social media marketing by TACO BELLS

1. SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING
Assignment
Vishakha Choudhary

2. Introduction
Taco Bell is USA’s leading Mexican-inspired quick service restaurant. Taco Bell serves made to
order and customizable tacos, burritos, and specialties such as the exclusive Doritos Locos
Tacos, gourmet-inspired Cantina Power® Menu and lower calorie Fresco Menu. The company
encourages customers to "Live Más (live more)," both through its food and in ways such as its
Feed The Beat® music program and its nonprofit organization, the Taco Bell Foundation™.
Taco Bell has nearly 6,000 restaurants across the United States that proudly serve more than 36
million customers every week.
Taco Bell
Parent Company Yum Brands
Category Fast food eating joints
Sector Food Products
Tagline/ Slogan Think outside the bun
USP Taco Bell offers lots of Mexican dishes
In the last decade, Taco Bell has honed its focus on the millennial market, doubling down on social
media across its many platforms with its signature uber-conversational voice. Thanks to regularly
clever Twitter and Snapchat campaigns, the fast food joint meets young professionals and Gen
Z’ers where they live.
Its mobile app—which has been downloaded over 4.9 million times—makes it easy to place a
custom meal order and pay before you arrive to skip the line.
Social media is a medium through which the company targets a youth-based demographic and has
figured out how to interest them through the emphasis of clever and comical content all while
having fun doing it.

3. They understand that users hold the power to spread information and therefore they create
genuine relationships with audience through aligning their content to appeal to our emotions. In
doing so, they are building their brand value and online culture.

4. Summary of Social Media Usage and Purpose
Social media assessment:
Social network Follower count Average weekly
activity
Response rate
Twitter 1.9M 6 posts per
week
7-8 times in a
day
Instagram 1.2M 3 posts per
week
2-3 times on a
post
Facebook 10M 4 posts per
week
2-3 times on a
post
YouTube 66K
subscribers
2 videos a
month
No response
Pinterest 3K Less active No response
Snapchat 2M Filter once a
month
-
Google+ 1.1M Less active -
1. On Instagram: The Company has managed to have multiple tweets go viral by jumping on
existing hashtags and trends that are prominent in the moment. For example, when
“#10thingsigetalot” was trending, Taco Bell tweeted “Do you sell bells?” Alongside the
hashtag. The tweet garnered a significant amount of attention and worked because it was
both funny and a tad self-depreciative, which further instills a personality behind the brand.
1.1. Their Instagram content strategy is ultimately aimed towards building a “cult of Taco
Bell.”
1.2. Taco Bell also takes a more direct approach to this goal by turning its customers into
advertisers. To promote its Naked Chicken Chalupa meal, the company gave away
samples along with items like lights and props. It then encouraged recipients to take pics
of the meal and post it on Instagram.

5. 1.3. Taco Bell also collaborates with other brands in some odd ways. In October, they joined
forces with Fashion Company Forever 21 to launch a limited edition line of taco-themed
clothing and apparel.
1.4. Taco Bell encouraged customers to submit design ideas using the hashtag #f21xtacobell.
The seemingly outlandish collaboration proved successful, with the apparel being sold
out on the first day. Meanwhile, the strategy helped create plenty of engagements for
Taco Bell on Instagram.
2. On Facebook: Taco Bell maintains a high level of engagement on Facebook by applying the
same witty persona that it uses in its other social media pages. Besides its usual repertoire of
funny posts, the brand frequently responds to the comments on its page in a candid manner.
This has helped them more effectively connect with Facebook users.
2.1. Taco Bell takes this idea of creating campaigns related to national events up a notch by
finding unique ways of tying these events back to its brand. In celebration of the MLB
World Series the brand had a “Steal a base, Steal a Taco” promo. They gave away free
tacos whenever a player stole a base during a game. They even created a Facebook event
for it. They don’t own it, but it generates a lot of relevant engagement around its
products. The brand takes advantage of that opportunity by creating promos themed
around the event.

6. 3. Mobile App: One of Taco Bell’s most successful social media campaigns was for their new
mobile ordering app. Instead of taking the regular approach of the occasional promotional
post to pique the interest of their followers, Taco Bell gave them no choice. The company
basically blacked out all of their social media accounts and left only one phrase to promote
the app. In just 24 hours after launching this campaign, Taco Bell’s app secured itself in one
of the most downloaded in Apple’s “food and drink” category.
3.1. Not only did the company not risk their promotion getting lost in the rest of their social
media activity, it made sure that their followers were the first to know.
3.2. Just 24 hours after launch, 75% of all stores had processed a mobile order
3.3. Individual App download in 2 days – 300000+
3.4. Impressions in 3 days – 2 billion
3.5. The app raced to the No.22 spot from its usual spot of around 60 on the istore for most
downloaded app in the United States, making it bigger than Gmail, Twitter & Google
Maps

7. 3.6. It landed the Taco Bell’s app at the No.1 spot in the iTunes Store for the Food & Beverage
category
4. On Twitter: Another way Taco Bell made their engagement skyrocket was through the use of
emoji’s. The company realized that there was no taco emoji and started a petition to get one,
which worked after they managed to receive over 33,000 signatures. They followed this
engagement booster by inventing a ‘Taco Emoji Engine,’ which not only celebrated the taco
emoji entering the texting game, it prompted followers to tweet at them for a unique
response. In the first five days of introducing the ‘Taco Emoji Engine,’ the company’s
official Twitter page received more than half a million direct tweets.

