As user growth on Twitter and Facebook slows, an increasing number of restaurants are developing dynamic apps as a primary way to interact with customers.

1. Apps help restaurants
counter social media shifts
Jennifer Bartashus, Jitendra Waral
Bloomberg Intelligence analysts

2. An increasing number of restaurants are using mobile apps as
a primary way to interact with customers. Companies such as
Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and Yum’s Taco Bell have robust apps
featuring loyalty programs, mobile ordering and payment.
McDonald’s and Chipotle are among chains slower to create
dynamic apps. Developing apps may be increasingly important
to avoid having to chase customers as they move between social
media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram
and SnapChat.

3. Twitter, Facebook slow user growth may hurt restaurant strategy

4. A slowing of new and active users for Twitter (320 million) and
Facebook (1.5 billion) may force restaurants to adjust social media
strategies. Fast-food chains, including Yum’s Taco Bell and KFC,
McDonald’s and Burger King use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
to interact with customers.
Should these dominant companies see monthly average-user
growth plateau, it could cost restaurants more to monitor a
growing swath of platforms, including Pinterest, TripAdvisor,
Google, Yelp and OpenTable.

5. Facebook, Twitter Monthly Average User Growth

6. Restaurant mobile apps may benefit from Twitter overengineering

7. Twitter’s monthly active-user growth has sequentially declined as
users have begun to find the platform increasingly complicated.
That’s creating growth opportunities for competing social media
services such as Facebook’s Instagram’s estimated 300 million
users) and WhatsApp (900 million), and Snapchat (300 million),
which offer simpler messaging.
The plethora of platforms can make it hard for restaurants to
manage brands and customer communication. Self-developed
apps can help with direct marketing.

8. Daily Active Users to Monthly Active Users Ratio

9. Fast-food tweets drop as Twitter new, monthly-user growth slows

10. Total tweets posted by fast-food companies including McDonald’s,
Yum, Burger King, Wendy’s, Sonic and Jack in the Box have
declined over time. Monthly tweets have dropped from over 700
in March 2014 to about 200 in October 2015 for these companies.
This may reflect a slowdown in active user growth at Twitter and
an increase in the use of company-controlled mobile apps to
communicate with customers. Restaurant advertising budgets
range from 2-5% of sales and are increasingly focused on
digital media.

11. Fast Food Tweets Declining Over Time

12. McDonald’s marketing blitz bests Taco Bell in Twitter retweets

13. McDonald’s overtook Taco Bell and Burger King’s Twitter retweet
ratio in October, as the fast-food titan aggressively marketed all-day
breakfast, while it seeks to continue a sales growth recovery.
McDonald’s and Burger King focused more than 75% of their tweets
during the middle of the day, while Taco Bell targeted 88% of its
tweets during evening hours. The measure can be used as a proxy for
social-media effectiveness, given it shows how often company tweets
are retweeted by followers.

14. McDonald’s, Taco Bell Retweet Ratios

15. McDonald’s, KFC garner most Facebook ‘likes’ among restaurants

16. Facebook is a critical tool in a restaurant’s marketing arsenal.
The platform lets chains engage directly with followers, advertise
new menu items and offers, and use analytics to understand
customers and marketing activities.
This has been important, given restaurants have trailed other
industries in developing loyalty programs, which generally deliver
copious amounts of consumer-related data. Restaurant dependence
on Facebook could slow as self-developed mobile apps and loyalty
programs become more prevalent.

17. Top 3 Casual-Dining, Fast-Food Chains by “Likes”

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