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[The Disney Experience]
A look at social media and best practices
Trè Cotton | Independent Study | April 25, 2016
PAGE 1
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1
INTRODUCTION 2
BACKGROUND 2
THE BEGINNING 2
THE MAGIC WE SEE TODAY 3
WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA? 4
FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM 4
TWITTER 6
HOW COMPANIES USE SOCIAL MEDIA? 7
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AND INTERACTIONS 7
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICES? 9
WHAT DOES DISNEY DO? 9
METHODOLOGY 11
FACEBOOK 12
TWITTER 12
ANALYSIS 12
FACEBOOK VS. TWITTER 12
FACEBOOK LIKES & SHARES 14
TWITTER LIKES & RETWEETS 16
CONCLUSION 18
REFERENCES 20
PAGE 2
Introduction
Communication during the 21st
century has evolved over the past years. Between the
different forms of communication and social media platforms, corporations are able to reach a
wider audience better than before. Today, the Walt Disney Company is one of many companies
that use social media as a way to interact with its target market and potential consumers. When
Disney first started out in 1923, the way it would communicate with its audience is different, but
today it is able to connect and communicate with a million people around the world through more
than 1,000 social media accounts. Tracking and analyzing how the Walt Disney’s communication
process works and how it has evolved since it has begun and developed over time will be the
focus and general scope of this study.
Background
The Beginning
The Walt Disney Company (WDC) is one of the most diversified companies around.
With approximately 200 million Likes across all of its Facebook pages, the Walt Disney
Company has become one of the most powerful brands around, online and off (Warren, 2011).
The Walt Disney Company started in 1923 in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly-
Vermont Realty in Los Angeles. It was there that Walt Disney, and his brother Roy, produced a
series of short live-action/animated films collectively called Alice Comedies (The Walt Disney
Studios History, n.d.). Approximately four months later, the growing staff moved to a bigger
facility that was located next door. In 1925, Disney made a deposit on a Hyperion Avenue lot in
the Silver Lake District of Los Angeles. The Hyperion lot is a popular location for many Disney
fans. It is the book-publishing division of the Walt Disney Company and the monorail in Disney
California Adventure Park travels across the Hyperion Bridge as it speeds past the Buena Vista
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Street entrance (Bowling, 2013). After purchasing the new lot, construction began, but some of
the biggest milestones in the history of the Walt Disney Company started in 1927 to 1928.
In 1927, the first feature length film with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer, debuted.
In 1928, Walt lost the rights to his most famous character,Oswald Lucky Rabbit. Essentially,
Walt thought this was a new opportunity and soon introduced Mickey Mouse and the first cartoon
short with sound, “Steamboat Willie” (Bowling, 2013). In addition to Walt Disney, his animators
became more creative, artistic, and innovative, so the studio had to grow to meet Walt’s vision.
As time went on and the company began to grow, Walt and Roy continued to purchase more lot
space and make major renovations. However,by 1939 there was no more room to grow on the
Hyperion Studio lot. The company employed approximately 1,500 employees.
Since there was no more room to grow, Walt and Roy purchased a 51 acre plot of land in
Burbank and construction began immediately. Eventually the Hyperion Studio property was sold
in 1941; however, the studio represents “the golden age” of the Walt Disney’s imagination
(Bowling, 2013). During the Hyperion Studios short time, it was where many of the beloved
characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White,
and Pinocchio have all come to life.
The Magic We See Today
The company is broken into five business segments, which include: Media Networks,
Parks and Resorts,Studio Entertainment, Disney Consumer Products, and Disney Interactive. The
Disney Consumer Products (DCP) segment operates its social media presence under the name
“Disney Living” and has managed to gain more than 300,000 Likes on Facebook, 29,000
Followers on Twitter and 8.8 million views on YouTube in just under two years (Warren,
2011).The Walt Disney Company is a good corporation to use because it has a plethora of social
media pages across all platforms that is popular in today’s society. Although the WDC has over
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1,000 social media accounts, each post has a different focus and a range of post that most times
do not overlap with the other social media profiles.
What is Social Media?
Social media is one of the biggest methods of communication that allows many people to
share different aspects of their daily lives. This type of communication allows users to easily
transfer text, pictures, audio, video, and general information on platforms that allow other internet
users to view it. Platforms like twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have created online communities
where people can share as much or as little personal information as they desire with other
members. Applications that have developed within and around these platforms, websites,and
tools are endless in number and functionality, but all make online sharing and searching easier in
some fashion, regardless of their niche (What is Social Media?, n.d.).
Facebook and Instagram
The Facebook mobile app and website enable people to connect, share,discover, and
communicate with each other on mobile devices and personal computers. Facebook is free and
available throughout the world (Facebook Annual Report 2014). Some of Facebook’s most
common features are the Timeline, News Feed,Photo and Videos, and Messages. The Timeline is
a chronological narrative of the users’ activities that matter most to them. It allows the user to
organize and display the events by choosing what information they want to share on their
Timeline and control who each type of content is visible to. People may display information such
as their photos, interests, education, work history, relationship status, and even contact
information.
The News Feed is the core feature of a person’s homepage and is regularly updating list
of stories from friends, pages, and other entities to which the person is connected on Facebook
(Facebook Annual Report 2014). Common type of media that appears on the News Feed is posts,
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pictures, event dates, group memberships, app updates, and other activities that other users are
willing to share. Although all of these types of media appear on everyone’s News Feed,each
users News Feed is different and personalized based on the persons sharing activity of their
friends and the person’s interests.
