Why Automakers Still Haven't Gotten Social Media Quite Right
Almost no one has gotten more real bang out of the social media revolution than automakers (sorry, Charlie Sheen). Yes, tech companies also "do" social media, but car companies urgently need to understand -- or just hear -- what their customers think. Social media is an ideal framework for this.
Automakers, however, still clearly have a limited grasp -- at best! -- of social media's power. Just like the rest of Corporate America.
When old meets new
This is taking place at a moment when more companies are questioning the return on investment they get from social media. The usual question is popping up: If I spend millions on this new kind of real-time marketing, will it translate into higher sales and happier customers?
This is proving to be a tough question to answer. But to a certain extent, automakers don't care. If social media didn't exist, car companies would have to invent it. With Twitter and Facebook, the car companies now have the opportunity to capture what was always elusive to them: chatter about their products and brands.
But that's the thing: It's chatter -- ambient noise, streams of opinion that have to be sorted out. The automakers are on it. They've all established active social-media identities and are raising SM budgets. But at this stage, they're building small boats for a voyage on a very big ocean.
This is why social media leaders at car companies sometimes sound a bit confused about their strategic direction. This comment is from Erich Marx, who was just tapped to run social media for Nissan:
Marx... likes the fact that the entire auto industry is in a period of robust experimentation with social media. "It's a bit like the wild West," he said. "People say, 'Hey, let's try this.' At the same time, there's not a lot of strategy to what I'm seeing so far. Everybody is still trying to figure out what they have to do."Social media shouldn't be passive
In this sense, however, the automakers' experience with social media is representative. Car companies do a lot of social media monitoring, but they haven't yet cracked the code on creating consistently compelling stuff to promote over the same channels. Instead of defining conversations, carmakers -- and most other companies -- react to them in an ad hoc manner as they develop.
You can see the struggle in the way that General Motors (GM) has integrated its website for the Chevy Volt with the Volt's Twitter presence. There's an abundance of good, original content being generated, even a Volt blog, but it's mixed up with boilerplate PR-type announcements and dutiful customer-service activity. Not exactly what you'd expect for the car of the future.
Nothing to fear but fear itself
What's to blame for the middling standard? Fear. Corporations are uncomfortable taking stands and making strong arguments, even if they're supporting products and services that they consider absolutely killer.
They don't worry about pitching their stuff through traditional advertising venues -- TV, print, and radio. But when it comes to being publishers, they're more comfortable harvesting opinions from the lush meadows of Twitter than they are creating the lively and sometimes controversial conversation-starters that inspire comment threads, avid re-tweets and enthusiastic Facebook posts.
Reaching a plateau
Automakers have experienced both social media triumph and tragedy. Ford (F), for example, is often pointed to as a pioneer in developing the right overall corporate attitude for the Facebook era, due in large measure to its charismatic social media leader, Scott Monty.
Chrysler, meanwhile, endured a social media debacle earlier this year when it turned some of its Twitter activities over to an outside agency. A rogue employee tweeted the F-bomb, giving the immediate impression that a major piece of Chrysler's social media campaign was out of control.
But even companies that play the social media game very well need to learn that they can't just piggyback on social media, using free tools to promote their brands and engage with consumers.
A place for one-way communications
Social media has created a cult of two-way communications, and this has been a boon to companies. Now, however, companies -- especially automakers -- need to start conversations. And they need to do it with more than cool videos, like Toyota's "Swagger Wagon" YouTube effort or goofy outtakes from TV spots, along the lines of what Volkswagen put on the tube after its "Force" commercial took off.
The carmakers are going to find themselves in an unfamiliar space where they need to be as smart or smarter than the people who habitually study them. It's not going to be an easy transition because the content that the carmakers produce will naturally become more like journalism, skeptical and at times even outright critical, rather than reliably self-promotional.
But if they're going to take social media to the next level -- and finally get truly good at it -- they need to take the plunge.
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Photo: The White House