Public Relations Theory

7Social Media and Emerging Media: Theoretical Foundations

Karen Freberg

When 16‐year‐old teenager Carter Wilkerson reached out to the official Wendy’s Twitter account in April 2017 about how many retweets he would need to get their chicken nuggets free for a year, he showed the world the power of social media. Wendy’s surprisingly reached out to Carter and said he would need 18 million retweets to get this incentive. With this single tweet, the rest is history. Since then, Carter’s initial tweet has gone viral, getting mainstream media coverage around the world and even surpassing Ellen DeGeneres’s popular Oscar selfie tweet to become the most retweeted tweet ever in Twitter’s history. In addition to this accomplishment, the #NuggsForCarter campaign was even showcased and entered for consideration to the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity for PR work.

Without social media, Carter may not have gotten the exposure and engagement for this exchange with a brand like Wendy’s. Other brands have experienced both the positive and negative consequences of not using social media proactively, as in crisis situations. When United Airlines experienced its April 2017 crisis where a passenger was dragged off one of its flights from Chicago to Louisville, it showed audiences the power of video and the importance of understanding the medium and first impressions that arise from what is shared and posted. The United Airlines case, along with its CEO, Oscar Munoz, also realized the response ...