The Photos and Videos feature allows users to upload an unlimited number high
resolution photos, create photo albums, and share them with their friends on Facebook. Since this
is one of Facebook’s most popular features,in 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram, a mobile
phone-based photo-sharing service, to enhance photo product offerings and to enable users to
increase their levels of mobile engagement and photo sharing. Instagram is way for users to share
their life with friends and family through a series of pictures and videos. A user takes a picture
with their mobile device, then chooses a filter to transform the image in any style of their choice
and shares it. Instagram is compatible with other social media platforms like Flickr, Facebook,
and Twitter (FAQ,n.d.). When posting an image on Instagram, users are given the opportunity to
not only share their images on their Instagram profile, but on the other platforms on a photo-by-
photo basis.
Lastly, Messages includes a variety of communicating abilities that range from email to
text messaging:
 Email: Users can set up a free @facebook.com address.
 Chat: Users can send messages to their friends in an instant message format.
 Text Messaging: Users can activate text messaging on Facebook, allowing the
texts they exchange with friends to be incorporated into their respective
conversations along with their message and chat history.
Although Facebook is free for everyone, it creates value for marketers by providing resources to
ensure that ads or marketing strategies are measuring up to the goals that were set for the ad
campaign or business objectives. Majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated from selling
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advertising placements to marketers. When marketers are purchasing placements on Facebook,
they are able to reach a variety of people on the social media site based on severalfactors that
include age, gender, location, and interests. Also, marketers are can decide where the ad appears
which include News Feeds on mobile devices and personal computers, and on the right-hand side
of personal computers (Facebook Annual Report 2014).
Twitter
Twitter is a global platform for public self-expression and conversation in real time.
Twitter is an information network made up of 140-character messages called “Tweets.” It’s an
easy way to discover the latest news related to subjects users care about the most (Twitter Annual
Report 2014). In addition to a Tweet,users can follow others and users can be followed by others
users without following back which is called an asymmetric follow model.
Essentially, it is a service that allows families, friends, and coworkers to stay connected
and communicate through quick messages or Tweets. A tweet is a post that may contain pictures,
videos, links or Uniform Resource Locators (URLs),and up to 140 characters of text. “A tweet is
an expression of a moment or idea. Millions of tweets are shared in realtime, everyday (The story
of a Tweet,n.d.).” Like Facebook, Twitter has a Timeline feature where users’ tweets are
counted, displayed, and organized chronologically. If the user has followers, their tweets will
appear in the followers Timelines, and vice versa.
Twitter provides businesses and marketers with the opportunity to purchase advertising
services giving marketers the ability to monitor advertising campaigns with Campaign
Management, Real-Time Analytics, and Advertiser API (Twitter Annual Report 2014):
 Campaign Management: The campaign management capability tools allow
advertisers to monitor and make changes to campaigns in real time as ads are
delivered. This allows advertisers to actively manage their campaigns as they
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gain deeper insight into their target audience and allows them to react to events
and user reactions as they unfold.
 Real-Time Analytics: Analytics tools give advertisers insight into user response
to their ads, which helps them to understand the success of campaigns as well as
customer preferences in real-time.
 Advertiser API: APIs enable advertisers to integrate with Twitter and build
websites and applications that integrate our campaign management and analytics
tools.
How Companies use social media?
With technology constantly evolving and social media becoming even more personal.
Companies have started using social media to their advantage and using its resources as tools to
carry out advertising campaigns and to accomplish business objectives. Social media is one of the
best ways to monitor a brand because many social media platforms offer analytics and other
monitoring capabilities to marketers to see the frequency of retweets and likes or how many
people the advertisement has reached. However,there are plenty of other ways that marketers or
companies can use social media to their advantage.
Customer Feedback and Interactions
Although companies use social media to advertise, they also use it to get customer
feedback on the business as a whole, new product idea, beta testing, or other issues related to the
company. Some companies use surveys and polls to ask people on social networks to share their
opinions on a critical issue. For instance, the DoubleTree by Hilton tweeted a link to its survey to
get people to take it and provide them with feedback about the services that it offers (Eridon,
2012)(See figure 1).
PAGE 8
Figure 1
The tweet is a Promoted Tweet which appears within a user’s timeline or search results just like
an ordinary Tweet regardless of device. Using an algorithm and understanding of each user’s
interest graph, Twitter can deliver Promoted Tweets that are intended to be relevant to a particular
user (Twitter Annual Report 2014). Essentially, the tweet shows that the DoubleTree cares a lot
about its customers since it spent money to get customer feedback. Doing surveys and polls can
also help get product feedback on a new product or previous products that have been released.
The company network is probably already consists of not only current customers, but prospects,
target customers, and possibly industry influencers.
Another good way to gain some customer feedback is by monitoring brand mentions on
social media platforms. By seeing when your brand name is discussed on social media, you can
give instant customer support and feedback to people having issues with a product or service,
regardless of whether they contacted the business for help (Eridon, 2012). This can also be used
to monitor competitive mentions and see if there is an opportunity to gain customers who are
unhappy with other brands in the same industry.
By posting polls and surveys, monitoring brand mentions, and responding to issues or
complaints, the marketer would be engaging with consumers and making them feel heard which
is what all consumers really want. Also, using a variety of channels to share content, blogs, and
promotions helps keep the consumers engaged with the company and creating more brand
mentions. When customers are engaged, the company is their default buying choice. They are
PAGE 9
loyal. They become advocates for the company. With social media, engaged customers can – and
do – endorse the company to tens of thousands or people instantly (Sklar, 2013).
What are some of the best social media practices?
There are many ways to use social media to understand and interact with consumers.
Being able to engage and listen, respond to good and bad comments, and post consistently will
help keep consumers genuinely interested and making them loyal to the brand.
What does Disney Do?
Social media plays a huge role in the lives of most Americans. Therefore,most
businesses cater to the way society engages with technology to gain not only profits, but brand
loyal customers. The Walt Disney Company is the perfect business that uses many social media
applications to draw in families and Disney enthusiasts. The Walt Disney Company has
developed various tactics and strategies to reach out to its loyal fans. In order for the company to
reach many of its loyal fans, it has created a variety of pages and social media blogs for everyone
to relive the Disney magic at any time.
