As you can imagine we follow all social media marketing campaigns. We evaluate the successes and the failures. I mean, it’s our job. Old Spice Man YouTube videos? Huge Success. Dr. Pepper/Lean Mean Fighting Machine Facebook Promotion? Huge failure.

Well, we’ve been watching Ford for the past few days after they unveiled the 2011 Ford Explorer on Facebook. It wasn’t the first automotive unveiling on Facebook. Back in December I blogged right here about Infiniti unveiling the 2011 Infiniti M, but Ford seems to be receiving a lot more love from the media. Why?

Ford bypassed the traditional automotive show reveal and opted for a reveal where they didn’t have to compete with every other automotive company for headlines.

Ford created the headlines themselves. For several months Ford has been teasing the public with images of the new Explorer design on Facebook. There was a photo of the headlight redesign, and one of the interior, but never the whole thing.

All of these teases culminated into a YouTube video posted on their Facebook page. By the end of the day the number of Facebook fans had increased by 25% by adding over 10,000 fans.

Along with the Facebook reveal were other public unveilings by Ford executives all over Canada and the U.S. They threw in some TV and radio spots just for good measure. It was an all out marketing blitz with Facebook as the central hub for all things Ford Explorer.

The success of this reveal at creating buzz around the Explorer’s launch is apparent. Add this to the Old Spice Man and social media marketing is looking even better right now.

GOSO Founder Adam Boalt met Eric Miltsch, Internet Director at Auction Direct USA, at the Automotive Social Media Summit in June and was blown away by many of his innovations in both the social media and automotive spaces.

Miltsch has been the Internet Director for just over three years. In this role he’s been a strong advocate for social media. Speaking from experience, introducing social media into the automotive industry is sometimes an uphill battle, but Miltsch has done some great things to prove social media’s relevance in the industry.

“From day 1, Auction Direct USA set out to create the most unique car shopping experience. We provide our guests with everything needed to ensure they drive away knowing they received the very best deal possible on their used car purchase,” Miltsch said.

He credits this philosophy and a strong honest presence with the success of their social media endeavors.

“Trust plays such a key role in our ability to connect with our customers both online and offline,” Miltsch continued.

Miltsch’s idea* that really stood out was the Auction Direct USA store in the Eastview Mall in New York. The innovation comes from the fact that Miltsch is selling cars from a store without any cars.

“The store was influenced by the open, engaging atmosphere of Apple’s retail locations. Customers can interact with our website and inventory via in-store touch screen kiosks, research workstations and even a touch screen store front window which creates a whole new meaning to “window shopping,” Miltsch said.

Sounds crazy right? Imagine going to a mall, not an auto mall, but an actual mall, with a car store, but again, there are no cars.

“The store gives shoppers more control as it creates a customized experience that matches their own style. The increased exposure to mall traffic lets us share our story with a larger portion of buyers at various points within the buying process,” Miltsch said.

It’s an impressive move that is paying off well for Auction Direct USA and Miltsch. I for one am looking forward to his next idea, which he assures me will be pretty exciting.

*CORRECTION: I misattributed the idea for the Eastview Mall store to Eric Miltsch, but as Miltsch noted in the comments the idea was actually that of the CEO & COO – John Iannone & Todd Hoagey.

The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is under attack by roving gangs of illegal street racers.

Okay that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but illegal street racing is a big safety concern for residents and a serious danger to drivers and their fans.

In hopes of curtailing illegal street racing, Scion Events has kicked off the second season of the Scion Drag-n-Brag, where racers are pulled off the streets and thrown into the relative safety of the Texas Motor Speedway.

Texas Motor Speedway is cutting their 1.5 mile track down to an 1/8 mile drag strip for the six week competition. Sadly last week’s opener was rained out, but everything is on schedule for tomorrow’s races and the next five weeks.

In order to connect with racing enthusiasts we’ve built out custom pages across a wide spectrum of sites.

We have a YouTube page with videos from the races.

We created a Tumblr blog with updates and information on the races.

There’s also an ever-growing Flickr photo archive with race pics and some shots from the Show-n-Shine competition, a weekly complement to the Drag-n-Brag races where car owners can compete on looks alone.

And then there’s a special tab on eight dealer’s Facebook pages providing real-time updates from each of the above networks. All of this furnished within Facebook.

Utilizing so many networks makes this a truly social campaign. There’s a little bit of everything for everyone allowing us to bring racers from all walks of life to the track.

The social awareness aspect of the races is of the greatest benefit. Last year’s Drag-n-Brag allowed dozens of racers the opportunity to showcase their skills under controlled  supervision at the Texas Motor Speedway.

We’ll be watching to see how it spreads across the Dallas/Fort Worth market.

]]> http://www.goso.com/blog/2010/07/scions-drag-n-brag-lets-street-racers-compete-in-safety-2/feed/ 2 http://www.goso.com/blog/2010/07/a-night-at-the-movies-with-the-number-one-volume-lexus-dealer-in-the-world/ http://www.goso.com/blog/2010/07/a-night-at-the-movies-with-the-number-one-volume-lexus-dealer-in-the-world/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:46:33 +0000 Korenne Richardson http://www.goso.com/blog/?p=871

It’s summer time. Which mean two things: it’s going to be hot and new movies. The summer is when all the great movies come out. JM Lexus, the number one volume Lexus dealership in the world, realized it was time for summer fun and launched their “Night at the Movies” campaign. The promotion awards two Muvico movie tickets each day until the end of summer to JM Lexus fans on Facebook and Twitter.

