You may choose a company, or select from the suggestions below, and answer the following questions.

Cases:

• McDonald’s
• Mountain Equipment Co-Op (MEC)
• Toyota Canada
• SickKids Hospital
• Kim Kardashian West (she’s a person, yes, but also a money-making enterprise!)
• Bank of Montreal
• Doctors Without Borders / Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
• Panera Bread
• Bell Canada
• H & M

1. Which social media platforms does the company use? Why do you think the company has chosen to use these social media applications?
2. How many followers does the company have on each social media platform?
3. What other interesting or significant businesses or people is the company itself following? What can who the company follows tell us about the business or brand itself?
4. Which social media platform does the company use most regularly? Why do you think that is? Are the platforms integrated (that is, does something posted to Twitter or Instagram feed into Facebook)?
5. How does this company try to engage with its customers? What tone do they use to communicate with customers? How do they combine visuals and text? What is more prominent: visuals or text? Which is more effective, visual or text, and why?
6. Can you find any complaints or concerns from customers? Does the company respond to complaints or concerns from customers? If so, what is their approach when they respond to customers? Is that approach effective or ineffective?
7. Does the company use emoji in their social media or website communications? If so, how do they use emoji, and is that use effective? If emoji aren’t used, why do you think that is?
8. How often does the company overtly try to “sell” something to its followers? Does that pitch appear to be successful?
9. Pretend you work for that company and that you need to write a post that in some way incorporates their product or service with the idea that spring is around the corner. What would you write and what images (if any) would you use? Work as a team to develop a social media post for this company that in some way connects to the forthcoming change in seasons.
10. What do you think the company could do to improve its social media use and strategy?
11. Has the company tried to engage about current political or social issues? To what effect?