Bringing the magic of Disney to social media was one of the best decisions the company
has ever made. It seems like Disney has had a social media presence for quite some time, but it
actually has been such a short time than what most people think. Disney began its social media
appearance with its Disney Moms panel in 2010. “This was their first major social media forum,
created so that past customers (moms) could engage with people looking to come to Disney
World (Fleischner, n.d.).” Essentially, the forum was created and allowed people to connect to
other moms to ask questions and get honest responses instead of going to a company
representative. “They call this a ‘smart risk’ since they allow the moms to post whatever they
want, positive or negative (Fleischner, n.d.).” The best part of this is that anytime someone posted
something negative about the company, someone always came to Disney’s defense without them
PAGE 10
actually having to do anything. “This advance into social media before many other companies is
what has made Disney one of the most powerful brands online (Fleischner, n.d.).”
One of Disney’s biggest appearances on social media is Facebook. “The Disney
marketing team uses Facebook to share pictures, video, quizzes, and promotional messages with
its fans (Huff, 2014).” Since the creation of its Facebook page, Disney has gained approximately
50 million likes. Essentially, by posting pictures, videos, quizzes, and promotional messages
cause many Facebook users to give the page thumbs up and eventually hitting the share button.
“Every day, thousands of fans click the coveted thumbs up and share buttons on virtually every
message the team posts, proving Disney has really tapped into what its Facebook fans want (Huff,
2014).” With many likes on Facebook, Disney also has many followers across the social media
spectrum.
YouTube is another one of Disney’s biggest appearances. Each of Disney’s social media
sites or outlets is used for different purposes. “YouTube allows them to create videos that are
more for entertainment value rather than sell their products (Fleischner, n.d.).” Through its
YouTube channel, Disney created content specifically for the outlet and built unique channels
around it. The Disney Style channel is a great example of this. “From Frozen-inspired makeup to
DIY Disney Crafts,the Style channel plugs into the popularity of its feature films and keeps fans
coming back for more. All Disney YouTube channels are linked together across the platform for a
little extra cross-promotion (Huff, 2014).” By having content specific channels, it allows families
and Disney enthusiasts to experience the world of Disney without even leaving home.
Incorporating Disney into some of life’s greatest moments like home decorating and
weddings is something many Disney fans enjoy doing. However,Disney makes this process
easier by using Pinterest. “Pinterest provides the ideal platform for showing all the ways Disney
is about more than Mickey Mouse and movies (Huff, 2014).” Disney sets itself a part form others
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by having many Pinterest boards that cover all kinds of categories. “The Disney Holidays board is
regularly updated with relevant pins based on the time of year, each one revealing a how-to guide
on making a decoration or gift for the season (Ratcliff, 2014).” The brand keeps things going and
interesting by pinning a combination of cartoons and tangible images that followers love to see.
All in all, Disney has developed its brand across many platforms in order to keep the
magic going when not at one of the major theme parks. Disney’s plan to engage with social media
is based on two things:
 “The first is to reach families and Disney enthusiasts, encouraging them to share
content.”
 “The second, is to get guest talking about the content and sharing it beyond their own
profile (Fleischner, n.d.).”
Essentially, Disney is a great model in social media engagement and has excelled at having a
presence across many platforms without putting too much attention on one over the others.
Having a strong social media presence is important when staying current and it’s an opportunity
for the company to grow. Disney wants to keep its loyal fans and families engaged and its online
success will keep consumers talking and passing along information to family and friends so the
magic of Disney can be experienced.
Methodology
From this point, this research will focus on the Walt Disney Companies social media
platforms. In order to understand some of the similarities and differences that Disney’s social
media pages have, each platform was tracked on a three month period. From November 1st
to
January 31st
, the number of shares,likes, retweets,types of post, and the time in which the post
PAGE 12
was made was tracked based on the information that was shown on the social media pages
outlined according to platform below.
Facebook
The social media pages that were tracked on the Facebook platform included Walt
Disney World (WDW), Disneyland (DL), and Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings & Honeymoons
(DFTWH). The Walt Disney World and Disneyland Facebook are the official pages for the Walt
Disney World and Disneyland Resorts. Both pages are a place for fans,and families to learn park
updates, news, and special backstage information at the individual parks. The Disney’s Fairy Tale
Weddings & Honeymoons are places where it posts updates, news, and important
announcements.
Twitter
The social media pages that were tracked on the Twitter platform included Disney
(DNY),Walt Disney World (WDW), and Disney Pixar (DP). The Disney Twitter page is a place
where all things that are Disney is shared. Essentially, this is a place where new movie trailers,
games, paraphernalia, pictures, videos, and anything related to the Disney brand is shared here.
The Walt Disney World twitter account is a place where news,announcements and all things
related to the Walt Disney theme park is shared. Lastly, the Disney Pixar Twitter page is a place
where all things Pixar are shared. This includes movie trailers, photos, links, videos, and a link its
Facebook page.
Analysis
Facebook VS. Twitter
Both of Disney’s Facebook and Twitter pages have active and loyal fans that like to not
only share their experiences, but their advice on anything Disney. One of Disney’s biggest
PAGE 13
appearances is on its Facebook pages which provide a variety of content for fans to view, like,
share,and even comment (see Figure 2).
Figure two, shows a comparison between Walt Disney World’s Facebook page and Twitter page
based on likes, shares,and retweets. While many people didn’t share or retweet,they did posts
more on both platforms. Most of the information that was shared during the three month period
were trailers of the new Star Wars movie, or special holiday posts for Thanksgiving, Christmas,
and News Years day. Although WDW had the most likes on Facebook, it could be due to more
people like to follow WDW on Facebook than Twitter. Also, WDW doesn’t post as frequently on
Facebook than it does on Twitter. Essentially, it would be difficult to say which page is better
than the other since each one posts frequently and each one posts similar posts; however, it
depends on the audiences preference on which platform they may choose to use.
