Social Media Case Study: Arby's

For the last few years, Arby’s has been posting some odd things on their social media. These posts are always similar, a cardboard cutout of a character stands in front of various sandwiches and curly fires. This is the backbone of Arby’s current social media campaign, and it has been extremely successful. Articles with clickbait titles such as “15 Times Arbys' Social Media Was A Gamer's Paradise” from Dorkly, and “The 20 Most Hilarious Arby's Video Game References” by GameSkinny, show that this campaign has created a positive impact in online geek communities. By doing away with the standard company social media formula, Arby’s has gained the attention and admiration of an untapped demographic.

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Company Overview

Arby’s has been in operation for over fifty years. It was founded in 1964 in Boardman, Ohio by brothers Forrest Raffel and Leroy Raffel. The name Arby’s came from Raffel Brother’s (R. B.’s). The brothers set out to create a slightly more upscale sandwich restaurant. The fast-food landscape of the 1960’s was completely dominated by McDonalds and other similar burger chains. They sought to fill a perceived niche left open by the many burger specific fast food places of the time. The business grew significantly, and as of 2015 the company has over 3,342 locations including international franchises. Their headquarters is currently based in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Who Runs Their Social Media?

A company called Moxie currently runs Arby’s social media. They are based in Atlanta, Georgia., and were founded in 2000. Their clients include Verizon, Coca Cola, and The American Cancer Society. Prior to their partnership with Moxie, Arby’s social media was similar to other major companies. It mostly consisted of basic product promotion, and rarely made an impact that improved their brand visibility. According to an interview conducted by sweetyhigh.com, the Moxie team meets with Arby’s social media team once a month to plan out the month’s posts, usually fifteen to twenty-one. Members of Moxie say that, despite following a schedule, they are very flexible and are able to post reactions to relevant events. They pay attention to current events and react quickly when there is an opportunity for response. For example, when Nintendo announced the “Nintendo Switch” console, Arby’s posted a response (a scale model of the new console made with Arby’s boxes) within three hours. Moxie leverages opportunities such as these in their favor, by making use of the excitement for another company’s product to promote Arby’s.

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What is Their Strategy?

Arby’s associates itself with popular brands and intellectual properties, attracting a specific psychographic segment. This segment is motivated heavily by brand loyalty, and all have similar hobbies in related fields of interest. For example, Nintendo is a strong brand which has legions of devotees. Because of this, when Arby’s tweets out an image of the “Triforce” from the long running “Legend of Zelda” series made of triangular potato cakes, it creates quite a stir within that particular online community. A Nintendo fan’s response to seeing this tweet may be “Oh, hey isn’t that the Triforce? Oh, potato cakes. That actually looks pretty good, maybe I should go to Arby’s for dinner.” Even consumers who do not necessarily play Nintendo products are almost certainly aware of the imagery the post references. They are drawn in by something familiar and are then exposed to the product that Arby’s sells.

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Post Breakdown

The majority of Arby’s posts are either still images or animated GIFs, posted to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, which feature some aspect of a media property. Their posts are generally structured as a short sentence or phrase related to a popular media franchise, be it a show, movie, video game, etc. This is followed by an image which contains an aspect of that franchise, usually an important character or object, made in either cardboard with the Arby’s color scheme, or with food items. These items act as a centerpiece and are always featured in relation to Arby’s food or branding.

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Their Most Popular Twitter Post

Arby’s current most popular tweet is from January 11th of this year. It follows the style of Arby’s tweets as I set them out. The text reads “Isn't it a hero's job to save people?” And this image features a character from the popular ongoing anime and manga series “My Hero Academia” made with mayonnaise and ketchup (the character’s hair is white and red). The tweet has garnered 22,584 retweets and 58,285 likes, which is more than double their current most popular post. It also has some exceptionally positive replies, with top comments such as “Your marketing is working because I want to know what type of burger that is.” and “I want to go to @Arbys now. I love #myheroacademia so much, and I love how they do as well.”

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Why Does This Strategy Work?

