social listenting blog post

 I chose Taco Bell because, first of all, I just love eating their food, and I at least used to go there very often. It used to be one of my favorite fast food restaurants, and they also have very creative social media campaigns. I've recently seen people talking about it online and also in person, talking about a few issues and interesting things that they have. 

Taco Bell is known for fast, affordable, and customizable Mexican-inspired food. They are really known for having innovation and valued deals, and they value a younger audience appeal. These are really important things because it's very easy not to stay focused on these values that they have. Not just innovation but value deals and the younger audience appeal were very important to have, and it's easy to lose that, and you can lose it all because it's all connected. Especially the younger audience is usually more connected to not having a high amount of money to spend on food.

First, the new limited-time items that came out which are interesting and innovative. They are bringing a few new items to their table, including some Taco salad, churros, and a few others. link, And the last thing people are talking about right now is about the rasing that prices that they are having and how it's really crazy that you used to be able to order a one box for a certain amount of money and now it's maybe double the price, from just a few months ago. link Customers and other people are also complaining about how portion sizes are getting smaller and the price is still getting higher. We used to get the burritos from Taco Bell, and they would be regular size, but the prices were not too bad. But now the burritos have gotten smaller, and the prices have dropped, and in fact they've risen. ( link)

I feel like the pricing and the sizing are very important because young people, I feel like, are able to eat more and if they were able to get more of the money they would more if you want to go to a certain place. And Taco Bell keeps raising the prices of its meals and combos. And if these younger audiences or younger users might not want it as much, they would probably start changing their places to other restaurants that still aren't as bad. Personally, I used to go to Taco Bell so often, but ever since the prices of their combos and meals have increased, it hasn't been feeling like it's worth it to go anymore, which is a huge disappointment because I used to go like every single day and now when I don't look at the many prices, it's just outrageous. https://www.tacobell.com 

The stuff that writers sell the most or promote the most is new menu items, deals, and exclusive offers. Also, they're trying to promote their brand personality, which increases the number of people who don't really care about the price of the food, and we'll just go there if we wanna go there even more. 

Taco Bell has a lot of followers on Instagram; they post frequently, and they're usually pretty funny. They try to engage with us users. But looking at their posts, it was pretty interesting to see the lower engagement light rates compared to other places, even though they have such a high follower count. I think it might be because rather than posting about what they might have on their menu or new deals or new items that could be coming out, they post things like pictures of trucks and other things that are not really related to Taco Bell, and people just see Taco Bell, it's not really what they're looking for. And even if they do that, it's not really the most interesting thing, and I won't get the most amount of hits compared to other companies like Red Bull, where they do huge stunts, and they put their logo on everything. One thing that they talk about is building brand recognition. I feel like they tried this a lot, in which rather than posting about their menu, they'll post pictures of people using their food or just their pictures of their food and not really other things. I feel like there could be a lot better ways to get recognition for your brand through promoting other things and deals, and it could just be a lot better. But Taco Bell does try to promote its brand personality as playful and bold, and they try to introduce this FOMO with our limited-time items, which I would say is pretty good.

I would say the company didn't really respond to the consumers who were complaining about the pricing and the portions because they are not really in a position to consider considering the prices of the economy in which they're trying to still make a pretty big profit, and there's only so much people can do. 

If I were to be a brand manager, I would first of all respond to these complaints directly and see how I can get these prices lowered. Secondly, I would start advertising deals and more interesting things on social media rather than what they post because it does seem a little bit bland. 

What I learned is that social media can be very important for brands, especially if they respond. They can use it as a tool, understand what they were doing wrong, what they can do and approve it, and how to get more people in. Customer feedback is public and very immediate. When someone complains or has a question, it's gonna be seen by everyone, and needs to respond to it and have a good response to it. And lastly, that I learned market strategies show up in real life when you're trying to promote something you'd be entertaining and worthy to be talked about.