1610825
107675
223342
41897
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
1400000
1600000
1800000
Facebook Twitter
NumberofLikes,Shares,andRetweets
WDW: Facebook VS. Twitter
Sum of Likes
Sum of Shares & Retweets
Figure 2
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Facebook Likes & Shares
Getting the most likes and shares on Facebook depend on many factors. For instance, the
time of day and time of the year,the type of post, the frequency of posts, and the length of the
posts are all factors involved.
Figure 3
Above in Figure three, it compares the amount of likes between the different Facebook pages.
Both WDW and DL follow a similar. Something important to notes is that there is a huge increase
in likes around Christmas and New Year’s Day. Both pages post different items at different times;
however, there are plenty of times when both pages post the same content to be consistent with
the Disney brand for theme parks. However,DFTWH doesn’t post similar items since its theme is
centered on weddings and honeymoons which doesn’t always fit the theme that WDW and
DFTWH is trying to portray.
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
300000
350000
400000
450000
NumberofLikes
Likes amongst Facebook Pages
DFTWH - Facebook
DL - Facebook
WDW - Facebook
PAGE 15
Figure 4
In Figure four, it shows a comparison of the amount of shares that has happened on the Facebook
pages. Like in Figure three, both WDW and DL both have the highest amount of shares which
could be due to the amount of people who go to visit the theme park every year. Additionally, the
highest amount of shares were earned during the holiday months. Although shares are not the
same as likes, it is clear indication that a fan or viewer liked the post enough to share it on their
own page, so their friends could see the post and possibly motivating that person to share it as
well.
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000NumberofShares
Shares amongst Facebook Pages
DFTWH
DL
WDW
PAGE 16
Figure 5
Figure five, shows a complete comparison of likes and shares on all of the Facebook pages. Like
previous graphs, WDW and DL have the highest amount of likes, but WDW has the highest
amount of shares as well. Essentially, this could be due to amount of people that follow each of
these pages. Additionally, the amount of likes gained were earned during the holiday which could
depend on the type of and how frequent WDW posted during those weeks.
Twitter Likes & Retweets
Twitter likes and retweets are similar to Facebook’s concept of likes and shares.
Essentially, the posts on Twitter are limited to 140 characters which means that every post will be
chart; however, that doesn’t the user from posting extra content like videos, pictures, or GIFs.
0
50000
100000
150000
200000
250000
300000
350000
400000
450000NumberofLikes&Shares
Facebook Likes & Shares
DFTWH - Sum of Shares
DFTWH - Sum of Likes
DL - Sum of Shares
DL - Sum of Likes
WDW - Sum of Shares
WDW - Sum of Likes
PAGE 17
Figure 6
In Figure six, it shows a comparison of the number of likes on Disney, Disney Parks,and Walt
Disney World Twitter pages. As shown above, Disney has the highest amount of likes. The page
is cater to all things Disney which includes pictures, trailers, links, vines, and gifs. Like previous
graphs a lot of the likes were earned around the holiday season. Also, has the most likes because
of the bigger fan base and due to the amount of posts that the page makes on a daily bases.
Figure 7
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000NumberofLikes
Likes amongst Twitter Pages
DNY - Twitter
DP - Twitter
WDW - Twitter
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
35000
40000
NumberofRetweets
Retweets amongst Twitter Pages
DNY - Twitter
DP - Twitter
WDW - Twitter
PAGE 18
Compared to Figure 6, Figure 7 takes on a similar pattern which shows that Disney had the
highest amount of shares which could be due to the frequency of post, the number of followers,
and when the page likes to post content.
Figure 8
Above in Figure eight, it shows a comparison of the number of likes and retweets between
Disney’s Twitter pages. Although Facebook shows a bigger appearance in terms of likes,
Disney’s twitter shows more consistency overall with more retweets on each of its pages.
Conclusion
The Walt Disney Company have mastered the way it reaches its consumers and loyal
fans. Through social media platforms, it shares content that draws in its fans to come back to its
theme parks, plan a wedding, or go see a new movie that it produced. While it has over 1,000 of
social media pages, it has a creative ability to keep them different and cater them to all types of
fans that worship the Disney brand. With customer feedback,interactions, and creative
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
80000
90000
NumberofLikes&Retweets
Twitter Likes & Retweets
Sum of Likes - DNY
Sum of Likes - DP
Sum of Likes - WDW
Sum of Retweets - DNY
Sum of Retweets - DP
Sum of Retweets - WDW
PAGE 19
campaigns which are consistent with what’s happening at its theme parks is what keeps loyal fans
coming back for more.