The rules of the promotion are simple:

• No purchase is necessary.
• Register at either Facebook or Twitter.
• Check both Facebook and Twitter each day between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. EST.
• Click “Get Tickets” when it’s posted at a random time each day.
• Promotion ends August 31, 2010.

JM Lexus recently expanded its online presence to a variety of social media networks as part of its overall business strategy. The Muvico giveaway is their first social media promotion. JM Lexus is known in South Florida for their excellence in customer service. Their social media initiative takes that excellence one step further.

The promotion was built on and administrated through our GOSO platform.

Every week there seems to be some pundit talking about the end of blogs, or even worse, the end of websites.

“Who needs a website when there are social media sites and Facebook pages?” they say.

Crazy talk.

Of course we have been hearing this for years.

• I don’t need a blog, I have a super flashy website, an in-house web designer, and an SEO on retainer.
• I don’t need a blog, I have a newsletter.
• I don’t need a blog, I have a Facebook Fan Page.
• I don’t need a blog, I have a sales team.
• Etc etc etc.

So why should you blog rather than go with those arguments above?

Blogs are a crucial part of social media for good reason.

They combine the best parts of having a …

• Website – You can have static AND dynamic content. For example sales pages and articles. The articles make the site sticky, meaning people want to return, and also blogs are famously good with that SEO stuff.
• Newsletter – The content is the reason people WANT to return, but allowing people to sign up to receive that content via email is the mechanism people prefer to return. Online, searchable content and navigation beats content that can only be found in an inbox. That SEO stuff again.
• Community – Attract people with content, retain them with conversation.

In a nutshell, you get a greater audience, keep them interested, and they are easy to maintain. Of course, you do a good job of that and you sell more too.

What about Facebook? Do both, but make sure your Social Media followers know about your great blog content, because one day Facebook or whoever comes next might switch your account off. Yup, much as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are great, we do not own our accounts, they do.

Go out and find your market in the social media sites, promote your content, but make your blog your home.

Scott DeYager, Social Media Manager at Toyota Motor Sales, spoke at the Thought Leadership Summit last month where he shared some of Toyota’s social media successes during their recall. Most would consider a recall to be a public relations nightmare, but Toyota survived, thanks in part to their social media savvy on Facebook, Twitter and the unexpected Digg Dialogg.

“It’s what I like to call a crowd-sourced interview,” said Scott DeYager describing the Digg Dialogg platform.

Digg Dialogg was born from Digg.com as a way to give communities access to industry leaders. Whether it be in the arts, government or the business industry. Toyota had been approached by Digg to participate in a live interview on the Dialogg platform.

“It was a golden opportunity to be transparent and to humanize the brand when we desperately needed it,” DeYager said.

The Digg community was given three days to ask any question of Jim Lentz, President/COO of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, and over the course of the three days use Digg’s thumbs up/thumbs down functionality to move questions up or down. At the end of the three days the ten questions with the most Diggs would be posed to Lentz in a live interview two hours after the questions closed.

“When the questions closed I was actually shocked to see that Jim Lentz had received over 1,400 questions. More than Timothy Geithner and a few less than Al Gore during his Digg Dialogg,” DeYager said.

Toyota’s Dialogg was the first over a topical news item. Other Dialoggs were of celebrities and politicians like Peter Jackson, Grant Hill, and President Bill Clinton.

“This was one of those moments, as a company, that you have to give up control to be in control. I’ll be honest, not everyone in the company was confident with what we were about to do, but the results speak for themselves,” DeYager said.

Surprisingly, six of the top ten questions had nothing to do with the recall. The number one question was: What do you drive? And the simple answer is Lentz drives a Lexus RX Hybrid.

In the next five days the interview received over 1 million views.

AutoNation prides itself on being the “un-dealer” and as being the automotive company that’s changing everything. Ryan wrote a couple of weeks ago about their social media game plan, and briefly mentioned their Mosaic Campaign.

It’s been a few weeks, and we’ve kept our eye on the campaign so I’ve wanted to go into a little more detail. Part of the reason I wanted to write about it was because we created the campaign, but the main reason is because it has really taken off.

AutoNation came to us with a challenge: How can we reward our customers for their loyalty, while showing them that they are AutoNation?

The first challenges were getting past customer’s skepticism of giveaways. What’s the catch? What do I have to buy? What am I signing up for?

All legitimate concerns. So we devised an idea to allow anyone with a Facebook or Twitter account to participate. They don’t have to sign up for anything. We offer the option to share your participation with your social groups, but it’s not required. We wanted to alleviate all of those concerns and allow participants to simply receive a gift from AutoNation.

The second challenge was how to visually represent the idea that AutoNation is its customers. So we took the AutoNation logo and  turned it into a mosaic of the faces of all the giveaway winners. By the end of the giveaway the entire logo will be engulfed by the smiling faces of the winners, and the mosaic will be complete.

