Useful Social Media sat down with Heather Oldani, Senior Director of Communications for McDonald’s, to discuss social media in 2013 and beyond.  With 27 million likes and nearly 1 million Twitter followers, McDonald’s is a brand worth emulating.  Let’s take a look at the highlights of the interview.

Heather’s most pressing concern for 2013 in social media is the threat of hacking.  She points out that many high profile brands have been hacked recently, and the threat is always there.  It’s important to take steps to be sure that your data is secure, and that social media managers stay vigilant to address security issues as quickly as possible.

Heather points out that most big brands are doing a decent job of running social media campaigns, but the real area for growth that she sees in the realm of social media is acting on data gather about consumers from their engagement and reaction to content.  Social listening has been and will continue to be a very important element of any social media campaign in 2013.

When asked to look at the next decade, Heather said:

“…how do brands and people collaborate with one another to drive innovations that benefit both the business and society? Social media and social engagement has a huge role to play in helping to facilitate that kind of two-way innovation that has mutual benefits.” 

The idea she is pointing to is that the real ground-breaking ideas in social media innovation are the ones that benefit both user and brand.  Mutual benefit pushes mutual adoption, which is necessary to any innovative idea.  It can be a great idea, but if you can’t get people to adopt its usage, the idea becomes pointless.

Read the full interview here and take a look at McDonald’s social media presence across the Internet.