PAGE 20
References
Bowling, M. (2013, July 28). The Walt Disney Hyperion Studios, 1929 – 1939, The Foundation of an
Empire. Retrieved from The DIS: http://blog.wdwinfo.com/2013/07/28/the-walt-disney-
hyperion-studios-1929-1939-the-foundation-of-an-empire/
Eridon, C. (2012, January 18). 7 Terrific Ways to Use Social Media for Instant Feedback. Retrieved
from Hubspot: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30898/7-Terrific-Ways-to-
Use-Social-Media-for-Instant-Feedback.aspx
Facebook Annual Report 2014. (n.d.). Retrieved from Facebook Investor Relations:
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-NJ5DZ/1244210280x0x852173/F61276C5-
0AE9-49DE-BFD9-087398F85EC8/FB2014AR.pdf
FAQ. (n.d.). Retrieved from Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/about/faq/
Fleischner, T. (n.d.). SOCIAL MEDIA CASE STUDY: HOW DOES DISNEY USE IT? Retrieved from
Giraffe Social Media: http://giraffesocialmedia.co.uk/social-media-case-study-how-does-
disney-use-it/
Huff, T. (2014, December 12). What's the Magic Behind the Social Success of Disney? Retrieved from
Social Media Today: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/whats-magic-behind-
social-success-disney
Ratcliff, C. (2014, March 19). How Disney uses social media: Vine, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and
more. Retrieved from Econsultancy: https://econsultancy.com/blog/64550-how-disney-
uses-social-media-vine-youtube-pinterest-instagram-and-more/
Sklar, C. (2013, March Wednesday). How to use social media to understand and engage your
customers. Retrieved from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/media-
network/media-network-blog/2013/mar/13/social-media-customer-engagement
The story of a Tweet. (n.d.). Retrieved from Twitter: https://about.twitter.com/what-is-
twitter/story-of-a-tweet
The Walt Disney Studios History. (n.d.). Retrieved from The Walt Disney Studios:
http://studioservices.go.com/disneystudios/history.html
Twitter Annual Report 2014. (n.d.). Retrieved from Twitter Investor Relations:
http://www.viewproxy.com/twitter/2015/1/annualreport2014.pdf
Warren, C. (2011, August 3). Disney Marketing: The Happiest Social Media Strategy on Earth.
Retrieved September 18, 2015, from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2011/08/03/disney-
social-media/#2CCxtnJ3W8kO
What is Social Media? (n.d.). Retrieved from Social Media Defined:
http://www.socialmediadefined.com/what-is-social-media/

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Disney Experience Report

  • 1. [The Disney Experience] A look at social media and best practices Trè Cotton | Independent Study | April 25, 2016
  • 2. PAGE 1 Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION 2 BACKGROUND 2 THE BEGINNING 2 THE MAGIC WE SEE TODAY 3 WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA? 4 FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM 4 TWITTER 6 HOW COMPANIES USE SOCIAL MEDIA? 7 CUSTOMER FEEDBACK AND INTERACTIONS 7 WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BEST SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICES? 9 WHAT DOES DISNEY DO? 9 METHODOLOGY 11 FACEBOOK 12 TWITTER 12 ANALYSIS 12 FACEBOOK VS. TWITTER 12 FACEBOOK LIKES & SHARES 14 TWITTER LIKES & RETWEETS 16 CONCLUSION 18 REFERENCES 20
  • 3. PAGE 2 Introduction Communication during the 21st century has evolved over the past years. Between the different forms of communication and social media platforms, corporations are able to reach a wider audience better than before. Today, the Walt Disney Company is one of many companies that use social media as a way to interact with its target market and potential consumers. When Disney first started out in 1923, the way it would communicate with its audience is different, but today it is able to connect and communicate with a million people around the world through more than 1,000 social media accounts. Tracking and analyzing how the Walt Disney’s communication process works and how it has evolved since it has begun and developed over time will be the focus and general scope of this study. Background The Beginning The Walt Disney Company (WDC) is one of the most diversified companies around. With approximately 200 million Likes across all of its Facebook pages, the Walt Disney Company has become one of the most powerful brands around, online and off (Warren, 2011). The Walt Disney Company started in 1923 in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly- Vermont Realty in Los Angeles. It was there that Walt Disney, and his brother Roy, produced a series of short live-action/animated films collectively called Alice Comedies (The Walt Disney Studios History, n.d.). Approximately four months later, the growing staff moved to a bigger facility that was located next door. In 1925, Disney made a deposit on a Hyperion Avenue lot in the Silver Lake District of Los Angeles. The Hyperion lot is a popular location for many Disney fans. It is the book-publishing division of the Walt Disney Company and the monorail in Disney California Adventure Park travels across the Hyperion Bridge as it speeds past the Buena Vista
  • 4. PAGE 3 Street entrance (Bowling, 2013). After purchasing the new lot, construction began, but some of the biggest milestones in the history of the Walt Disney Company started in 1927 to 1928. In 1927, the first feature length film with synchronized sound, The Jazz Singer, debuted. In 1928, Walt lost the rights to his most famous character,Oswald Lucky Rabbit. Essentially, Walt thought this was a new opportunity and soon introduced Mickey Mouse and the first cartoon short with sound, “Steamboat Willie” (Bowling, 2013). In addition to Walt Disney, his animators became more creative, artistic, and innovative, so the studio had to grow to meet Walt’s vision. As time went on and the company began to grow, Walt and Roy continued to purchase more lot space and make major renovations. However,by 1939 there was no more room to grow on the Hyperion Studio lot. The company employed approximately 1,500 employees. Since there was no more room to grow, Walt and Roy purchased a 51 acre plot of land in Burbank and construction began immediately. Eventually the Hyperion Studio property was sold in 1941; however, the studio represents “the golden age” of the Walt Disney’s imagination (Bowling, 2013). During the Hyperion Studios short time, it was where many of the beloved characters like Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Snow White, and Pinocchio have all come to life. The Magic We See Today The company is broken into five business segments, which include: Media Networks, Parks and Resorts,Studio Entertainment, Disney Consumer Products, and Disney Interactive. The Disney Consumer Products (DCP) segment operates its social media presence under the name “Disney Living” and has managed to gain more than 300,000 Likes on Facebook, 29,000 Followers on Twitter and 8.8 million views on YouTube in just under two years (Warren, 2011).The Walt Disney Company is a good corporation to use because it has a plethora of social media pages across all platforms that is popular in today’s society. Although the WDC has over
