Fast-food giants Papa John's, Yum! boost feedback on social media

“Talked to @jeredowns so much about my fast food habits, I was inspired to order my @pizzahut usual,” Roberts, 28, tweeted to her 159 followers last week after being interviewed for this story.

“I tweet just like I would talk to my friends,” she said.

And if she has a bad experience, she'll tweet about it. “It is just a way of venting. A small part of you hopes it will have an impact,” added Roberts, a claim specialist for Humana in Louisville.

Tweeting about eating may seem like Internet noise to some, but the folks at Louisville-based Yum! Brands' KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, as well as Papa John's International, increasingly are talking back.

Reading and reacting to the daily blizzard of tweets, Facebook posts and other social media traffic has increasingly become an integral part of the restaurant industry.

All have staff who read and respond to what people say about the brands online. Most post specials and coupons, too, like the regular Facebook promotions local pizza chain BoomBozz offers to Facebook fans. Just as important, companies say, is to act or talk back to what consumers are saying about their brands.

Alerted by a tweet last month that a Papa John's ad ran alongside a story on the political blog wonkette.com mocking Sarah Palin's son Trig, who has Down syndrome, the pizza chain acted immediately. That tweet by a Wonkette viewer was read by the pizza chain's “Social Media Ambassador,” stationed at company headquarters in Louisville.

"We really appreciated that this consumer brought it to our attention,” pizza company spokeswoman Tish Muldoon said, adding the company has received congratulatory tweets from other users. By the following Friday, the offending content about Palin's family had also been removed from Wonkette and replaced with an apology.

“In previous times, it might have taken days or weeks for us to know this. In today's social media, we were able to act on this in a matter of hours, instead of a few days,” Muldoon said.

Instant response

A year ago, KFC spokesman Rick Maynard did much of the monitoring himself of Facebook and Twitter traffic. Today, a squad of six to eight people at Yum monitor what the public is saying and posting about KFC in North America on any given day, he said.

Along the way, telephone calls to KFC's toll-free 800 number have declined, Maynard added. Instead, KFC's 3.1 million Facebook fans and 34,000 Twitter followers post feedback about KFC meals via pictures and comments in real time. Fans can also view the “Colonel's photo album” on Flickr. KFC's YouTube page shows company videos have been viewed more than 1 million times.

“Our customers increasingly are online, and that is their first stop,” Maynard said. “We hear from people while they are in the restaurant.”

KFC recently asked its online followers what location would be most extreme where KFC could deliver its $5 promotion of a sandwich, potato wedges and a drink. Of 225 suggestions received, the craziest, most “out of the bucket” response selected was the idea of delivering food to high-rise window washers. On Tuesday in Chicago, a stunt performer dressed as Col. Harland Sanders descended 38 floors to deliver $5 Everyday Meals to window washers.

The democratic nature of social media sparked a fundamental change in Domino's advertising strategy. One result is that Domino's no longer uses food artists to dress up pizzas for use in print photographs or television advertising campaigns. That shift arrived last year as Domino's unveiled its reinvented pizza and invited customers to post photos of what actually got delivered to their doors.

Forty thousand photographs were submitted by consumers, a result that “made our pizza makers a lot better. Every pizza you ever see in a Domino's pizza commercial is made at a store by an employee and shot with a camera. No tricks,” company spokesman Tim McIntyre said.

Last year, Domino's had 400,000 Facebook fans, a figure now at 2.6 million, McIntyre said. The company “Tweetologist,” is called “Phil from Domino's,” and works full time with two computer screens at his desk talking to customers online. When Phil isn't online, customer service and marketing staff fill in.

“We have a lot of eyes and ears out there, all unofficial, all voluntary,” McIntyre said of company fans on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. “You don't ever want to dampen their enthusiasm.”

Allowing customers to broadcast experiences, good and bad, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and other social media sites empower people, said Blanca Valbuean, editor for FriendsEAT, a food and restaurant website with 100,000 members, 50,000 Facebook fans and 26,000 Twitter followers.

“It is impossible for companies to ignore what people are saying,” Valbuean said. “Twitter has become an incredible force for communication. It's just going to get bigger and bigger.”

Wall Street has begun listening, too.

This year, restaurant financial analyst Mark Kalinowski began issuing a “Twitter Report” to his clients at Janney Montgomery Scott. Kalinowski aggregates Tweets such as “KFC India launches cheaper Streetwise menu” and consumers tweeting their doubt that new oatmeal at McDonald's is wholesome, a story later picked up by Time magazine.

“As far as I can tell, we are the only (stock brokerage) that is publishing regularly tweets that folks in the restaurant industry are putting out,” he said.

“It takes a little while to sift though,” he added of the tweets by 300 to 400 industry watchers. “We are interested in anything that catches our eye.” The best news nugget that could move a stock price so far was an accurate tweet that the Chipotle chain would test an Asian restaurant concept in Washington, D.C., he said.

Not everyone convinced

But some in the business don't see value following tweets or posts online and talking back.

“I feel that social media has not matured enough for any of us to know how to utilize it properly. I have not found any research that links it directly to sales,” said Tom Dougherty, president and CEO of Stealing Share, a brand consultancy based in Greensboro, N.C.

Owner of nearly 200 Wendy's and Chile's franchise restaurants, Louisville's Ulysses “Junior” Bridgeman said neither he nor his staff monitors social media traffic. Nor does he tweet or host Facebook sites for his eateries, unlike many other fast food franchisees. Instead, Bridgeman said, he depends on Wendy's and Chile's corporate owners to alert him to issues his customers talk about online.

“There is too much information out there. All this technology is new. It is hard to get through all the noise to see what is meaningful,” Bridgeman said.

The important thing, Bridgeman added, is focusing on providing a great food experience, never mind interacting with what customers are saying about you to their friends on Facebook.

“It is always about the food and the presentation at that moment of truth when they come in the restaurant or go in the drive-through,” Bridgeman said. “If you don't do well there, there is nothing you can do that will convince somebody otherwise.”