The Reason Everyone Feels Bad For McDonald's Social Media Manager

The hardest-working people in social media are the ones who run fast-food accounts. We all love going on Twitter to watch Wendy's and Dunkin' engage in battle, or Wendy's and Burger King, or Wendy's and just about anybody – but that's not how fast-food Twitter managers spend most of their time. When they're not thinking of clever ways to troll the competition, they're dutifully responding to the complaint-tweets that pile up every day on their Twitter feed. It can be an emotional burden babysitting and catering to the needs of millions of followers. You can check it out for yourself. Go to McDonald's Twitter feed, and click on "Tweets & replies." If customers are to be believed, they're routinely getting too much salt on their fries, too much sugar in their soda, or plastic in their chicken sandwiches.

The Twitter manager for McDonald's decided recently to break out of their always-cheerful "how can we make it right?" persona and get real. They tweeted, "it's always 'when is the McRib coming back' and never 'how are you doing person who runs the McDonald's account.'" In response, they got a mix of heartwarming sympathy, some version of "You think you have it bad? I have it worse," and yes, even more complaints. As it turns out, a lot of people don't like the McRib after all.

The Twitter accounts that responded with the most sympathy to McDonald's "what about me?" tweet were, as you might expect, other company Twitter accounts. Businesses large and small showed McDonald's Twitter some love. HBO Twitter, for one, could relate. "I've never felt more seen. Like, I don't know when House of the Dragon is premiering. Unrelated: When is the McRib back?" Xbox Twitter incorporated the McDonald's jingle: "If you ever feel Ba-Da-Ba-Ba-Bummed, we're always here if you need to talk, about anything ... anything." Adobe invited McDonald's to join the social-media manager support group it was starting. McDonald's promised to bring the McNuggets. Dulce Jolene, a dessert delivery business in Lima, Peru (428 followers), even wanted to send pie.

A teacher broke into a side conversation McDonald's was having with Grubhub to say his job was way harder. "I taught 80 kids today during an epidemic. ... We teachers are out here killing ourselves to make this work." Other Twitter users also went out of their way to express how much they didn't care. A certain Ms. K on Twitter wasn't having any of that McRib nonsense. "I hope the McRib never comes back. I hated it then, I hated it when it came back, I hated it the third time too." 

It's hard to win when you're a fast-food social media manager. Maybe McDonald's could use a distraction – like a good Twitter war with Wendy's.