In Sandra’s blog, she talked about McDonald’s using social network to establish a platform that aims to debunk rumors about its food. As Sandra mentioned that McDonald’s launched in a website in June 2012, known as “Our Food. Your Questions.” Through this website, customers will ask their questions and get the answer back right away. In the past five months since the start of the website, it has hosted over two million interactions and over ten million video-response views as further mentioned in Sandra’s blog. These numbers indicate that using social media can help firms to interact with customers and response to customers’ concerns easily.

Example of questions asked by customers on the page ” Our Food. Your Questions.”

Example of answers right away from McDonald to a customer’s question.

I agree with Sandra’s idea that using social media can have both positive and negative effects. But, I personally think there will be more to the positive side than the negative side. The positive effect that Sandra already suggest is there exists an opportunity to stamp-out false rumors, which allows McDonald’s to regain some of its credibility and regain its reputation. Also, establishing a platform like “Our Food. Your Questions.” will attract customers to ask questions and raise their interest about McDonald’s, which can act as part of a marketing campaign. Furthermore, it ensures customer loyalty since customers get to know more about the brand. Finally, I agree with what Sandra’s brand positioning concept that once a company’s image is stored into a customer’s mind, it is hard to remove that image and redevelop reputation. Therefore, it is essential for McDonald’s to reply as fast as it can to a customer’s concern and create this point of difference that will set it apart from its competitors.

Sources: http://yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca

Photos taken from the “Our Food. Your Questions. ” website page.