When McDonald’s launched their all-day breakfast service, they searched Twitter for people who requested for that and replied to them. Here are a couple – McD replying in 2015, to tweets from 2007 and 2008.

If you thought going back to old tweets and replying to them and get some PR is a great idea, wait till you see what Burger King did!

What Burger King did was even more subtle and simple, but very, very smart! They did not reply to old tweets; they simply ‘Liked’ them!

Burger King recently started Liking tweets of a LOT of people, from 2009/2010. And the choice of these people was smart too – they were mostly big-ticket celebrities on Twitter with a LOT of followers.

So, when those people noticed Burger King Liking their old tweets, what would they do? They’d feel creeped out, wonder about it… and tweet it! So Burger King is in the limelight, organically, from a lot of celebs who are simply asking why it is liking their old tweets!

So why did Burger King do this? Because they were bringing back something they had in their menu back in 2009/2010 – Funnel Cake Fries! The reason for the gimmick: “some things from 2010 are worth revisiting—like your old tweets. and funnel cake fries. get them now for a limited time”.

Very clever thought here! The reason this worked is because Burger King went all out in picking the right people to Like old tweets – not just a few, but a whole lot of handles, including brand/organization handles like NASA! That broad Like strategy worked and many people wondered out aloud why Burger King is doing this to them! Using that attention to connect your product’s relaunch from that period is brilliant! A related point is that the context for doing this was bang-on – it was indeed a product from that period!

Such a disarmingly simple idea – just using Likes on Twitter! Well done, Burger King!

But, that’s not exactly how it ended! One influencer (a YouTuber) whose tweets Burger King liked was very upset because, according to him, people like him are not rocket scientists and actually people of average intelligence. And that he doesn’t like being ‘manipulated’ into being unpaid influencers for a brand! His manipulation was tweeting and asking why Burger King Liked his tweets from 2010, for context – something that he did, himself!

Casey Neistat, the YouTuber posted a 7-minute rant on YouTube about how bad he felt that he was ‘manipulated’!

And in a stroke of brilliance, instead of simply asking for monetary compensation for his ‘manipulation’ as per his rate card, he directed that towards charitable causes! He asked Burger King (who he said has already got the benefit of his reach/influence) to work with him to do something for kids in need!

He also seems to have had a change of heart after media outlets started reporting his allegations of ‘manipulation’!

But, Burger King noticed all this and reached out to Casey, incidentally.

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