8. 5. On Snapchat: The social media team definitely puts a lot of thought and creative energy into
generating content for its Snapchat story, with stories such as “Taco Bell Menu Hacks” being
one key example.
6. Liv mas’ scholarship: The new Live Mas scholarship is aimed at young people whose
primary talents may reside outside academics and athletics, the two most common sources
of college scholarship. The Taco Bell Foundation will be awarding 220 scholarships to
deserving recipients, ranging from $2,500 to $25,000 each. To be eligible, applicants must
create and submit a two-minute or less video that tells the story of their life’s passion.
6.1. Behind the scholarship campaign the company believes “When you actually have a
purpose that’s consistent with who you are, and also demonstrates how you’re trying
to make a difference in the community, that’s how you get into the fabric of culture”.

9. Usage of Social Media
a) Influencer marketing : Part of Taco Bell’s content strategy involves influencer
marketing where they connect with influencers or other brands that aren’t necessarily
associated with the brand but have amassed sizable fan bases on their own merit. One way
the company has accomplished this is by sending influencers their products prior to the
official release.
b) Taco Bell react instantly: The notion speaks for itself across the different social media
platforms. Studies show that customers expect a response from a company within an hour
when it comes to Twitter, especially if it’s a complaint. Taco Bell recently employed a
#TacoEmojiEngine, in which Twitter users send @TacoBell a tweet containing the taco
emoji and a second emoji of their choosing. Then, Taco Bell replies back with a relevant
photo or GIF that’s an amusing mashup of the two. Twitter users receive a response within
seconds, thus quickly boosting their brand loyalty.
c) They highly value their customers: It’s in our nature to want to be noticed and credited for
the things we do. Customers always want to be a part of the experience, and Taco Bell’s
social media strategy has acknowledged them as one of the most valuable assets of their
brand. Taco Bell shares the experiences their customers have with their brand, often in the
form of a retweet on Twitter.
d) Leveraging humor as a marketing weapon: Social media marketing is a serious business,
but that doesn’t mean that your brand can’t be fun. Taco Bell’s success is a testament to how
humor can help build a following. Showing your brand’s more lighthearted side will make
you more relatable.

10. e) Real-time engagement: Responding to customer social media comments immediately is
essential for providing an effective service. Taco Bell takes this further by using such
responses to engage in casual conversations with its audience. This has helped the brand
establish a good rapport with them.
f) User-generated content: Letting customers freely express support for your brand is an
effective way of building loyalty and solidifying your fandom. Taco Bell does this by
encouraging its audience to create their own content around its brand.
g) Taco Bell runs a monthly Snapchat filter promoting mobile ordering, and encourage
customer engagement. The filter would be considered successful after an attained reach of at
least 30,000.
h) Taco Bell runs a sponsored Facebook campaign incentivizing customers to order food via
the mobile app. sharing the post and placing an order on the app will enter them for a chance
to win a year’s worth of free burritos.
i) ”How I Taco Bell”, a promotion on Instagram that encourages customers to share how and/or
where they eat Taco Bell, with an incentive of being featured on the website feed. This can

11. also be utilized as a hashtag on Twitter, and photos can be linked from Instagram for cross-
social media promotion.
j) Integrate a tweet feature within the food ordering system that tweets when an order is made
using the mobile app. For every 10 orders and tweets, the customer will receive a coupon for
a BOGO item
k) Doing risky campaigns : Taco Bell is well-known for doing outrageous promotional
campaigns. One of the craziest stunts that it pulled off was its “Blackout Campaign” in 2016.
The brand temporarily deactivated its social media channels, including Facebook, to drive
traffic to its newly-released app. All that was left on these channels was a single post with the
link to download the app.

12. Assessment and recommendations
Strength
•Recognised as best place for
affordable mexican food with
attractive pricing between $1 to
$4
•Highly established across USA
with around 5600 restaurants
•Taco Bell is a subsidiary of Yum!
Restaurants,which also owns
Pizza Hut and KFC.
Weakness
•High fat and high calorie food
not good for health conscious
people
•In november 2007, 22 people
were hospitalised due to traces
of E.Coli bacteria
•In 2007. Taco bell manhattan
was found to have rodents which
led to bad image among people
Opportunities
•New recepies can be introduced
focussing on the healthy diet
•Penetration into new segments
and new markets
•The experience of KFC and Pizza
Hut will definitely hold Taco Bell
in good placeand prevent it
from making the mistakes
Threats
•Limited growth in fast food
industry
•New researches and awareness
about the harmful health impact
of fast food
•Highly labor intensivewhich
increases the subjectivity
involved in the delivery of
services

13. References
 https://awario.com/blog/case-study-taco-bell-rocks-social-media-can-learn/
 https://www.fastcompany.com/3055567/why-taco-bell-created-a-1-million-scholarship-
for-dreamers-innovators-and-outsiders
 https://www.businessinsider.in/Instagram-powers-Taco-Bells-innovation-machine-and-
its-completely-changing-the-fast-food-menu-as-we-know-it/articleshow/58210673.cms
 https://www.digitalvidya.com/blog/case-study-taco-bell-social-media-blackout/
 https://mic.com/articles/73129/5-ways-taco-bell-is-killing-it-with-social-
media#.lHLUwSWp9
 https://www.mobilemarketer.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/database-crm/3610.html
 http://www.smartbrief.com/s/2017/02/taco-bells-cmo-its-bold-marketing-strategy