Shake Shack isn’t the largest fast-food company in the country, but if the high-end hamburger chain’s social media presence is any indication of its potential, it might very well have the brightest future.
The chain’s competition, restaurants including McDonald’s and Burger King, frequently advertises on television, radio and elsewhere. But Shake Shack has instead chosen to invest in building an audience on social media platforms such as Instagram and Vine, where the country’s youth are disproportionately active. And it appears to be paying off, according to a report by Goldman Sachs.
Not only has Shake Shack won the goodwill of America’s younger fast-food eaters, it has earned a cult-like following online that few, if any, other fast-food companies can claim.
“Shake Shack does essentially no traditional marketing, but has a strong presence on social media, which speaks to its relevance among millennials,” writes Goldman in its analyst report. “Using both Vine and Instagram as examples, its followers are much larger than what its system sales would suggest.”
Indeed, when you adjust for sales, Shake Shack is in a world of its own on Instagram.
Shake Shack doesn’t have the largest Instagram following — it has only 155,000 compared with Mcdonald’s nearly 500,000, Taco Bell’s almost 490,000 and KFC’s 250,000. But it has by far the biggest audience compared to its size. McDonald’s, remember, sells more than 300 times what Shake Shack does in burgers, fries and other fast food fare; and Taco Bell outsells it by more than 20 fold.
The same is true for Vine, where Shake Shack has fewer followers but far more relative to its size.
Shake Shack’s success on these social media platforms might seem innocuous or even silly when used as a measure of anything other than visual appeal, but it’s actually a big deal.
The burger chain is fresh off a lucrative — and rather successful — IPO, which says a lot about the company’s potential. Shake Shack, after all, still operates fewer than 40 restaurants around the United States. The remaining 30-plus stores are dotted around the globe and have created, for the most part, an imbalance in supply and demand. Everywhere that there is a Shake Shack, there could be many more. Soon enough, there probably will be.
