Which Fast-Food Restaurants Have the Most Social Media Followers?

Founded in 1940, McDonald’s has grown into a global brand that has nearly 40,000 restaurants around the world today. Not only that, but by a wide margin, McDonald’s also has the largest overall social media following of any fast-food chain out there, with more than 90 million fans and followers on their U.S.-based brand social media accounts alone.

This report from How to Cook Recipes ranks 50 of the most popular fast-food chains out there by their total social media following, factoring in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. The data does not include support social media accounts or international social media accounts, only factoring in the main United States-based brand accounts.

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Which Fast-Food Restaurants Have the Most Social Media Followers?

Which Fast-Food Restaurants Have the Most Social Media Followers?

Out of every fast-food chain globally, no company has more social media followers than McDonald’s does. As of March 2022, McDonald’s boasted a massive community of 92,531,000 fans, which includes 4.5 million followers on Twitter, 81 million fans on Facebook, 4.3 million followers on Instagram, 2.1 million TikTok followers, and 631,000 subscribers on YouTube.

When factoring in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, only five fast-food chains around the world have communities that exceed 25 million total users: McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Subway. Here are the ten fast-food chains that collectively have the most followers on social media:

  1. McDonald’s: 92.5 million social media followers
  2. Starbucks: 66.8 million social media followers
  3. KFC: 60.8 million social media followers
  4. Pizza Hut: 35.6 million social media followers
  5. Subway: 27.1 million social media followers
  6. Domino’s: 24.6 million social media followers
  7. Dunkin’: 22.4 million social media followers
  8. Taco Bell: 15.1 million social media followers
  9. Wendy’s: 14.4 million social media followers
  10. Dairy Queen: 13.1 million social media followers

It launched in 2004, but today, Facebook is the most popular social media platform globally, with 2.797 billion active users monthly. Here are the five fast-food chains that have the most followers on Facebook as of March 2022:

  1. McDonald’s: 81 million Facebook followers
  2. KFC: 57 million Facebook followers
  3. Starbucks: 36 million Facebook followers
  4. Pizza Hut: 32 million Facebook followers
  5. Domino’s: 21 million Facebook followers

Over the past few years, no fast-food chain in the world has made more waves on Twitter than Wendy’s. With their sometimes controversial, often hilarious tweets, Wendy’s has quickly ascended into the top five fast-food chains in terms of the most Twitter followers.

  1. Starbucks: 11 million Twitter followers
  2. McDonald’s: 4.5 million Twitter followers
  3. Wendy’s: 3.8 million Twitter followers
  4. Subway: 2.2 million Twitter followers
  5. Burger King: 1.9 million Twitter followers

On Instagram, Starbucks dominates every other fast-food chain. Not only does Starbucks have the highest number of followers, 17.7 million, but their follower base on Instagram is more than four times that of McDonald’s, which has the second most followers with 4.3 million. Here are the five fast-food chains with the most Instagram followers:

  1. Starbucks: 17.7 million Instagram followers
  2. McDonald’s: 4.3 million Instagram followers
  3. Dunkin’: 2.2 million Instagram followers
  4. Burger King and Chik-fil-A: 1.8 million Instagram followers each

YouTube is not only the second most popular search engine out there behind Google, but it’s also the second most popular social media platform, only behind Facebook. Today, YouTube has an estimated 2.291 billion active monthly users, and fast-food chains have built audiences on this platform, too. But as of March 2022, none of the major fast-food chains had hit the milestone of one million subscribers on YouTube.

  1. McDonald’s: 631,000 YouTube subscribers
  2. Starbucks: 350,000 YouTube subscribers
  3. Domino’s: 331,000 YouTube subscribers
  4. Wendy’s: 132,000 YouTube subscribers
  5. Taco Bell: 123,000 YouTube subscribers

TikTok is becoming more popular than ever as one of the top social media platforms. These are the five fast-food chains that have the most followers on the platform as of March 2022:

  1. Dunkin’: 3 million TikTok followers
  2. McDonald’s: 2.1 million TikTok followers
  3. Starbucks: 1.8 million TikTok followers
  4. Chipotle and Taco Bell: 1.7 million TikTok followers each

