Disney is a unique company to analyze their media presentation and engagement with their audience, simply because they are such a large entertainment conglomerate at this point. Owning the direct Disney properties, as well as Marvel, Star Wars, and Pixar means that Disney’s social media presence is immense and complicated.
That being said, all the different subcategories of Disney media all operate in similar ways, making it a tad easier to analyze as well show how the corporate chain does not provide a lot of slack within the splinter media organizations. It is not surprising that Disney has garnered such a good reputation on this list, they are literally the foundation for millions of people’s childhood entertainment.
However, it is clear that Disney does not rely on vague childhood memories to maintain it’s dominant presence in New Media today. They take frequent advantage of the Web 2.0, often posing questions on Twitter and Facebook asking to encourage audience response. These vary from, “name your favorite Han Solo moment” to “when are you seeing Frozen 2”. These small questions are good, subtle ways to generate excitement and digital talk around whatever entertainment product Disney is pushing at the time.
Disney has the added benefit in all their media interactivity of having a plethora iconic characters and memorabilia that they can use to draw digital pedestrians into their messaging. While not a rational explanation for highlighting their integrity, displaying their beloved heroes likely has a subconscious effect of trust and approval from fans. Most of their marketing does seem to be centered around the digital generation as these digital community centers are most commonly used by digital natives.
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