  • 5. PAGE 4 1,000 social media accounts, each post has a different focus and a range of post that most times do not overlap with the other social media profiles. What is Social Media? Social media is one of the biggest methods of communication that allows many people to share different aspects of their daily lives. This type of communication allows users to easily transfer text, pictures, audio, video, and general information on platforms that allow other internet users to view it. Platforms like twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have created online communities where people can share as much or as little personal information as they desire with other members. Applications that have developed within and around these platforms, websites,and tools are endless in number and functionality, but all make online sharing and searching easier in some fashion, regardless of their niche (What is Social Media?, n.d.). Facebook and Instagram The Facebook mobile app and website enable people to connect, share,discover, and communicate with each other on mobile devices and personal computers. Facebook is free and available throughout the world (Facebook Annual Report 2014). Some of Facebook’s most common features are the Timeline, News Feed,Photo and Videos, and Messages. The Timeline is a chronological narrative of the users’ activities that matter most to them. It allows the user to organize and display the events by choosing what information they want to share on their Timeline and control who each type of content is visible to. People may display information such as their photos, interests, education, work history, relationship status, and even contact information. The News Feed is the core feature of a person’s homepage and is regularly updating list of stories from friends, pages, and other entities to which the person is connected on Facebook (Facebook Annual Report 2014). Common type of media that appears on the News Feed is posts,
  • 6. PAGE 5 pictures, event dates, group memberships, app updates, and other activities that other users are willing to share. Although all of these types of media appear on everyone’s News Feed,each users News Feed is different and personalized based on the persons sharing activity of their friends and the person’s interests. The Photos and Videos feature allows users to upload an unlimited number high resolution photos, create photo albums, and share them with their friends on Facebook. Since this is one of Facebook’s most popular features,in 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram, a mobile phone-based photo-sharing service, to enhance photo product offerings and to enable users to increase their levels of mobile engagement and photo sharing. Instagram is way for users to share their life with friends and family through a series of pictures and videos. A user takes a picture with their mobile device, then chooses a filter to transform the image in any style of their choice and shares it. Instagram is compatible with other social media platforms like Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter (FAQ,n.d.). When posting an image on Instagram, users are given the opportunity to not only share their images on their Instagram profile, but on the other platforms on a photo-by- photo basis. Lastly, Messages includes a variety of communicating abilities that range from email to text messaging:  Email: Users can set up a free @facebook.com address.  Chat: Users can send messages to their friends in an instant message format.  Text Messaging: Users can activate text messaging on Facebook, allowing the texts they exchange with friends to be incorporated into their respective conversations along with their message and chat history. Although Facebook is free for everyone, it creates value for marketers by providing resources to ensure that ads or marketing strategies are measuring up to the goals that were set for the ad campaign or business objectives. Majority of Facebook’s revenue is generated from selling
  • 7. PAGE 6 advertising placements to marketers. When marketers are purchasing placements on Facebook, they are able to reach a variety of people on the social media site based on severalfactors that include age, gender, location, and interests. Also, marketers are can decide where the ad appears which include News Feeds on mobile devices and personal computers, and on the right-hand side of personal computers (Facebook Annual Report 2014). Twitter Twitter is a global platform for public self-expression and conversation in real time. Twitter is an information network made up of 140-character messages called “Tweets.” It’s an easy way to discover the latest news related to subjects users care about the most (Twitter Annual Report 2014). In addition to a Tweet,users can follow others and users can be followed by others users without following back which is called an asymmetric follow model. Essentially, it is a service that allows families, friends, and coworkers to stay connected and communicate through quick messages or Tweets. A tweet is a post that may contain pictures, videos, links or Uniform Resource Locators (URLs),and up to 140 characters of text. “A tweet is an expression of a moment or idea. Millions of tweets are shared in realtime, everyday (The story of a Tweet,n.d.).” Like Facebook, Twitter has a Timeline feature where users’ tweets are counted, displayed, and organized chronologically. If the user has followers, their tweets will appear in the followers Timelines, and vice versa. Twitter provides businesses and marketers with the opportunity to purchase advertising services giving marketers the ability to monitor advertising campaigns with Campaign Management, Real-Time Analytics, and Advertiser API (Twitter Annual Report 2014):  Campaign Management: The campaign management capability tools allow advertisers to monitor and make changes to campaigns in real time as ads are delivered. This allows advertisers to actively manage their campaigns as they
  • 8. PAGE 7 gain deeper insight into their target audience and allows them to react to events and user reactions as they unfold.  Real-Time Analytics: Analytics tools give advertisers insight into user response to their ads, which helps them to understand the success of campaigns as well as customer preferences in real-time.  Advertiser API: APIs enable advertisers to integrate with Twitter and build websites and applications that integrate our campaign management and analytics tools. How Companies use social media? With technology constantly evolving and social media becoming even more personal. Companies have started using social media to their advantage and using its resources as tools to carry out advertising campaigns and to accomplish business objectives. Social media is one of the best ways to monitor a brand because many social media platforms offer analytics and other monitoring capabilities to marketers to see the frequency of retweets and likes or how many people the advertisement has reached. However,there are plenty of other ways that marketers or companies can use social media to their advantage. Customer Feedback and Interactions Although companies use social media to advertise, they also use it to get customer feedback on the business as a whole, new product idea, beta testing, or other issues related to the company. Some companies use surveys and polls to ask people on social networks to share their opinions on a critical issue. For instance, the DoubleTree by Hilton tweeted a link to its survey to get people to take it and provide them with feedback about the services that it offers (Eridon, 2012)(See figure 1).