The Fast Food Chains With the Most Total Followers

Rank Chain Social Media Following
Twitter Handle Twitter Facebook Instagram TikTok YouTube Total Following
1 McDonald’s @McDonalds 4,500,000 81,000,000 4,300,000 2,100,000 631,000 92,531,000
2 Starbucks @Starbucks 11,000,000 36,000,000 17,700,000 1,800,000 350,000 66,850,000
3 KFC @kfc 1,500,000 57,000,000 1,600,000 794,100 n/a 60,894,100
4 Pizza Hut @pizzahut 1,600,000 32,000,000 1,700,000 240,800 85,100 35,625,900
5 Subway @SUBWAY 2,200,000 23,000,000 1,300,000 533,300 91,400 27,124,700
6 Domino’s @dominos 1,400,000 21,000,000 1,700,000 195,200 331,000 24,626,200
7 Dunkin’ @dunkindonuts 1,200,000 16,000,000 2,200,000 3,000,000 46,600 22,446,600
8 Taco Bell @tacobell 1,900,000 10,000,000 1,400,000 1,700,000 123,000 15,123,000
9 Wendy’s @Wendys 3,800,000 8,200,000 1,000,000 1,300,000 132,000 14,432,000
10 Dairy Queen @DairyQueen 533,500 11,900,000 646,000 64,100 17,500 13,161,100
11 Burger King @BurgerKing 1,900,000 8,600,000 1,800,000 638,700 108,000 13,046,700
12 Chick-fil-A @ChickfilA 1,100,000 7,900,000 1,800,000 819,100 55,200 11,674,300
13 Baskin-Robbins @BaskinRobbins 194,100 9,600,000 787,000 16,200 6,700 10,604,000
14 Papa John’s @PapaJohns 646,400 6,600,000 601,000 40,700 Not Public 7,888,100
15 Chipotle @ChipotleTweets 1,000,000 3,300,000 1,100,000 1,700,000 97,400 7,197,400
16 Little Caesars @littlecaesars 359,000 4,700,000 473,000 272,500 22,800 5,827,300
17 Sonic @sonicdrivein 387,200 4,500,000 605,000 120,500 48,900 5,661,600
18 Arby’s @Arbys 847,200 3,100,000 390,000 680,600 30,000 5,047,800
19 Tim Hortons @TimHortons 661,300 3,400,000 452,000 102,900 30,200 4,646,400
20 Steak ‘n Shake @SteaknShake 405,800 3,700,000 248,000 8,900 1,300 4,364,000
21 Panera Bread @panerabread 447,000 3,000,000 503,000 183,300 11,800 4,145,100
22 Jimmy John’s @jimmyjohns 446,100 3,300,000 152,000 28,400 6,900 3,933,400
23 Whataburger @Whataburger 1,200,000 2,100,000 478,000 142,200 5,500 3,925,700
24 Wingstop @wingstop 266,600 2,700,000 313,000 154,700 2,700 3,437,000
25 In-N-Out Burger @innoutburger (Not Verified) 51,100 2,700,000 634,000 13,500 n/a 3,398,600
26 Panda Express @PandaExpress 62,700 3,000,000 251,000 4,000 14,500 3,332,200
27 Culver’s @culvers 52,800 2,200,000 113,000 56,000 7,400 2,429,200
28 Jack in the Box @JackBox 122,800 1,200,000 245,000 676,100 25,800 2,269,700
29 Raising Cane’s @raisingcanes 82,800 717,000 811,000 475,600 6,100 2,092,500
30 Carl’s Jr. @CarlsJr 107,800 1,300,000 199,000 171,700 69,000 1,847,500
31 Firehouse Subs @FirehouseSubs 55,700 1,400,000 54,300 34 Not Public 1,510,034
32 Popeyes @Popeyes 255,600 940,000 447,000 38,700 14,200 1,695,500
33 Five Guys @FiveGuys 93,300 1,200,000 351,000 4,137 n/a 1,648,437
34 Zaxby’s @Zaxbys 101,800 1,300,000 128,000 56,600 5,000 1,591,400
35 Shake Shack @shakeshack 97,000 423,000 810,000 89,900 3,200 1,423,100
36 Church’s Chicken @ChurchsChicken 93,300 1,200,000 93,400 1,000 900 1,388,600
37 Hardee’s @Hardees 75,400 1,200,000 76,000 2,207 12,800 1,366,407
38 Auntie Anne’s @AuntieAnnes 65,400 1,000,000 174,000 103,300 5,100 1,347,800
39 Jersey Mike’s @jerseymikes 89,700 1,000,000 131,000 484 4,200 1,225,384
40 Papa Murphy’s @papamurphys 12,100 1,000,000 35,400 900 n/a 1,048,400
41 Moe’s @Moes_HQ 88,700 651,000 69,300 38,600 2,200 849,800
42 McAlister’s Deli @McAlistersDeli 43,200 648,000 37,100 1,200 Not Public 729,500
43 Del Taco @DelTaco 34,600 583,000 77,900 17,200 3,600 716,300
44 El Pollo Loco @ElPolloLoco 23,400 441,000 62,700 109,000 2,000 638,100
45 Checkers/Rally’s @CheckersRallys 27,800 491,000 88,200 13,600 3,900 624,500
46 Bojangles @Bojangles 84,000 401,000 65,900 4,100 1,600 556,600
47 QDOBA @qdoba 49,400 449,000 41,100 n/a 3,600 543,100
48 Tropical Smoothie Café @TSmoothieCafe 18,400 423,000 69,100 5,300 1,700 517,500
49 Marco’s Pizza @MarcosPizza 18,200 308,000 26,900 17,700 500 371,300
50 Jason’s Deli @jasonsdeli (Not Verified) 15,800 117,000 12,800 n/a 575 146,175

 

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This page was last updated by Megan Miller