Gearing up for a McDonald’s social media blitz, the fast food giant has recruited 200 staff from tech-savvy online companies.

The new recruits have come from companies such as Amazon and PayPal and are stationed in the McDonald’s head office in Oakbrook Illinois, in Singapore and London.

Their challenge is help the iconic burger brand catch up with rivals in using social media to monitor customer experiences, engage with customers and monitor what is trending online.

Just two years ago, McDonald’s was not even following or responding to online comments on its brand or products – yet its name is mentioned every one to two seconds.

“We seemed deaf and mute,” Paul Matson, director of social and digital engagement at McDonald’s US, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Matson believes the expanded team will help win business from social media-addicted millennials – some 78 per cent of whom visited a McDonald’s restaurant at least once a month during the first quarter of 2016.

Besides improved monitoring and communication, the company is using social media to test market products and concepts – replacing more traditional focus group research. The spin-off from that is increased exposure of the concepts, wider engagement and a far great sample base than focus groups allow.

This story first appeared on our sister site, Inside Retail Asia.

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