on the fact that they entered the Indian market well before KFC.

If we compare the two brands the verdict is marginally in favor of KFC. The engagement level and the interaction level of both the brands are decent but KFC still has an edge over McDonalds. Both the brands are competing at the price point.

With KFC introducing the Rs 25/- menu and communicating the same though its social media platforms it is giving a tough competition to McDonalds.

The above charts represents the average response per post on their respective Facebook pages. As seen in the charts the number of likes and comments per post on KFC’s Facebook page is double of what McDonalds has.

McDonalds India doesn’t have a Twitter handle so KFC has an upper hand in the case of engagement and promotions through Twitter. KFC uses twitter as an efficient medium to interact with its customers.

Conclusion

KFC is using Twitter and Facebook as a medium to connect with its customers at the fullest. All the promotions and schemes are communicated through both these mediums. Besides this they are using it to solve the customer grievances as well and connecting will with the audience by pacifying them with the right tone while handling a complaint.

Both the mediums are well integrated and in-sync. However the use of YouTube as a medium is disappointing. KFC should use YouTube a little more and integrate with its other active mediums.

KFC having built a fan base through Facebook and Twitter should also look at other social media platforms through which it could connect with its audience.

Expert View

KFC still needs to work on its language and tonality. Most responses sound automated. The ‘prompt’ can soon be perceived as the ‘distant’, owing to the tone of the replies. They could even look at adding a conversation tone to their posts on Facebook.

If KFC truly is a brand willing to chart lengths on social media then YouTube remains a sorely neglected platform. Other than uploading TVCs they could also look at adding videos that share a few recipes or the processes that run behind the counters at KFC across India. Revealing content of such nature will help them build assurance and credibility in a preferably vegetarian country.

KFC India’s social media strategy has most of its its basics in place. The brand now needs to take one step ahead and leverage social media in a much bigger way. Integrated campaigns, taking conversations offline and building sustainable digital properties should be prominent in their social media strategy now.

Expert View by Rajiv Dingra Founder & CEO of WATConsult – An Award Winning Digital & Social Media Agency.

Analytics Support: Simplify360