How Big Companies Could Use Social Media

September 3, 2007 · Comments

My Saturn Vue If I were GM, and I wanted to pump up the Saturn line of cars, I’d go online. I haven’t spent any money or much time researching this, but I will tell you that every Saturn owner I know is hip, Internet-savvy, and excited as hell about being part of the Saturn family. And it’s that last part that says why GM should come out and get us.

I’ve owned FIVE Saturns. Yep. Even though my last one was a used car and had problems from the day I bought it, I went and bought a new one the moment that one died. Five. And when people ask me about my car, I tell them about buying five. I tell them about my brother’s Saturn (since sold), and my tax lady’s Saturn (passed 350,000 miles, and they still wouldn’t let her buy a new one).

See the crazy exuberance?

If there were a Saturn Lovers Facebook group, I’d join it. If GM had a community evangelist in that group, asking for YouTube videos ranting about my Saturn, I’d go out and make one. If they wanted to do meetups, I’d probably go. (My friend, Barry, goes to Honda Element meetups. I asked him about them. “We just love our cars, but that’s only the start. Once we get together, we find things in common beyond that.”

And if my new Saturn group’s evangelist wanted to ping me occasionally for discounts on merch or whatever, cool. I’d say that’s okay. And if she wanted to give me sneak peeks of new Saturns, I’d probably do that too.

And that’s just ONE car line. There are enthusiasts out there for most of the cars, right?

Imagine a Flickr group for Scion tweakers. It’s out there, I’m sure. The Harley guys must really have lots of this covered already, right?

Should GM Twitter? I don’t think so. I’m not really sure how Saturn’s evangelist telling me what they’re doing would help except that it would further humanize her.

What do you think? Who’s big out there and how could you see them participating in this all?

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  • Check out White Roof Radio about Mini Coopers(http://whiteroofradio.com). Similar type of thing, but an independent podcast. The company picked up on it and now promotes it heavily.
  • Many of us Toyota Prius owners are evangelists for the car. Same with the original Honda version.

    I think sports teams could be successful in this space. I know Bostonians are rabid about their Red Sawx. But you could also appeal to ex-pat sports fans. For instance, I'm a Yankee fan living near Boston. It would be GREAT for me to meet up with other Yanks fans and stay a part of that community.

    The opportunities here are wide open!
  • You're probably right about Twitter not being the place for the actual posting of the content that advertisers wish to convey, however I could see them using it to let enthusiasts know about an update posted on another site w/ a Tinyurl link, or to create a buzz about a current promotion.
  • MINI is a great car company from this regard. Not only is the car fun, but the company is always surprising us. Every once in a while we get a mystery package in the mail. Sometimes it's been a "Motoring journal". Or a pen. Or a coffee mug. Out of the blue.
    It made owning the car fun and surprising. Our MINI is a 2003- (replacing a Saturn, actually) one of the first ones available in our area, and it's been a blast talking to people about it at gas pumps, in parking lots and the like.

    It also taught me a fundamental rule about marketing- if you have a great product, your customers will be your best advertising ever- because they will be passionate about your product and do more spontaneous pitching to friends and stangers than you could ever do in a commercial of any sort.
  • Harley Davidson, whose male demographic has started to age, has a large section of their website devoted toward women complete with videos, and has women only 'Garage Parties' at their showrooms.

    They could certainly take this a few steps further with the tools Chris talks about. http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Page...
  • Don't forget about the executives that have to maintain a blog as part of their compensation.
  • Hey, Chris. Is this a car? With all due respect, on this side of the pond, this would probably qualify as a tractor. ;^)
  • Check out Saturnfans.com. Charlie Eickmeyer does a great job of connecting Saturn owners.

    Edmunds.com also has numerous forums for Saturn owners @ www.carspace.com. Along with Saturn, they just ran a promotion to send a blogger to the Frankfurt Motor Show. The winner is a 21 year old senior at Michigan State by the name of Eric Tingwall.

