This was the first time I had the opportunity to visit Yum! Brands while being in Louisville. I had many students say that is one of the places they would love to work in terms of PR, Marketing, and Social Media, so I was thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to explore one of the largest companies in the world.
I was able to visit the Yum! Brand headquarters through a PRSA Bluegrass Chapter event exploring global social listening – a key topic I’m interested both in research as well as teaching. I haven’t been able to attend any of the events this year because most of them are scheduled during my class times. So, I was excited for this experience!
The tool Yum! Brands is using for their Social Hive is Netbase, which is a pretty sophisticated listening platform that tracks in real-time as well as in 46 different languages (which is key for a global company like Yum! Brands). One of the things that came across from the presentation is the rationale for why they have gone with Netbase rather than another analytics and monitoring company.
For social listening, they were interested in tracking for reputation purposes as well as for crisis communication message strategies, which are two areas I’m very interested in. I did think it was interesting the presentation focused primarily on Twitter, which of course is a key social media platform to look at, but I would have been interested to hear more about what they are doing across the other different platforms for monitoring and which ones they see to be key ones to follow for the future.
The room that houses the Social Hive for the brand looks pretty much like any social media command center you would see in an organization: Many screens showcasing real time social media updates with key metrics they are tracking for each brand, and an area for brainstorming and strategy for the team.
What were some key takeaways from the experience at Yum! Brands? Here are a few things I noticed:
- Understanding the nature of analytics and listening: This message was loud and clear – this is a key thing for the professionals working to note and important for students to recognize. Listening and determining what is happening and what is important to address is at the foundation for their strategy. Essentially, research is key and absolutely necessary to determine message strategies, campaign ideas, and proposals for how to handle an issue.
- Being adaptable: Even in a global brand like Yum!, you have to continue being a life long learner and be aware that instead of being in a 24 hour news cycle, you are in a 24 second news cycle. Very important to understand the media and social landscape you are in as well as recognizing you have to be on board for 24/7.
- Yum! is the Corporate brand, but they are the ones supporting the individual brands: This reminded me SO much of my experience with GM this past summer. Yum! Brands said they are there to help the brands with monitoring and support, but they said their creative strategies and social media implementation is done by themselves. Plus, Taco Bell is based in CA and Pizza Hut is out in Texas, which I didn’t know!
- Very strong focus dedicated to influencers: When I am talking about influencers, I am talking about celebrities – which is okay, but in the back of my mind – I was wondering – where are the ambassadors and other potential audience members who could also drive the conversation? I also felt during the presentation, there was a strong focus on how many followers a celebrity had – which is a good start, but shouldn’t be the driving factor here. I would have been interested to see if they had a database for tracking who were the ones driving the conversation, what metrics they were able to produce, and other key metrics that are not just RTs and followers.
Overall, this experience was a wonderful learning opportunity and I really do appreciate the members of PRSA Bluegrass Chapter and Yum! Brands for being excellent hosts. It was a wonderful event and looking forward to other opportunities to chat and come together as a community.
Have a great day!
Best Wishes,
