A Fast Food Twitter Analysis

Introduction

Wendy’s and Taco Bell are two fast food giants that, in recent years, have been heavily dependent on social media for marketing purposes. I am interested in exploring which account has been more popular lately - @Wendys or @TacoBell.

QUESTION: “Who is more popular on Twitter: Taco Bell or Wendy’s?”

I would hypothesize that Wendy’s would be significantly more popular due to how often their tweets go viral. Several years ago, I remember they put out a, frankly, terrible commercial relating to internet memes that were outdated and not that funny to begin with. Since then, Wendy’s became a bit more in touch with Gen Z and young Millennials and their presence on twitter reflects as much.

Data I Will Collect & Rationale

My measure of popularity is going to be determined by retweets and favorites. Therefore, I plan to collect both the Wendy’s and Taco Bell Twitter timelines as well as their mentions. Checking to see the amount of tweets each account produces will also be important. If one account tweets significantly more than the other, we would expect the statistics on that account to be higher, all else equal.

Taco Bell

Taco Bell Tweets by Day of the Week

Below shows the amount of tweets Taco Bell sends organized by the day of the week each tweet is sent. It seems that the social media managers get Fridays and Saturdays to relax a bit.

How often do users favorite tweets sent by Taco Bell?

This graph shows us how many favorites Taco Bell gets on any given day.

How often do users retweet Taco Bell?

This graph shows us how many users retweet Taco Bell on any given day.

Wendy’s

Wendy’s Tweets by Day of the Week

Below shows us how much Wendy tweets throughout the week. It looks like Wendy’s social media mangers typically enjoy Sunday’s off.

How often do users favorite tweets sent by Wendy’s?

The below graph shows us how many times a Wendy’s tweet is favorited by a user. Wendy’s had a few viral tweets sent on a Monday, so this graph may be a bit skewed due to that outlier.

How often do users retweet Wendy’s?

Again, Wendy’s had a viral tweet sent out on a Monday, so that outlier may have skewed the data.

Conclusion

According to the data, Taco Bell has produced better results in terms of engagement as of late. Wendy’s did have one tweet that topped anything Taco Bell sent out, but Taco Bell has been consistently more engaging as a social media presence. In a future analysis, it would be interesting to see what Taco Bell has done to deserve this boost and if it had any impact in terms of sales or overall company value. Frankly, I would be surprised if it did.