When Companies Act Like Social Media Influencers

                                                                  This is 2020, peeps. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, we all know about influencers: They’re internet personalities who sometimes get paid to endorse certain products. And speaking of internet trends, remember the Wendy’s Twitter? The memes, the sass? Well, here’s a hot take: Wendy’s, and any group who’s operating like they are might actually count as a new, maybe not-so-different subtype of influencer.

                                                                  Okay, so first off, what are some qualities that make Wendy’s an influencer? I mean. They have a massive, heavily-memed base of social media, and that’s gained enough popularity that people make YouTube compilations of their oh-so witty Twitter posts. And they’re definitely using their platform to try and get you to buy a product. In fact, they’re a lot more transparent about it than a lot of influencers, which is worth something I guess, I mean, with them actually being a company and whatnot.

                                                                  However, “influencers” like Wendy’s didn’t have to start from the ground up, while a million algorithms try to shove them deep back down into obscurity.  Y’know, like what most people who are trying to make a name for themselves on the internet are forced to stoop to. The thing about Wendy’s is that they’ve been around for 51-ish years now. They were a successful fast food chain long before they started goofing around on Twitter. So, one thing they have on anyone who’s trying to be an influencer now is definitely that they had a social media presence from the beginning, and never had to try and forge one from scratch.

                                                                  But if we are viewing companies like Wendy’s as influencers, what are they doing that makes them “relatable” or whatever? Well, first and foremost, Twitter pages like these are run by real (often underpaid) people. It can be an understandably risky thing to do, to let any shred of organic personality show when you’re running social media for a massive company, but if that works out, it can create something with the potential to go viral. Of course, there are also references to relevant memes. That bit can be tricky, since memes age really fast; you would have to really make an effort to stay on top of meme culture for that bit. Also, the occasional reference to things like anime or Rick and Morty or whatever reinforce the personification of companies, and remind viewers that they’re actual, real people who are getting paid to take care of this social media. 

                                                                  There are debates about whether or not all of this is a good thing or not. However, I think that the former Wendy’s social media worker from the article I linked to the words “go viral” a little earlier makes a fairly good point when she mentions that she’s also just a struggling employee, and she’s not the person to rally for not-terrible working conditions to, as the Wendy’s social media is not a sentient embodiment of the company. And, that’s not to say that I think Wendy’s hasn’t done anything wrong—they’re a huge fast food company, so I would be much more surprised to hear that Wendy’s is the pinnacle of generosity and kindness. But the person running their social media can’t do much from where they’re at, so it may be a more effective strategy to take complaints with the higher ups.

                                                                  TLDR, Wendy’s is an example of another type of influencer in that it has a social media personality and is trying to use that to sell you a certain product.