A Day In The Life Of The Social Media Team At Taco Bell

I was invited to join Taco Bell as they hosted Our 2nd Life, a group of six youtube personalities on their test kitchen visit to Taco Bell. Also in the agenda, a visit to a local Taco Bell for meet up with fans. As a marketer, I am always intrigued at what goes on behind the scenes when a brand uses social media. Lots of prep work was done before the day’s events. The list below is small glimpse of their day.

Breakfast Anyone?

Breakfast at the Taco Bell cafeteria loading up on protein with the breakfast burrito. Afterwards, the team meets for a quick chat before their guests arrive.

Greetings Our 2nd Life

The Taco Bell team customized the corporate greeting for the day and prepared a detailed agenda for their guests.

Our 2nd Life’s arrival at Taco Bell

O2L arrives at Taco Bell corporate headquarters. They had a quick photo session followed by live social updates.

Live tweets

Test Kitchen aka Innovation Kitchen

We taste tested Taco Bell menu plus a few new items I can’t talk about. All I could say is “Yum”.

Menu for the day

After tasting the menu, we met the product managers who explained the thoughts and processes behind some of their yummy creations.

Yum! The tasting begins....

Instagram live updates

Within minutes of posting tons of fans started liking and commenting. They had close to 8,000 likes in just a few hours.

No tweets while eating

As the boys started tweeting and updating posts, the TB team started finding fans in the headquarter's parking lot. No more location tweets. #notweetswhileeating

Luckily for the boys, they had security (not really but couldn’t help posting this photo)

O2L creates their own Taco menu items

Each member of O2L created their own menu item as the social team captured and streamed on Vine. I was amazed at how agile the social team was. Simultaneously, the boys were tweeting and posting as well.

Photobombing each other

...and earning tons of comments and likes within hours.

Taco Bell team interviews O2L

Hard at work. The social team has prepared questions for their biggest and most influential fans.

They love that Taco Bell responds to them on social media

When asked about why they liked Taco Bell, the boys said because Taco Bell talked back to them. They all felt a personal connection to the brand because TB social responded to fans via different channels. Many brands have social sites but they use it as a one way communication vehicle. The social team at TB are truly plugged in having conversations and building relationships.

Meet up at Taco Bell turns into TeenFest 2013!

Woah!!! I arrived at Taco Bell and it was like the Twilight Premiere. Over 500 screaming teenage girls waiting for the O2L. #teenfest2013

Teen Talk

“OMG I just met them!” As the other teen asks “How did they smell?” #teentalk

Wrapping up the day

Nick and Jozlynn near the finish line. It took a lot of effort for the Taco Bell team to plan this. They had a video/photo crew, PR, social and creative team.

I was impressed with their efforts including live tweets, instagrams and vines. Every detail was covered. Any unexpected events were handled with grace. I look forward to seeing the end product.

Last post of the day on instagram

I heard O2L and Taco Bell will be at vidcon. I'm excited to see what they will be up to at vidcon.

Sleeping with the Bell

Another exciting part about visiting the mothership was finding fun goodies such as cases filled with historic ads and packaging. My personal favorite was the Taco Bell pillow. #sleepingwiththebell