Disney Plus is an interesting study for social media best practices. A newcomer to the television streaming industry, Disney Plus benefits from prior brand success and familiarity, as well as the adoption of many recommended best practices. This enables Disney to generate consumer interest from audience contact and interaction. In addition to my prior blog about Disney Plus and Instagram practices, this blog will look at Twitter and Facebook.
1. Post Appropriate Number of Times Per Week (varying by platform)
My classmate Nicole found that Disney Plus is doing a decent job on Facebook (and you can read about this and other Facebook best practices on her blog). Disney Plus posts almost every day of the week, with between 3-5 posts on Thursday and Friday (highlighting new content in the coming weekend) and between 1-2 posts other weekdays, although they do not follow a regular schedule or time of day. This seems to suggest that they do not use any kind of scheduler to schedule their posts. It is an area that Disney Plus does well, but could probably improve.
According to my classmate Gabby’s blog post, Disney Plus’s Twitter practices, Disney Plus generally posts between noon and 8 pm, and space out their tweets if doing a thread. According to Meltwater, your brand should be tweeting at least 10 times a day. Disney Plus regularly posts 1-6 tweets a day, including a retweet or two. Disney Plus’s Twitter feed is consistent with their other social media platforms, and supports the content posted elsewhere, but they could increase their daily tweets and be even more effective.
2. Post The Right Content
Nicole also noticed that Disney Plus posts videos often on Facebook. Multiple sources indicate that video is one of the most engaging types of content that can be posted on a brand’s social media page. According to “The Ultimate Social Media Best Practices 2019” by Bonfire Marketing, it is a good way to increase engagement (58% higher with a video than a picture). Disney Plus does a good job of diversifying the content they upload, as well as posting clips of their shows and movies. That is particularly effective at getting users to react. In addition to posting videos, Disney Plus does post photos of high quality stills and posters for their shows.
According to Gabby, one best practice that Disney Plus demonstrates on Twitter is the use of memes and other Twitter joke trends. Instead of jumping onto the trend after it’s way over, Disney Plus works the content while it’s still relevant. For example, right now there is a Twitter joke template going around that is “_____ can have _____ as a treat,” and Disney Plus tweeted “The Child can have a little frog, as a treat, ” a reference to Baby Yoda from the just released Mandalorian. Another practice that Disney Plus executes well is emoji use. Disney Plus uses emojis on all platforms, but doesn’t overdo it.
3. Engage Your Followers
According to “7 Steps to an Effective Facebook Marketing Strategy” by Sprout Social, engaging proactively with your audience is key to creating a sense of community and driving engagement. Surprisingly, Disney Plus does not respond to comments on their page (neither positive or negative), according to Nicole. Social media is increasingly becoming the main avenue for customer support help. Disney Plus will have to do a better job of responding to their audience going forward. Otherwise, they risk consumer resentment for lack of engagement, as well as the unfortunate visual of negative comments posted and ignored.
According to the Sprout Social article “Twitter Marketing: Strategies and Tips to Try Now,” a best practice on Twitter is to make at least 30-40% of your Tweets replies to other people. Disney Plus has poor performance in this category. They have almost no replies to anyone out of 5000 tweets, according to Gabby. Disney Plus has a customer service account where people can message someone about any account issues, but there is a lack of engagement with anyone else. If Disney Plus interacted with more people, their presence on Twitter would be much more welcoming.
The influence of social media is huge. Companies that understand how to use social media platforms will have a competitive advantage. It is very important to try and achieve the best practices associated with social media, in order to keep your brand relevant and growing. Consumers are using social media to help them make purchasing decisions. Disney Plus is doing a good job with appropriate content on various platforms and with keeping the platforms active, but they could do better. If Disney Plus can improve responsiveness and engagement, it will have a better chance of keeping its loyal audience, growing a larger audience and increasing its market share.
Please leave any comments or suggest your own best practices, I am always interested in what you think. Hopefully, this will help you with your Facebook and Twitter posts!
Ana's Social Media Blog 