If you haven’t seen the Wendy’s Twitter feed, you’re missing out on a laugh— and your business is missing out on some great digital marketing insights.

Wendy’s and Marketing

Here are a few things you can learn from Wendy’s if Twitter is central to your marketing strategy:

1. Respond to Your Competitors

Perhaps the thing Wendy’s is best known for is it’s “feud” with McDonald’s. Their response to a Mickey D’s Black Friday flub is a great recent example.

When they accidentally posted an unfinished tweet with placeholder text [Black Friday ****Need copy and link****], Wendy’s had a clever retort that got retweeted and favorited hundreds of thousands of times [When the tweets are as broken as the ice cream machine.]

2. Respond Proactively to Customers’ Issues

No business is perfect. But a lot can be said about one who responds quickly to negative customer experiences. Wendy’s responds to every customer service issue in a time efficient way with a solution convenient to the customer.

On May 15, Twitter user @martycarpenter tweeted an image of a sub-par sandwich to Wendy’s, who responded, “This isn’t the quality we’d expect. Please DM us with the info on this location, along with your number, and we’ll make it up to you”.

They post many tweets like this per day, which shows their impressive commitment to both direct customer engagement and responsive customer service. [SEE HOW TO BOOST MOBILE ENGANGEMENT]

3. Respond Positively to Customer Praise/Engagement

Wendy’s doesn’t just respond to customer issues. They appear to respond to every tweet and even engage in sub-threads.

Whether customers laugh at their snarky tweets or post pictures of their Frosty, Wendy’s responds, sometimes with words of thanks, sometimes with rows of raising the roof emojis (like they did to a tweet from user @dtxarianna).

4. Use Multimedia

Whether it’s a video, animated GIF, a blog, or an image, you’ll see a little bit of everything on a scroll through any given day of activity on the Wendy’s Twitter feed. The more media you use, the more customers you’ll appeal to, and the more opportunities you’ll have to engage.

5. Post Often

Every social platform is a bit different. It wouldn’t do to post many times a day on some social media channels. However, Twitter refreshes (very) often, so frequent posts won’t overwhelm most users. In fact, posting too infrequently could hurt your credibility. If you’re not sure how often to post, do a little market research. Scroll your competitors’ feeds—or influencers you respect—to see how they engage (and how often).

6. Have Fun

If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, you know its short format (280 characters). This allows for a more casual, back-and-forth style. We’re all about professionalism, and you should never compromise your brand personality, but there’s an opportunity for lighthearted, whimsical engagement on Twitter that doesn’t happen as often on other platforms.

Wendy’s (and Burger King) know this. When Burger King posted a Promposal on one of its brick-and-mortar signs, Wendy’s responded with a predictably pithy comeback: “Ok, but don’t get handsy and we have to be home by 10”.

Wendy’s is just one of the many examples of how savvy content, high engagement, multimedia, and knowledge of your market can converge on Twitter to take your marketing to the next level.

Food for thought: Twitter is way more than #hashtags these days— are you making the most of it?