  • 9. PAGE 8 Figure 1 The tweet is a Promoted Tweet which appears within a user’s timeline or search results just like an ordinary Tweet regardless of device. Using an algorithm and understanding of each user’s interest graph, Twitter can deliver Promoted Tweets that are intended to be relevant to a particular user (Twitter Annual Report 2014). Essentially, the tweet shows that the DoubleTree cares a lot about its customers since it spent money to get customer feedback. Doing surveys and polls can also help get product feedback on a new product or previous products that have been released. The company network is probably already consists of not only current customers, but prospects, target customers, and possibly industry influencers. Another good way to gain some customer feedback is by monitoring brand mentions on social media platforms. By seeing when your brand name is discussed on social media, you can give instant customer support and feedback to people having issues with a product or service, regardless of whether they contacted the business for help (Eridon, 2012). This can also be used to monitor competitive mentions and see if there is an opportunity to gain customers who are unhappy with other brands in the same industry. By posting polls and surveys, monitoring brand mentions, and responding to issues or complaints, the marketer would be engaging with consumers and making them feel heard which is what all consumers really want. Also, using a variety of channels to share content, blogs, and promotions helps keep the consumers engaged with the company and creating more brand mentions. When customers are engaged, the company is their default buying choice. They are
  • 10. PAGE 9 loyal. They become advocates for the company. With social media, engaged customers can – and do – endorse the company to tens of thousands or people instantly (Sklar, 2013). What are some of the best social media practices? There are many ways to use social media to understand and interact with consumers. Being able to engage and listen, respond to good and bad comments, and post consistently will help keep consumers genuinely interested and making them loyal to the brand. What does Disney Do? Social media plays a huge role in the lives of most Americans. Therefore,most businesses cater to the way society engages with technology to gain not only profits, but brand loyal customers. The Walt Disney Company is the perfect business that uses many social media applications to draw in families and Disney enthusiasts. The Walt Disney Company has developed various tactics and strategies to reach out to its loyal fans. In order for the company to reach many of its loyal fans, it has created a variety of pages and social media blogs for everyone to relive the Disney magic at any time. Bringing the magic of Disney to social media was one of the best decisions the company has ever made. It seems like Disney has had a social media presence for quite some time, but it actually has been such a short time than what most people think. Disney began its social media appearance with its Disney Moms panel in 2010. “This was their first major social media forum, created so that past customers (moms) could engage with people looking to come to Disney World (Fleischner, n.d.).” Essentially, the forum was created and allowed people to connect to other moms to ask questions and get honest responses instead of going to a company representative. “They call this a ‘smart risk’ since they allow the moms to post whatever they want, positive or negative (Fleischner, n.d.).” The best part of this is that anytime someone posted something negative about the company, someone always came to Disney’s defense without them
  • 11. PAGE 10 actually having to do anything. “This advance into social media before many other companies is what has made Disney one of the most powerful brands online (Fleischner, n.d.).” One of Disney’s biggest appearances on social media is Facebook. “The Disney marketing team uses Facebook to share pictures, video, quizzes, and promotional messages with its fans (Huff, 2014).” Since the creation of its Facebook page, Disney has gained approximately 50 million likes. Essentially, by posting pictures, videos, quizzes, and promotional messages cause many Facebook users to give the page thumbs up and eventually hitting the share button. “Every day, thousands of fans click the coveted thumbs up and share buttons on virtually every message the team posts, proving Disney has really tapped into what its Facebook fans want (Huff, 2014).” With many likes on Facebook, Disney also has many followers across the social media spectrum. YouTube is another one of Disney’s biggest appearances. Each of Disney’s social media sites or outlets is used for different purposes. “YouTube allows them to create videos that are more for entertainment value rather than sell their products (Fleischner, n.d.).” Through its YouTube channel, Disney created content specifically for the outlet and built unique channels around it. The Disney Style channel is a great example of this. “From Frozen-inspired makeup to DIY Disney Crafts,the Style channel plugs into the popularity of its feature films and keeps fans coming back for more. All Disney YouTube channels are linked together across the platform for a little extra cross-promotion (Huff, 2014).” By having content specific channels, it allows families and Disney enthusiasts to experience the world of Disney without even leaving home. Incorporating Disney into some of life’s greatest moments like home decorating and weddings is something many Disney fans enjoy doing. However,Disney makes this process easier by using Pinterest. “Pinterest provides the ideal platform for showing all the ways Disney is about more than Mickey Mouse and movies (Huff, 2014).” Disney sets itself a part form others
  • 12. PAGE 11 by having many Pinterest boards that cover all kinds of categories. “The Disney Holidays board is regularly updated with relevant pins based on the time of year, each one revealing a how-to guide on making a decoration or gift for the season (Ratcliff, 2014).” The brand keeps things going and interesting by pinning a combination of cartoons and tangible images that followers love to see. All in all, Disney has developed its brand across many platforms in order to keep the magic going when not at one of the major theme parks. Disney’s plan to engage with social media is based on two things:  “The first is to reach families and Disney enthusiasts, encouraging them to share content.”  “The second, is to get guest talking about the content and sharing it beyond their own profile (Fleischner, n.d.).” Essentially, Disney is a great model in social media engagement and has excelled at having a presence across many platforms without putting too much attention on one over the others. Having a strong social media presence is important when staying current and it’s an opportunity for the company to grow. Disney wants to keep its loyal fans and families engaged and its online success will keep consumers talking and passing along information to family and friends so the magic of Disney can be experienced. Methodology From this point, this research will focus on the Walt Disney Companies social media platforms. In order to understand some of the similarities and differences that Disney’s social media pages have, each platform was tracked on a three month period. From November 1st to January 31st , the number of shares,likes, retweets,types of post, and the time in which the post
