University at Albany, State University of New York Scholars Archive Business/Business Administration Honors College 5-2014 Theoretical Consequence of Social Media and Retail Marketing Jessica Wald University at Albany, State University of New York Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_business Part of the Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons Recommended Citation Wald, Jessica, "Theoretical Consequence of Social Media and Retail Marketing" (2014). Business/ Business Administration. 24. https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/honorscollege_business/24 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Honors College at Scholars Archive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Business/Business Administration by an authorized administrator of Scholars Archive. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Theoretical Consequence of Social Media and Retail Marketing An honors thesis presented to the Department of Management University at Albany, State University of New York In partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in Business Administration and graduation from The Honors College Jessica Wald Research Advisor: Raymond Van Ness May 2014 Theoretical Consequence of Social Media and Retail Marketing: Starbucks Corporation & McDonald’s Corporation Jessica Wald 1 Abstract Social media has become a focus of marketing within the past few years. Companies have changed their advertising approach to adapt to the new audience utilizing social media. Social media itself is such a vague phrase, but it encompasses Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, Tumblr, and countless more websites. Throughout the course of this thesis, I look at two well-known companies, Starbucks and McDonald’s, and compare them, focusing on their social media usage.