Print, television and billboards have been mainstays of automotive marketing.
Now there is a new marketing platform - called "social media" -- and the automakers are already deep into it.
Of course "social media" is the more scholarly term for networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. Perhaps you've heard of them? Apparently they're all the rage with all those young web-enabled whippersnappers.
Perhaps you're even one of them? If that's the case, the fact that automakers are already using them, will not be news to you.
Two-way street
Social media's claim to fame is that it is not one person or one entity posting a message-- it's people having a conversation.
So when automakers join the conversation, or initiate the conversation on these sites, they need to follow a different marketing protocol.Companies can't go on there with the intent of "pushing out information," says Sarah Milstein, author of the O'Reilly Media research report, Twitter and the Micromessaging Revolution. Instead, Milstein notes they need to figure out how to engage the interest of people who use these sites.
Fiesta success story
One very clever way to Ford has engaged the interest of the social media set has been via the Fiesta Movement. Under this U.S. initiative, 100 young trendsetters will drive and live with a European-spec Fiesta for six months, travelling as agents on special missions, who then relate their experiences through various sites.
"We were already using social media as part of our regular communication channels, and that made it all the easier for us to try something as bold as the Fiesta Movement," notes Scott Monty, who heads up social media at Ford (his official title is Global and Multimedia Communications Manager).
Previous and current social media initiatives by Ford include YouTube videos, Creative Commons-licensed Flickr photos, social media news releases, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, documents shared on Scribd, the development of TheFordStory.com, and bloggers being included in media events.
"It all meant that we were committed to this new form of connecting with customers."
cube goes social too
The first major auto-related social media attraction for Canadians is hypercube.ca -- essentially an online stage for 500 creative thinkers to demonstrate their social creativity in "cube worthiness." The best 50 won a new Nissan cube (winners were announced on June 23, 2009, in simultaneous events in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). Winners are now blogging regularly for a year, on how their cubes "interact with their creative lives."
Now there is a new marketing platform - called "social media" -- and the automakers are already deep into it.
Of course "social media" is the more scholarly term for networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, etc. Perhaps you've heard of them? Apparently they're all the rage with all those young web-enabled whippersnappers.
Perhaps you're even one of them? If that's the case, the fact that automakers are already using them, will not be news to you.
Two-way street
Social media's claim to fame is that it is not one person or one entity posting a message-- it's people having a conversation.
So when automakers join the conversation, or initiate the conversation on these sites, they need to follow a different marketing protocol.Companies can't go on there with the intent of "pushing out information," says Sarah Milstein, author of the O'Reilly Media research report, Twitter and the Micromessaging Revolution. Instead, Milstein notes they need to figure out how to engage the interest of people who use these sites.
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Fiesta success story
One very clever way to Ford has engaged the interest of the social media set has been via the Fiesta Movement. Under this U.S. initiative, 100 young trendsetters will drive and live with a European-spec Fiesta for six months, travelling as agents on special missions, who then relate their experiences through various sites.
"We were already using social media as part of our regular communication channels, and that made it all the easier for us to try something as bold as the Fiesta Movement," notes Scott Monty, who heads up social media at Ford (his official title is Global and Multimedia Communications Manager).
Previous and current social media initiatives by Ford include YouTube videos, Creative Commons-licensed Flickr photos, social media news releases, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, documents shared on Scribd, the development of TheFordStory.com, and bloggers being included in media events.
"It all meant that we were committed to this new form of connecting with customers."
cube goes social too
The first major auto-related social media attraction for Canadians is hypercube.ca -- essentially an online stage for 500 creative thinkers to demonstrate their social creativity in "cube worthiness." The best 50 won a new Nissan cube (winners were announced on June 23, 2009, in simultaneous events in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). Winners are now blogging regularly for a year, on how their cubes "interact with their creative lives."