Golden Corral now has a Facebook Fan Page and Twitter page. (Golden Corral’s Noblesville, Indiana location has their OWN Facebook page.)
Company branding has now gone too far.
Both of these services are officially dead.
(Note: please do not construe the above comment in any way denigrating toward Golden Corral, however, this company has no reason whatsoever to have a Facebook page or a Twitter feed.
There are many companies like this, but when the Facebook and Twitter icons showed up on a commercial this morning for Golden Corral… it felt to me the last straw. Maybe the straw should have broken earlier, but this instance is what did it for me.
I am not “in advertising” nor do I watch “Mad Men,” but I do know “enough” about advertising as well as marketing - I am a consumer, among having other skills, natch - but the advertisers of today seem are getting pretty damned sloppy and I truly doubt that of the Internet had existed during the time frame of “Mad Men,” those guys would not rely on the truly lazy routes of “Web 2.0” Facebook and Twitter to “reach out to” or “track” consumer interest. Duh. This is what viral marketing is not. But Golden Corral could give my family some free buffet passes. I’ll take those and tell all my friends. Let’s get on that. Posthaste.)
Update: This post is also not intended to say something like Golden Corral is not “cool enough” for Facebook or Twitter. Quite the opposite. Golden Corral should be above that. It’s an advertising/marketing model that just does not seem to be the right direction (for almost anyone, IMHO). I’m probably wrong. Maybe the military appreciation they do/sponsor, etc. wasn’t building the sales they wanted. Maybe the marketing agency (or in-house team) wanted to experiment a bit or think outside the box or perhaps were even specifically tasked to explore this media zone. Or maybe someone at the top wanted to “connect” with a younger constituency/demographic/buffet eater. “Let’s drum up some business besides the repeat customer.”
But something rose up inside of me to protest this… this… abomination.
This advertising model sucks. Corporate Facebook Fan Pages? Corporate Twitter feeds? Golden Corral? I just don’t know how else to describe it. Yuck.
Update 2: Golden Corral also has their own page on Youtube. And local Golden Corrals can get their own Twitter feeds: http://twitter.com/goldencorral/local
As for stats: nearly 30,000 fans on Facebook, 800 followers on Twitter as of this posting. Weird.