    Saturn is already out there with the social media everyday. Or you can contact me directly.
  • Hey Kyle--

    Cool to hear from you! Wow, things I never knew. But here's the thing I'm talking about, in a way: You put up your site and hoped I'd go there, which is cool, and now that I know it's there, being a Saturn fan, I'll go. But I never knew about it, and wouldn't have, had YOU not taken an extra cool step of monitoring the RSS/tag chatter to see who was talking smack about Saturn. Right?

    Without your yeoman job of finding this conversation, I'd have not known about the work you're doing.

    And what I'm saying is this: for all of the big companies out there NOT getting it, you've gotta do what Kyle just did: find the conversations. Get onto the social nets and find them, and then, if there's value, show us what you've set up. It might be cool. It might not. But we'll at least know.

    And see the other cool thing Kyle did? He showed us that we can reach him via this post at least (because remember- only the website owner sees your email address, so you'd have to offer ways to reach you). Are you on any social networks, Kyle? Where will people run into you?

    I'm SO grateful you wrote, because it brings the conversation to something real world. Please keep it going. I'd love your take. And hey, I've bought five of your cars. This is way more fun than free floor mats.
  • Kyle,

    I think it's great that you've set up a community for Saturn owners, but I have to think you have to do a better job of marketing it. If people like Chris LOVE their Saturns but don't know about your site, well, then the message isn't getting out.

    My respectful suggestion is to market the site at the dealership level. As people buy new Saturns, give them keys, paperwork, and a login for your site. Engage people at the point of sale.

    And I think that concept extends beyond cars. I'm a bass player and a company like Fender could do a similar thing with their basses and guitars.

    Seems to me there's LOTS of opportunity in this space!

    Good conversation!
  • I believe, and not only GM but all company's wanting to last well into the future. It's ease, connecting, speed.

    But, I don't know if I would buy a Saturn.
  • I bought a Saturn Aura, at least in part, because a GM executive noticed my blog and invited me to a dealer. Well, that and because it won Detroit Auto Show's "car of the year."

    It's a great car and I love it a lot.
  • The granddaddy of Saturn forums:

    http://www.saturnfans.com/forums/
  • And let's not forget, this isnt a post about Saturn, or any car company. It's about big companies using these tools.
  • Makes me wonder what the intersection of Saturn and Mac users is...:)
  • An interesting parallel could perhaps be made between Mac OS and Citroen's hydraulic suspension!
  • Chris and Dale,

    To clarify, saturnfans.com is not a community organized by Saturn. It is totally the product of Charlie Eickmeyer who does it in his spare time. (We do keep him up-to-date with material.)

    Do you think it important that Saturn set up a community or should we be active participants in the forums of others?

    I'm a member of carspace.com and MyRide.com as Saturn_Comm.

    I like the suggestion of knitting in the retailers. We're working on it.


    Robert,

    I am the GM executive that contacted you regarding the Aura. Is the car performing well?
  • Hi Kyle--

    I think Saturn might do more than one thing. It's cool that your fan-driven community is there, and those outlets are probably even better run than a company-driven one, because fans are passionate, and employees are paid to do what makes business sense. You can be both passionate and an employee, but we all have jobs, and we pay attention to what gets measured most. Fans don't have that concern.

    I *also* think that Saturn should be where the conversation is: places like Facebook and Myspace. Nothing too pitchy, but even better, a way to highlight the stories that make up the company. Why not have a MySpace page that shows off people with their cars, or a Flickr Group, or both? How about a Facebook group where you ping owners for their advice, their feedback, their funny Saturn stories?

    Do you blog? Are there Saturn blogs? That would be cool and useful. Remember, no one besides me has a way to reach you, because you've dropped Saturn.com as your website they can click. So, my point there is that should you want two-way conversations with the blogosphere, you need some kind of landing spot where we can get to know you, contact you, and share ideas.

    This has been a fun exchange. I'm enjoying learning more about what Saturn has in mind for their community building efforts.
  • I don't blog enough, but I do have a current post at GM's FastLane Blog.

    http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/
  • Very cool, Kyle. Because that gives us a way to find YOU to continue conversations.
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