Campaign Summary By the Numbers:

• 3o day campaign
• 300 gift cards to be given away
• Over 24,000 page views…so far
• 5,000 unique visitors…so far

Although, these are great numbers for a campaign that was born, promoted, and lived on social media alone, in the end the feedback was the true metric of the success of the promotion. We spoke with every winner and learned a little bit about each, then sent them a personalized thank you card with no strings attached.

Everyone has seen the recent growth of social marketing. One of the perks of such marketing is hopefully a great product, but also a socially conscious product. Through doing good, brands are able to maintain customer engagement.

There are many kinds of social marketing, one of the biggest right now is green marketing. GOSO recently created a Facebook campaign for the upcoming Nissan LEAF (Leading, Environmentally Friendly, Affordable, Family Car).

Although it hasn’t been released yet, the LEAF is already making waves as the first all electric, zero emission electric car to be produced for the mass market. The Nissan LEAF Plant a Tree Campaign was born of our client’s desire to sell a car while doing some good, much like the LEAF itself.

So we devised a concept that combined social media and social marketing by creating a green campaign which allowed people who liked our client’s Facebook page could plant a tree in one of four locations around the world: Haiti, The Philippines, India or Brazil.

The locations were chosen based on the recommendations of our partner in the project, Trees for the Future. Each site had a very specific need for the trees. Haiti for example needed to replenish forests devastated by recent hurricanes.

Campaign Stats:

• Created custom Facebook page tabs for 23 dealerships.
• Increased Facebook fans by more than 25% in two weeks.
• Client committed to planting up to 50,000 trees.

Overall the campaign was extremely successful for two reasons, we were able to connect the buzz surrounding the LEAF with dealers, and hopefully we’ll hit 50,000 trees to be planted.

What successes have you had in combining social marketing with social media?

Unless you’ve been living under a car for the past two years, you know about the Fiesta Movement. The social media marketing campaign behind the 2011 Ford Fiesta that has pulled down:

• Nearly 500,000 YouTube views
• More than 70,000 Flickr views
• More than 10.7 million Twitter impressions

The Movement has been huge for Ford in terms of creating brand awareness for the Fiesta, even before the car was released. In December of 2009 the second chapter of the Fiesta Movement began.

For the second chapter of the movement, Ford is tasking teams with developing creative advertising for the 2011 Fiesta, hitting the U.S. this summer. Then everyone votes for a winner. Crowdsourcing meets advertising, if you will.

Although the campaign is successful at creating buzz for the Fiesta on a national level, we wondered how to bring that buzz to the market level. How can we connect the two? How can we bring an OEM’s national campaign to the front steps of the dealer?

In the spirit of the Movement the obvious choose was through social media outlets. So in a matter of days GOSO created custom YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter assets for 36 dealerships across the nation.

Included in the assets was a custom Facebook tab where users could check in with their favorite teams on a dealer’s fan page without leaving Facebook.

The design is based on Ford’s Fiesta Movement website, including color and layout. We were able to bring feeds from team members social media outlets to provide real-time updates of each team within Facebook. Viewers were also given the option of choosing one of the Movement cities so they could see what was happening locally.

Overall the campaign successfully connected a national brand awareness campaign at the dealer level, where people actually buy the cars.

To the dealers out there, what successes have you had in bringing national OEM campaigns to your dealership? What are the benefits of bringing national campaigns local?

We very quickly learn how important listening is when we join social media.

One of the things I say ad nauseum is “We were given two ears and one mouth” and I tell people they should work to that ratio in social media as well as life. Another thing I try to reinforce is the idea that if you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, don’t say anything.

Taken these as a given, we need to take a step back and really think about what this listening thing is all about.

You will often be advised that there are certain things you should do, especially when first venturing into social media:

• Find people who are leaders in your niche and follow them.
• Seek out people who are “doing it right” and monitor what they do.
• Discover interesting people and read what they talk about.
• Do targeted searching using search.twitter, tweetdeck columns.
• Add social CRM tools and other sophisticated software and services.
• Monitor “sentiment” and work out how your brand is being discussed.
• Watch out for keywords so you can pounce when someone is asking about something, especially your area of expertise or what you have to sell.

All good, solid advice. In fact, these are foundational pieces that are worth considering if you want to be in this for the long haul. Should you be setting up plans for customer service, loyalty, brand monitoring, and PR, they are pretty near essentials in fact.

That said, there is a problem lurking that we need to address.

What many times people fail to mention is something simple and a basic human trait that seems to get lost in the mix.

Where does empathy fit into all this?

Listening is not just about searching, it is not about a feed that pulls in a stream of data, and it is certainly not just a metrics analysis!

If you want to make this stuff work you need to listen, then you need to seek to understand. What is this information-gathering teaching you? What are people trying to tell you? How are these conversations going to make a difference to your business.

What good is more data if you can not action on it?

1. Gather your information, home in on the most important and useful
2. Work to understand it, with further interrogation and insight
3. Use it to make a difference, to make plans

Rather than a “listening station”, build a research center!