Developing a brand voice on social media is a delicate dance for restaurant companies. The most successful brand accounts tend to be edgy yet appropriate; informative yet entertaining; authentic yet strategic. Most importantly, they resonate with the brand’s core demographic.
Now imagine having to check all of those boxes while your core demographic is basically everyone. Such is the plight of Wendy’s, the global burger chain that boasts more than 6,000 locations in the U.S. The company gained notoriety in the past decade particularly for its account on X (formerly Twitter), which has a biting sense of humor and tendency to mercilessly roast competitors.
Kristin Tormey is Wendy’s director of brand engagement strategy, which encompasses social media. In her seven-plus years with the burger chain, Tormey has helped Wendy’s develop the voice of, well, Wendy.
“She approaches social platforms the same way that me or you might approach social platforms, where maybe on Facebook you'll post something different than you would on Instagram than you would on TikTok,” Tormey said, referring to the Wendy character and how it drives the voice on various social platforms. “But at the end of the day, the core is still … that humor and that authenticity that you've come to know and love from Wendy's, that you've seen across an X or a TikTok or an Instagram.”
Tormey said there are three factors that are crucial to developing a voice on social media: knowing your consumer as well as you know your business, having a strong team that is excited to engage with the consumer, and earning trust from the C-suite and other stakeholders so the social media team has the “freedom to run the play.”
“Man, with social, you’ve got to be freaking nimble,” she said. “If we can't be nimble, we're not going anywhere.”
Wendy’s customer, Tormey said, is generally someone who is seeking out a moment of respite and indulgence.
“And that's really how we've met our consumers on social too: We're able to kind of meet them in those moments for entertainment,” she said. “We're making friends, we're inviting them to lunch; we're not so much just pushing ads and products, we're making sure that we build that relationship first, and that allows us to have that conversation with our consumer.”
That personable approach to social media is in the company’s DNA, she added. Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas was known to be a friendly yet matter-of-fact leader, and that same persona now extends to the virtual Wendy. Tormey describes her as “that little sister that's going to tell it like it is.”
Of course, no brand creates social content just for the fun of it. An investment in social media communication needs to move the needle in some way — whether that’s traffic to the restaurants or buzz across communities.
“Sometimes what we're doing has a lot more longevity and a lot more of those brand health metrics,” she said. “So it's really being able to have that balance and that trust from [the C-suite]. … ROI is probably defined in a couple of different ways in social. Yes, it can drive top-line sales, but at the same time, it also has to elevate our brand from a cultural perspective as well.”
Tormey will share more social media strategy tips during an Ask the Experts session at CREATE: The Event for Emerging Restaurateurs, this Oct. 9-11 in Nashville. Register for free by clicking here.
