Jumpstart Automotive Group

Twitter is booming. Twitter’s growth in the US continues to accelerate at an impressive rate: ComScore reports 4 million unique visitors to the site in February 2009 up 55% from January’s 2.6 million. Their month-over-month growth rate from December 2008 to January 2009 was 33% in the US. Also, comScore’s numbers only reflect website traffic, that doesn’t include the 500+ desktop and mobile applications that connect to Twitter according to Twitdom, a database of Twitter applications.

Opportunity exists for automotive marketers looking to leverage Twitter. At the very least, you can’t ignore its existence and you definitely can’t ignore what people are saying about your brand. So how should the automotive community embrace this new social phenomenon?

The most difficult thing for marketers to overcome is the idea that Twitter is primarily a source for broadcasting your message. It’s not. Not entirely at least. Twitter is a massive conversational and social equalizer. It makes it possible for the average person to feel part of a conversation with untouchable celebrities, organizations, and companies. It brings character and access to your brand. Most of all, Twitter provides an environment for your brand to listen.

Take Ford for example: The majority of Ford’s official activity on Twitter serves as a way to communicate directly to the owners, influencers, and consumers that are speaking out about Ford products. The marketing communications team at Ford appears to be attempting to respond to the majority of comments that are focused directly at the manufacturer. In this manner, Twitter can help with customer service issues, serve as a conduit for your greatest supporters to speak out, and provide transparency and honesty that potential consumers admire.

One of the most dangerous things a brand can do is register their Twitter username without monitoring activity. Twitter provides satisfied and disgruntled customers alike a means of communication directly with brands without the intermediary of a customer service rep. Think about the consequences of ignoring a dissatisfied customer who is extremely active in social media.

GM has taken a different approach with Twitter. They rarely respond directly to users but have instead created multiple profiles with the goal of being able to deliver exactly the content you are interested in. At the time of this writing, GM was Tweeting under the names GMblogs (GM PR), GMreinvention (information about the restructuring), CadillacBlogs (Cadillac PR), GMNewsUS (automated news feed), plus countless others. By only using Twitter as a means for spreading news and PR, GM is missing the point behind social media — it’s about conversations.

Other manufacturers have given further personality to their brand by assigning brand representatives to their official profiles. Toyota, for example, posts pictures of each of the staffers responding to customers on their profile page and then designates the author of each tweet with a signature. Honda has taken this a step further by including the corporate communications supervisor’s name in the Twitter profile: Alicia_at_Honda. The benefit of this tactic is that the brand can be free to tweet more openly and often because it is clear that the interaction is merely with a member of the brand — not the official brand itself. The danger is two-fold — one; the personality of the individual is at risk of overshadowing the brand and commanding the conversation and, two; the feeling of an intermediary between the user and the brand threatens the idea of access and connection that Twitter promises.

The need to develop a strong social media strategy is clear. Twitter can be a valuable part of that strategy. But there is a delicate balance between honesty and PR, customer service or feeble marketing attempts. To fully unlock the potential of Twitter and other social media platforms marketers must prove they are listening by engaging in constructive two-way conversations.