Introduction

The Walt Disney Company commonly known as Disney was founded on October 16, 1923, by two brothers Walt and Roy Disney, in Hollywood California, they were initially a cartoon studio, but they have grown massively and now owns many other companies like ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel and 20th Century Studios. Disney is mainly in the entertainment industry producing different types of films and programs for their viewers, and they also manage theme parks for the characters they create/own. Social media plays a huge role in Disney’s business strategy, they use platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube to market their content to the masses in different ways, for example, one way they do this is by creating engagement with the audience, social media enables Disney to interact directly with its audience, fostering a sense of community and loyalty. The entertainment industry at large has embraced social media as a standard tool for marketing and audience engagement.  

Disney maintains a huge presence across multiple social media platforms. As of today, when writing this blog post, Disney has 15 million TikTok followers, 10.3 million subscribers on YouTube, 40.4 million followers on Instagram, and over 10 million followers on X and Facebook. This shows that Disney is quite successful with their social media campaigns and that many people follow Disney to stay in touch with what they are doing currently. Disney's social media strategy involves regular posting across these platforms, often sharing daily content that ranges from promotional material for upcoming releases to interactive posts designed to engage their diverse audience. For instance, on Instagram, Disney shares behind-the-scenes photos, fan art, and themed quizzes to encourage follower interaction. On YouTube, the company creates platform-specific content, such as DIY tutorials inspired by Disney characters and stories, catering to the interests of their subscribers. This tailored approach ensures that content is both engaging and relevant to each platform's user base. In my opinion, Instagram seems to be the most effective social media platform for Disney because it has their highest follower count of 40.4 million and they are quite active on it as well posting something every other day or sometimes even daily if one of their projects is about to be released.  

In terms of audience interaction, Disney's followers actively engage with the content through likes, comments, and shares, and by creating their Disney-inspired content, becoming "producers" who contribute to the brand's narrative and legacy. Disney addresses a lot of the components that make social media unique, some components that Disney addresses in our textbook are choice, conversations, curation, creation, and collaboration. Disney uses “choice” as a component because Disney has a lot of different works that are for different viewers and advertising these works on their social media gives the audience a choice to see what they like and avoid what they don't like. Disney uses “conversation” by responding to their audience in different forms, they often interview people who visit their parks ask them different questions and post it on their social media to show that they do engage with their fans. Disney uses “curation” by creating content that aligns with its brand identity while also showing off the audience- generated work blending official and fan-created content. Lastly, Disney uses “collaboration” in many ways, one way that uses collaborations is through different influencers, and another way Disney uses collaboration is collaborating with fans, Disney hosts many different fan events on their social media for different prizes ranging from tickets to Disneyland to cash prizes. All these components that make social media unique show that Disney maintains a strong connection with its audience through social media.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, Disney’s social media strategy is very effective in what it does, and Disney’s social media platforms have brought in millions of customers around the world. Some strengths I believe that Disney’s social media have are its consistent, high-quality content creation and active audience interaction, fostering a loyal community in the millions, another strength I believe in Disney’s social media strategy is there is a thing for everyone, because of Disney's wide reach there's usually always content for their audiences no matter what background or age they are. However, one weakness in their social media strategy is managing such a big social media platform, with millions of followers across their social media platforms they must watch what they post to not offend anyone. I don't feel that Disney needs any opportunities currently because they are already one of the biggest companies on this planet and they already dominate the entertainment industry. However, with such size threats will always exist and if they aren’t careful and take extreme measures in what they post/ talent selections there will be lawsuits due to Disney being such a big company. One recommendation I would make is to hire more people in their PR department to make sure what they post makes everyone happy. Another recommendation is to invest more in research tools to expand their reach even more.