Burger King has a long and colorful history starting as a fairly humble Florida-based burger chain in 1953, to undergoing years of turmoil even as the franchise grew, to becoming the global fast food conglomerate.
Famous for their trademarked Whopper burgers, they have over 18,000 restaurants operating in over 100 countries worldwide.
Burger King has millions of followers across their many country-specific social media accounts, and they run many successful online campaigns. Their social media strategy uses social listening to leverage pop culture and share relevant, gripping content that drives engagement.
So, how do they manage to maintain this delightful steam? Let’s dive deeper into Burger King’s social media strategy.
Analysis of Burger King’s social media accounts
Burger King’s social media strategy demonstrates their extensive presence and reach worldwide. They have an Instagram account for almost all the countries they have a major presence in, and these accounts are active and buzzing with new posts, stories, and reels.
Burger King’s official US account has a large following on all major social media platforms:
- Facebook: 8.5 million
- Twitter: 2 million
- Instagram: 1.9 million
- TikTok: 1 million
- YouTube: 249K subscribers
- LinkedIn: 523,700 followers
- Reddit: 11,500 members
But since they have an online presence in various countries, their regional accounts also have millions of followers and activity. For example, here are the followers on their regional Instagram accounts.
- Brazil: 2.3 million
- Indonesia: 1.7 million
- France: 359K
- Malaysia: 152K
- Germany: 120K
- India: 111K
- UK: 76.2K
- Canada: 18.9K
How does Burger King’s social media strategy work?
Some companies might maintain a cool distance on online platforms or do just the bare minimum for audience engagement. But not Burger King!
Burger King’s social media strategy is an all-out, no-holds-barred bonanza of menu promotions, seasonal campaigns, mouth-watering advertisements, interactive posts, big-name collaborations, holiday-themed narratives, classic memes, spicy burger-brand wars, and loads of delicious photographs of their many offerings.
And it works! Burger King’s marketing strategy generates a lot of buzz across their social media platforms, leading to high engagement and ensuring the brand is always at the forefront of people’s minds.
Let’s take a closer look at the key features of their online marketing strategy.
1. Region-specific content and promotions
Considering the large base of followers Burger King has around the world, their social media strategy seems to parallel the approach to their menus and offerings. Depending on where a Burger King outlet is located, the menu changes to suit that specific region.
For example, Burger King in India offers tandoori chicken burgers, and in various parts of Europe, they offer a spicy bean vegetarian burger.
Similarly, Burger King’s social media strategy involves content and narratives curated for each region. They are very in tune with regional holidays, festivals, sporting events, and all other happenings of significance, whether in Brazil, the UK, or Canada.
And they never miss a chance to greet or share joy at a regional event. For example, this Día de Muertos-themed post on their Mexican Facebook page.
It keeps them closely connected to the places they operate in and easily accepted as part of local cultures and communities.
2. Comparative advertising for the digital age
Burger King is also well-known for their fierce competition with McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and other burger chains. In fact, they’ve often been at the forefront of many first-of-its-kind marketing campaigns that include attack ads, trolling, and meme wars.
Burger King has never avoided taking a playful dig at their competitors, even way back in the prime days of newspaper ads and physical billboards.
Now, in the digital age of subscribers and shares and likes, their meme-wars and tweet-wars are infamously viral, leading to lots of conversations and engagement around them. BK ensures their physical-world marketing campaigns are also spread across online platforms and other digital forums, increasing engagement around their brand.
3. Diverse content formats and styles
Burger King’s content strategy rules across different content formats and styles. They don’t limit themselves to just one or two types of media distribution.
Instead, they constantly churn out videos, static posts, reels, stories, highlights, carousels, text-based posts and tweets, interactive posts, and polls to keep audiences coming back for more.
Their official Instagram account, for example, dabbles in all kinds of engaging and interactive content that’s very in tune with popular culture and peoples’ choices.
4. Trending topics and themes with social listening
Burger King has always used social listening to find the issues and topics that most interest people. Their social media strategy is deeply linked to staying current and tailoring their content to be relevant to the present times and happenings.
Take this tweet from 2020, for example.
In a clever and conscientious bit of marketing, Burger King UK encouraged customers to support McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, and other food outlets to help sustain businesses and jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.
This tweet received a lot of reposts and likes, and it shows just how in tune with its audience Burger King is.
5. Audience interaction and engagement
What Burger King does best is truly immerse themselves in audience interaction. They are very responsive in reposting, commenting, and addressing feedback.
Their content strategy uses fresh content and reacting to existing media or discussions, whether initiated by them or by other brands and influencers. Burger King also tries to get to know their local audiences and modify the types of interaction and engagement strategies to best appeal to them.
6. Other brand and media partnerships
If you go to the Burger King Brazil YouTube account, you’ll see content promoting their partnership with the Jurassic Park movies to coincide with the movie’s anniversary.