  • 13. PAGE 12 was made was tracked based on the information that was shown on the social media pages outlined according to platform below. Facebook The social media pages that were tracked on the Facebook platform included Walt Disney World (WDW), Disneyland (DL), and Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings & Honeymoons (DFTWH). The Walt Disney World and Disneyland Facebook are the official pages for the Walt Disney World and Disneyland Resorts. Both pages are a place for fans,and families to learn park updates, news, and special backstage information at the individual parks. The Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings & Honeymoons are places where it posts updates, news, and important announcements. Twitter The social media pages that were tracked on the Twitter platform included Disney (DNY),Walt Disney World (WDW), and Disney Pixar (DP). The Disney Twitter page is a place where all things that are Disney is shared. Essentially, this is a place where new movie trailers, games, paraphernalia, pictures, videos, and anything related to the Disney brand is shared here. The Walt Disney World twitter account is a place where news,announcements and all things related to the Walt Disney theme park is shared. Lastly, the Disney Pixar Twitter page is a place where all things Pixar are shared. This includes movie trailers, photos, links, videos, and a link its Facebook page. Analysis Facebook VS. Twitter Both of Disney’s Facebook and Twitter pages have active and loyal fans that like to not only share their experiences, but their advice on anything Disney. One of Disney’s biggest
  • 14. PAGE 13 appearances is on its Facebook pages which provide a variety of content for fans to view, like, share,and even comment (see Figure 2). Figure two, shows a comparison between Walt Disney World’s Facebook page and Twitter page based on likes, shares,and retweets. While many people didn’t share or retweet,they did posts more on both platforms. Most of the information that was shared during the three month period were trailers of the new Star Wars movie, or special holiday posts for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and News Years day. Although WDW had the most likes on Facebook, it could be due to more people like to follow WDW on Facebook than Twitter. Also, WDW doesn’t post as frequently on Facebook than it does on Twitter. Essentially, it would be difficult to say which page is better than the other since each one posts frequently and each one posts similar posts; however, it depends on the audiences preference on which platform they may choose to use. 1610825 107675 223342 41897 0 200000 400000 600000 800000 1000000 1200000 1400000 1600000 1800000 Facebook Twitter NumberofLikes,Shares,andRetweets WDW: Facebook VS. Twitter Sum of Likes Sum of Shares & Retweets Figure 2
  • 15. PAGE 14 Facebook Likes & Shares Getting the most likes and shares on Facebook depend on many factors. For instance, the time of day and time of the year,the type of post, the frequency of posts, and the length of the posts are all factors involved. Figure 3 Above in Figure three, it compares the amount of likes between the different Facebook pages. Both WDW and DL follow a similar. Something important to notes is that there is a huge increase in likes around Christmas and New Year’s Day. Both pages post different items at different times; however, there are plenty of times when both pages post the same content to be consistent with the Disney brand for theme parks. However,DFTWH doesn’t post similar items since its theme is centered on weddings and honeymoons which doesn’t always fit the theme that WDW and DFTWH is trying to portray. 0 50000 100000 150000 200000 250000 300000 350000 400000 450000 NumberofLikes Likes amongst Facebook Pages DFTWH - Facebook DL - Facebook WDW - Facebook
  • 16. PAGE 15 Figure 4 In Figure four, it shows a comparison of the amount of shares that has happened on the Facebook pages. Like in Figure three, both WDW and DL both have the highest amount of shares which could be due to the amount of people who go to visit the theme park every year. Additionally, the highest amount of shares were earned during the holiday months. Although shares are not the same as likes, it is clear indication that a fan or viewer liked the post enough to share it on their own page, so their friends could see the post and possibly motivating that person to share it as well. 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000NumberofShares Shares amongst Facebook Pages DFTWH DL WDW
  • 17. PAGE 16 Figure 5 Figure five, shows a complete comparison of likes and shares on all of the Facebook pages. Like previous graphs, WDW and DL have the highest amount of likes, but WDW has the highest amount of shares as well. Essentially, this could be due to amount of people that follow each of these pages. Additionally, the amount of likes gained were earned during the holiday which could depend on the type of and how frequent WDW posted during those weeks. Twitter Likes & Retweets Twitter likes and retweets are similar to Facebook’s concept of likes and shares. Essentially, the posts on Twitter are limited to 140 characters which means that every post will be chart; however, that doesn’t the user from posting extra content like videos, pictures, or GIFs. 0 50000 100000 150000 200000 250000 300000 350000 400000 450000NumberofLikes&Shares Facebook Likes & Shares DFTWH - Sum of Shares DFTWH - Sum of Likes DL - Sum of Shares DL - Sum of Likes WDW - Sum of Shares WDW - Sum of Likes
  • 18. PAGE 17 Figure 6 In Figure six, it shows a comparison of the number of likes on Disney, Disney Parks,and Walt Disney World Twitter pages. As shown above, Disney has the highest amount of likes. The page is cater to all things Disney which includes pictures, trailers, links, vines, and gifs. Like previous graphs a lot of the likes were earned around the holiday season. Also, has the most likes because of the bigger fan base and due to the amount of posts that the page makes on a daily bases. Figure 7 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000NumberofLikes Likes amongst Twitter Pages DNY - Twitter DP - Twitter WDW - Twitter 0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000 30000 35000 40000 NumberofRetweets Retweets amongst Twitter Pages DNY - Twitter DP - Twitter WDW - Twitter
  • 19. PAGE 18 Compared to Figure 6, Figure 7 takes on a similar pattern which shows that Disney had the highest amount of shares which could be due to the frequency of post, the number of followers, and when the page likes to post content. Figure 8 Above in Figure eight, it shows a comparison of the number of likes and retweets between Disney’s Twitter pages. Although Facebook shows a bigger appearance in terms of likes, Disney’s twitter shows more consistency overall with more retweets on each of its pages. Conclusion The Walt Disney Company have mastered the way it reaches its consumers and loyal fans. Through social media platforms, it shares content that draws in its fans to come back to its theme parks, plan a wedding, or go see a new movie that it produced. While it has over 1,000 of social media pages, it has a creative ability to keep them different and cater them to all types of fans that worship the Disney brand. With customer feedback,interactions, and creative 0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 90000 NumberofLikes&Retweets Twitter Likes & Retweets Sum of Likes - DNY Sum of Likes - DP Sum of Likes - WDW Sum of Retweets - DNY Sum of Retweets - DP Sum of Retweets - WDW
  • 20. PAGE 19 campaigns which are consistent with what’s happening at its theme parks is what keeps loyal fans coming back for more.
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