There are several reasons that these posts have gained such positive attention. Arby’s posts are timely and relevant. As shown with the “Nintendo Switch” response, Arbys’ team takes advantage of these types of marketing opportunities quickly and effectively, making use of the excitement inherent in announcements such as these. Secondly, they stay on-message with their posts, with the content of the images always making use of the Arby’s color palette and being situated next to, or made from, food. Thirdly, the team behind Arby’s social media is made up of people entrenched in geek culture, and it shows. Their posts contain many obscure references and community in-jokes that would go over the head of the average consumer, but stand out to the target audience. This appeals to the audience’s validation impulse, “Arby’s likes the same things that I like, which makes me like Arby’s more.”

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Conclusion

Arby’s social media posts have made more impact than most other fast food franchises, and they have done it with a carefully crafted formula that manages to feel genuine to their target audience. By incorporating this strategy, in conjunction with current social references, Arby’s has created a campaign that is unique and attracts an important demographic, a demographic that is hungry for sandwiches.

General Observations

1. Arby’s only engages with their audience on Twitter.
2. Whether or not Arby’s makes replies in the comments of their Tweets does not affect the popularity of said Tweet, or the audience engagement.
• Considering two Tweets where Arby’s did not reply, one had 24,120 likes and 4,306 retweets, while another had 678 likes and 115 retweets.
• On the other hand, out of two Tweets where Arby’s did comment, one gained 21,356 likes and 4,316 retweets, and another had 400 likes and 58 retweets.
• The most comments an Arby’s Tweet had in my sample was 527, and Arby’s did not comment on the post.
• In cases where Arby’s does comment, they will only respond to one or two people at most.
• The comments Arby’s does reply to are always positive, either praising the restaurant, the social media account, or the marketing.
3. Several of Arby’s most successful posts have been made so by being commented on by other companies.
• Their Tweet from September 25th was commented on by Sega’s (the publisher of the game being referenced) official Twitter account. Sega’s account has 1.7 million followers, which could account for the popularity of the tweet.
• Their most popular Facebook post, posted on June 12th was also commented on by the publisher of the game being referenced, in this case Bandai-Namco.
• In cases where the parent company of the media being referenced responds, Arby’s will usually respond back on Twitter, but not on the other two platforms.
4. Arby’s has drawn some flak from animal rights groups, likely because of their very meat centric slogan.
• Arby’s social media team never responds to these posts.
• They also never respond to “trolling” posts where a commenter is bashing the food or the reputation of the company.
• In one case, a user posted a picture of food from an Arby’s location that was not to his satisfaction. Arby’s Twitter quickly responded to this user, apologizing for his bad experience and sent him a link to a comment form. This user reported later that day that he had been contacted by an Arby’s representative.
5. The Tweets recorded show a general trend of increased user engagement since late September. This also coincides with Arby’s not commenting on these posts.
6. Posts referencing the video game “Jump Force” are always highly rated, on every platform. This is likely due to the large variety of characters featured in the pictures, all of which are popular anime characters, rather than excitement for the game itself.

Twitter

Twitter is the main hub for Arby’s social media. It is also worth noting that many of their most popular Tweets have been promoted Tweets, which likely effects how much reach they gain. All their posts are posted to Twitter first, and the other platforms second. Twitter appears to be their staging ground for the rest of their social media presence, and perhaps because of this, Twitter is Arby’s least successful platform. They gain an average of about 9,000 likes per Tweet, significantly lower than their other platforms. On the other hand, this is also the platform on which Arby’s comments most, replying to commenters on almost half of their Tweets. They also reply to two to three positive @mentions per day, generally thanking people for praise of their food. Arby’s does not engage with their audience on any other platform.

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Compared to Instagram and Facebook, posts referencing video games do especially well on Twitter. This is because of the difference in age demographics between the three platforms. Take this post referencing the Mega Man series:

In this case, the post does best on Twitter with about 24,000 likes, followed by Facebook with 16,000, and then has the least impact on Instagram with 11,000. The reason for the discrepancy in this post in particular is fairly easy to break down. Mega Man is an old franchise, the first game having come out in 1987. Fans of the original game, who were around 10 when it was released, would now be about 40 years old. As of December 2016, according to statista.com, around 40% of Twitter users are between 18 and 34, while about 20% are between 35 and 40. This is the ideal age range that would appreciate this reference. On the other hand, 60% of Instagram users are between 18 and 34, which has the majority of users being below the ideal age to appreciate the reference.