Take their collaboration with MTV, for instance. They use their brand partnerships to propel the engagement around their marketing and content strategies.
7. Catchy product-centered updates
Food is, of course, at the forefront of all their content. But Burger King is committed to keeping their updates catchy and intriguing.
Going beyond mouth-watering photographs of their burgers and fries, their product updates stay on-point with seasonal happenings and holidays.
Take Halloween, for example. Across almost all their social media accounts, Burger King is actively posting Halloween-themed content centered around their food, ensuring their updates stay relevant and trending.
8. Non-profit ventures and social advocacy
As it says on the website, Burger King has set up many initiatives and foundations that give back to the community and the environment.
They integrate their advocacy efforts into their restaurant social media marketing to increase awareness and encourage more people to support their mission.
This helps people form a more personal connection to the brand with the confidence that they care about more things than just their profit or bottom line.
9. Social proof and authenticity
Nothing boosts peoples’ trust in a brand as much as social proof does. And Burger King gets tons of this with public reviews, comments, user-generated content, and feedback. And they leverage all this — good and bad — to highlight how people constantly eat at their outlets. They showcase their authenticity.
Take this brilliant marketing video they posted on their Indian Instagram account, for example. The video starts with negative reviews, grabbing the viewer’s attention. Then, it goes on to show various other positive reviews.
Burger King’s social media strategy at a glance
Burger King’s marketing strategy is powerful and full of life across its many social media platforms. Let’s examine how much engagement they generate with their posts.
1. Burger King on Facebook
With over 8.6 million page likes, Burger King’s Facebook account has a large following. And their posts, while not in a very high volume, generate much engagement. In the last three months, for example, they got 65,517 engagements from just 29 posts.
Their product update featuring Royal Crisp Wraps has the most engagement in this period.
2. Burger King on Twitter
With over 2 million followers, Burger King’s Twitter account is a major force in their content marketing strategy. In the past month alone, they’ve tweeted 196 times, had 4,843 engagements, and 513,805 impressions.
Replies are their most frequent post type, and text is their most frequent media type, showing how heavily they incorporate audience interaction and active engagement in their marketing strategy.
3. Burger King on Instagram
Burger King’s main Instagram account is filled with creative and interactive posts and reels. In the last month, they’ve posted 13 times but seen an engagement number of 62,186. It shows the interest generated by their carefully designed content strategy.
Not surprisingly, their first post for October, kicking off the month of Halloween, had the most engagements in this period.
4. Burger King on YouTube
On YouTube, Burger King’s main account has 64 videos in total, which have generated a colossal 272.31 million views.
Just in the last 3 months, the 17 new videos they posted generated over 20 million views, with the video promoting their combos itself amassing more than 20 million views.
In fact, their recent videos have been so engaging, it’s led to a sharp increase in subscribers.
Design a winning social media strategy with targeted content
Burger King’s social media accounts are a joy to follow, especially if you are into pop culture and food.
Over their many decades of growth, they have always been out there with their advertising and marketing strategies, and they’ve successfully translated that into social media marketing.
The key to their social media marketing strategy is:
- No-holds-barred social media marketing that includes attractive product updates, meaningful collaborations, and trending topics and themes localized for different regions and communities
- Jovial and playful engagement with customers and audiences, fueled by social listening and UGC, to keep their interactions relevant and attentive
- Viral burger/meme-wars, pop-culture partnerships, and constant promotion of their physical advertisements and marketing campaigns across all their digital platforms
Want access to the tools and data needed to ace your social media strategy?
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Frequently Asked Questions
1. What platforms does Burger King use for its social media strategy?
Burger King utilizes a variety of social media platforms to connect with its audience, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Reddit. They also maintain region-specific social media accounts in countries where they have a significant presence, such as Brazil, Indonesia, France, Malaysia, Germany, India, UK, and Canada.
2. How does Burger King's social media strategy differentiate itself from its competitors?
Burger King's social media strategy stands out due to its region-specific content and promotions, comparative advertising for the digital age, diverse content formats and styles, trending topics and themes using social listening, high audience interaction and engagement, brand and media partnerships, catchy product-centered updates, non-profit ventures, and emphasis on social proof and authenticity. This unique approach enables the brand to connect with its audience at a local level, engage in competitive but playful marketing with its rivals, and maintain authenticity in its social media interactions.
3. What is the impact of Burger King's social media strategy on audience engagement?
Burger King’s social media strategy has led to high audience engagement and interaction across various platforms. For instance, on Facebook, the brand has over 8.6 million page likes and generates significant engagement from its posts. On Twitter, with over 2 million followers, Burger King actively engages its audience through frequent tweets and replies, leading to substantial impressions and engagements. The brand’s main Instagram account showcases creative and interactive content, resulting in significant engagement numbers, demonstrating the interest generated by their campaigns. Overall, Burger King's social media strategy has proven to be a powerful tool for engaging with its audience and maintaining a strong online presence.
