15 Jul A Genuine Brand Ambassador on Social Media
Chris Kempczinski has been an executive at Mcdonald’s since 2015 and moved into the President and CEO position in 2019. He runs one of the largest and more successful fast food chains in the world — and he has an equally successful social media strategy.
On social media, Kempczinski uses his platforms to connect with customers and promote his company. However, while his content is branded, he doesn’t come across as overly promotional or inauthentic. In this article, we analyze his Instagram and LinkedIn accounts and explain why Kempczinski is so effective at being a genuine brand ambassador.
An Approachable Brand Ambassador on Instagram
On Instagram, Kempczinski has over 7,450 followers. He mainly uses his Instagram to share stories featuring Mcdonald’s employees from around the world. In the example below, Kempczinski’s caption shows how genuinely interested he is in meeting employees and hearing about their experiences at Mcdonald’s. He uses #McFamily, which is an example of a branded hashtag.
While Mcdonald’s is a large global company with over 200,000 employees worldwide, his posts provide a more intimate look behind the scenes by focusing on employees. Large corporations are often seen as faceless entities and Kempczinski is doing an effective job of humanizing the company and being approachable to both customers and employees.
Highlighting employees is a great way to showcase more authentic content on social media. People don’t expect CEOs to spend their time getting to know employees, however, Kempczinski is very active in traveling to different McDonald’s locations. Sharing this type of content online is effective in showcasing his leadership skills and his passion for supporting his workforce.
Kempczinski uses many features that Instagram has to offer, including Reels, Story Highlights, and question prompts. This makes his content feel more diverse, whether he’s posting an in-feed carousel or a short video.
For example, he has a video content series called “Quick Bites” where he tries Mcdonald’s foods from around the world. Establishing an ongoing content series is a strategy that will yield consistent and engaging content in a timely manner. The series started as video posts but has recently been adapted to Reels.
This is a practical move for a number of reasons. Reels are Instagram’s way of competing with TikTok, which helped to popularize the short-form video format. Instagram’s algorithm currently promotes Reels more than other content so it is extremely valuable for executives to use Reels to gain more views on the platform.
Kempczinski uses Story Highlights as well. This is a feature where users can save their Stories and organize them into separate folders or “Highlights” at the top of the profile. While Stories typically last 24 hours before they’re automatically deleted, pinning a Story in a Highlight allows other users to view this content beyond the 24-hour limit.
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In some of his Highlights, Kempczinski uses the question prompt sticker. Other Instagram users can ask him questions, which he can then reply to via Stories through text or video. Kempczinski has answered a wide range of questions in video format, ranging from business-related questions to ones that are more personal and humorous. This is an authentic way to interact with followers because it gets the audience involved. Kempczinski comes across as being more personable and authentic.
Highlighting Company Initiatives on LinkedIn
On LinkedIn, Kempczinski has over 47,000 followers and he repurposes most of the content he shares on Instagram. Repurposing is an effective strategy that relies on sharing the same content across multiple platforms. Video content in particular is popular across many social media sites and typically takes more effort to produce compared to a text-based post, for example. Therefore, it makes sense to share this content on different platforms to ensure it’s getting wider reach.
Something important to note about LinkedIn is that users can see a user’s recent activity, such as their comments and what type of posts they’ve engaged with. Kempczinski typically comments and likes posts that he is mentioned in. While sharing content on social media is one aspect of having an effective online presence, we always recommend that executives take an extra step by being active members of the community, whether that’s on Instagram, LinkedIn, or other platforms they use. Liking, commenting, and sharing posts are examples of this.
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Users on LinkedIn have the ability to reshare posts, which Kempczinski often does to share content from the main company account. In the example above, he shares his support for an employee, using his platform to highlight individuals behind the scenes at the company. Additionally, in this reshared post, he voices his support for a sustainability initiative McDonald’s is engaged with.
These reshares are effective because he is highlighting the positive work his company is doing. Based on our own research, reshared posts tend to get less engagement than original content posted by an executive, however, there are benefits to resharing content. It effectively “boosts” the shared post and puts it in front of a new audience who might not follow the main company account.
Improvements: Best Practices and Improving Engagement
Kempczinski has an engaging social media presence in terms of content, but there are some additional strategies he could implement in order to be even more effective as a brand ambassador.
The first improvement he can make is responding to more comments on Instagram and LinkedIn. This would show that he is actively reading what other users are posting on his content and also improves the engagement rate of his posts.
For an executive at a global franchise, his social media follower numbers are relatively low. A second improvement is to implement social media best practices to reach a wider audience and gain more followers. While his content and post copy are interesting, he often relies on branded or very niche hashtags. This means most of his content views are most likely coming from existing followers. On Instagram, we recommend using around eight hashtags. On LinkedIn, we recommend two to three hashtags if you’re using them within the post copy itself. Hashtags boost the visibility of a post and can make content easier to find among users who may not follow him on Instagram.
Lastly, another suggestion is to repurpose his content on Twitter. With each social media platform having its own unique features and appealing to different demographics, we encourage executives to use multiple social media platforms. By sharing his video content and inspiring employee stories on Twitter, he can reach an even larger audience that may not be on Instagram or LinkedIn. He could also find new ways to interact with customers and employees through replies and retweets.
The Face of a Global Brand
Chris Kempczinski’s executive social media presence is effective and well-rounded. He has positioned himself as an approachable and genuine brand ambassador that is passionate about his employees and company initiatives. Executives use social media in many ways and Kempczinski is an example of how to share branded content without being overly promotional. While the majority of his posts link back to McDonald’s, the content he posts shows a different side to the company that most audiences aren’t aware of.
If you’re looking to get your company’s executives on social media, our marketing experts can help. We work with executives and their teams to create engaging content that drives toward company objectives. Click the link below to learn more about our services and check us out on Twitter for influential executive insights.