Miquel Labòria, App developer and community manager: "managing brands on the networks must bring an added value to clients"

The expansion of social networks and applications for mobile devices is a potential path for any organizations wanting to re-launch itself. This is what McDonald’s considered, a brand that, with the potential of social networks, has achieved a real revolution when it comes to interacting with users. An experience presented by Miquel Labòria at the Open Talent: “Mobility and social networks at the service of companies”, which took place at the UPC School within the framework of the 1st edition of the Mobile Apps Design postgraduate course.

February 1st 2012

Miquel Labòria, an App developer, community manager and social media, while introducing the conference, explained the exponential growth of social networks. In Spain alone, just to give an example, there are over 15 million Facebook users and 2.8 million Twitter users, from with 44% and 40% respectively, use them on mobile devices. These figures show the huge potential of this sector, and reveal the growth in applications being developed exclusively for mobile devices.

Thinking about these figures and their users, Labòria insisted on the idea of presenting products which, when using the potential of social networks, are able to contribute “exclusive contents” which are unique, with promotions and a special service, offering “celebrity and usability”, as well as the added value and a touch of leisure to the client. An in-depth approach on the experience they have managed with McDonald’s. This “success story” included an application for the geolocation of restaurants and to see them through an augmented reality for iOs, Android and Blackberry operating systems, and another one which, thanks to Facebook Deals, made it possible to come up with different promotions for clients based on the location of clients at each time.

Other campaigns with social networks which have had a notorious success, due to the innovation they represent, have been the campaign for McDonald’s 30^th anniversary which, thanks to the viral capacity of Facebook, managed to bring together hundreds of people in Madrid who, holding a huge QR poster, blew out the candles through the mike of their iPhones or Android devices. The winners received a McDonald’s gift for free. On another occasion, a boy, together with some friends, spontaneously went up to a McDonald’s Drive-Through and placed his order in a very original way: adapting the lyrics of the song Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston to what he wanted to order. This video was posted on social networks and generated a huge impact in very little time. McDonald’s used this success to launch a campaign with this boy as the main protagonist. An example of how not everything affecting a brand can be controlled in the social networks, but you can try finding a positive impact from it.