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The Mega Man post exemplifies one of the two types of references that Arby’s makes, which is an homage to an existing and established property. The other type of post they make is a reference to something that is brand new and popular, for example, the anime series My Hero Academia:

My Hero Academia is a very recent series, and one of those rare anime that become popular outside of Japan and the established anime fandom. As such, it is a smart move on Arby’s part to reference it while it is relevant and in the public perception. Arby’s current most popular post on their Twitter is also a reference to this show.

Instagram

Arby’s Instagram achieves the highest audience engagement on any of their social media platforms, with an average of about 20,000 likes per post. Their Instagram has also produced the two highest rated posts, with one in particular having around 270,000 likes.

The highest rated post on Arby’s Twitter EVER only gained 50,000. I am not sure why this post gained so much attention, as opposed to any of their other posts. Soul Calibur, while fairly popular, is still a rather niche fighting game. The comments on the post do not give any indication and are normal by the standards of this page, mostly complaints about the pun, people stating that they also understand the reference, and vegans telling Arby’s that they are murders for selling meat. Arby’s has comparatively fewer total followers on Instagram than either of their other platforms, 277,000. Engagement rate is significantly higher on their posts that are related to anime, once again references to the Naruto series do particularly well. Most said posts gain over 20,000 likes, while posts about video games and movies tend to underperform.

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Interestingly, Arby’s does not always cross post the exact same things from their Twitter to their Instagram. Take these two posts:

On Twitter, they posted two photos of this cosplayer, but neither of these are used in the Instagram post. All their other cross posted images are the same. This is a deviation from their pattern, but for what reason? One potential reason for the change may be the top comment on this post on Twitter which was made an hour and a half after they posted it: “Princess Mononoke would hate your company and the incredible amount of waste you create and that you profit and play a huge role in and profit off of animal agriculture. She’d probably try to kill your CEO.” As Arby’s posts to Twitter first and cross posts to other platforms later, they may have seen this comment and attempted to change it to mitigate backlash. Unfortunately for Arby’s, there are very similar comments in the Instagram posts as well. Despite these comments, the posts are rather popular, with about 20,000 likes for both the Twitter and Instagram versions.

Facebook

Arby’s Facebook campaign is considerably different from its campaigns on Twitter and Instagram. Posts on Facebook gain an average of about 16,000 likes per post. Facebook is also Arby’s most followed page, with a follower count of over 3 million. Besides their cross posted content, Arby’s also posts standard fast food restaurant ads on their Facebook. These posts do extremely well, for example, this post gained over 40,000 likes, which is more than their highest media related post.

This demonstrates a major difference between the Facebook audience and the Twitter and Instagram audiences, as the majority of Facebook users are older than 35, according to statista.com.

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One of the most noticeable differences in Arby’s Facebook is that there are considerably fewer posts. Between the end of October and the beginning of June, Arby’s was most active on Twitter with 34 of their standard posts. On Facebook, however, Arby’s only made 21 posts. It is hard to determine the reasons they do not cross post everything from their Twitter and Instagram, the non-included posts range from low rated to some of their top-rated posts. These two posts are examples of what was excluded:

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One of Arby’s least successful posts on Facebook is one of their most popular on Instagram. Their post referencing the Soul Calibur series on October 19th gained only around 2000 likes on Facebook, while gaining more than 100 times that on Instagram. This shows that the audiences on the two platforms are significantly different, which could account for their hesitancy to cross post everything to Facebook.

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Arby’s most successful Facebook post coincides with their least successful Twitter post. On August 1st, Arby’s Facebook posted a photo that uses the platform’s 360° photo technology, and featured characters from the upcoming video game Jump Force.

This post gained around 36,000 likes, 20,000 shares, and almost 6,000 comments while three hours later, on Twitter, Arby’s posted a gif featuring a Rabbid character from the franchise of the same name. This Twitter post gained only 400 likes, 58 retweets, and 20 replies and was not cross posted elsewhere. The Jump Force post gained popularity due to its use of Facebook’s exclusive technology and its inclusion of so many popular characters. My reasoning for this conclusion is that other posts featuring the same characters are also very successful on Facebook.

This is an extremely successful post from Arby’s point of view, as they did not need to make any new models. All the cardboard models used in this post were recycled from previous posts. This can be easily shown by comparing this post to another post made on June 12th, made about the same game and which features three of the characters shown in the later post. This is also their second most popular post within the time frame.