chrisbrogan.com

Covering social media business strategy and personal power

  • Home
  • About
  • Speaking
  • Rockstars
  • Subscribe
  • Newsletters
28

How Big Companies Could Use Social Media

September 3, 2007

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?

Uncategorized
Article

If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader.

Comments
Comment by Ed Roberts on September 3, 2007 @ 10:38 am

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.

Comment by Dale Cruse on September 3, 2007 @ 11:16 am

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!

Comment by MaxWeb on September 3, 2007 @ 11:20 am

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.

Pingback by   links for 2007-09-03 by The Bryper Blog on September 3, 2007 @ 7:20 pm

[…] How Big Companies Could Use Social Media : [chrisbrogan.com] (tags: Social Media Corporate) […]

Pingback by Fusion View » Blog Archive » links for 2007-09-04 on September 3, 2007 @ 8:37 pm

[…] How Big Companies Could Use Social Media (tags: zglinkroll socialnetworks business-application) […]

Comment by Whitney on September 4, 2007 @ 5:54 am

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.

Pingback by Blognation goes a little too hard on VW on September 4, 2007 @ 8:38 am

[…] thought this post was topical because Chris Brogan had posted about his love for the Saturn another car and how big companies should use social networking. I […]

Comment by eric : gardenfork.tv on September 4, 2007 @ 10:19 am

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/Pages/Women/GarageParty.jsp?locale=en_US

Comment by Will on September 4, 2007 @ 3:53 pm

Don’t forget about the executives that have to maintain a blog as part of their compensation.

Comment by Pascal Venier on September 4, 2007 @ 6:25 pm

Hey, Chris. Is this a car? With all due respect, on this side of the pond, this would probably qualify as a tractor. ;^)

Comment by Kyle Johnson, Saturn Communications Director on September 4, 2007 @ 7:38 pm

Check out Saturnfans.com. Charlie Eickmeyer does a great job of connecting Saturn owners.

Edmunds.com also has numerous forums for Saturn owners @ http://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.

Comment by chrisbrogan on September 4, 2007 @ 8:46 pm

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.

Comment by Dale Cruse on September 4, 2007 @ 8:56 pm

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!

Comment by NEENZ: "INFINITYPRO" on September 4, 2007 @ 9:19 pm

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.

Comment by Robert Scoble on September 4, 2007 @ 9:25 pm

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.

Comment by rslux on September 4, 2007 @ 9:59 pm

The granddaddy of Saturn forums:

http://www.saturnfans.com/forums/

Comment by chrisbrogan on September 4, 2007 @ 10:01 pm

And let’s not forget, this isnt a post about Saturn, or any car company. It’s about big companies using these tools.

Comment by Shava Nerad on September 4, 2007 @ 10:06 pm

Makes me wonder what the intersection of Saturn and Mac users is…:)

Comment by Pascal Venier on September 5, 2007 @ 4:29 pm

An interesting parallel could perhaps be made between Mac OS and Citroen’s hydraulic suspension!

Comment by Kyle Johnson, Saturn Communications Director on September 6, 2007 @ 7:50 am

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?

Comment by chrisbrogan on September 6, 2007 @ 9:50 am

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.

Comment by Kyle Johnson, Saturn Communications Director on September 7, 2007 @ 4:07 pm

I don’t blog enough, but I do have a current post at GM’s FastLane Blog.

http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/

Comment by chrisbrogan on September 8, 2007 @ 8:00 am

Very cool, Kyle. Because that gives us a way to find YOU to continue conversations.

Pingback by I Want a Divorce. « Life Gives You Lemons on September 10, 2007 @ 12:33 am

[…] learned to listen. I also (god, I’m pathetic) want you to know there’s help for you. It’s called social media and conversations with your customers. Please try it. I’d come back in a heartbeat, I really […]

Trackback by MarketingBlurb on September 12, 2007 @ 4:25 pm

Bloggers are a Key Component to Viral Marketing…

Lately, I've been very interested in viral marketing, so I was intrigued by a post I read on The Viral Garden today that showcases the importance of bloggers in viral marketing.  In his post, Mack talks about a post he……

Trackback by Jennifer Laycock on September 12, 2007 @ 6:06 pm

Make One Blogger Happy and You’ll Often Make a LOT of Bloggers Happy…

With so many companies trying to figure out how to leverage social media and blogs to their marketing advantage, one key point often gets missed. “Just talk to them!” If more companies would spend half the time reading blog posts and responding to th…

Pingback by Best Social Media Advice From This Site | chrisbrogan.com on May 12, 2008 @ 5:01 am

[…] How Big Companies could Use Social Media […]

Pingback by iJump.co.nz » Helpful Links » Small is the new big on May 16, 2008 @ 5:36 pm

[…] can use social media : Chris Brogan, social media adviser, talks about how big companies can spark online discussions through top brand enthusiasts "the […]

Leave a comment

(required)

(required)


Get the blog sent to your inbox. Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

  • About Chris
    Chris Brogan advises businesses, organizations and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value.

    I work with:

    CrossTechMedialogo

  • Recent Posts
    • Free eBook on Personal Branding
    • Social Ads- a First Take
    • The Way I Wish Advertising Worked
    • History Hacker- Bre Pettis
    • White Trash Moms of the World Unite
  • FREE eBook
    free ebook
    Trust Economies (w/Julien Smith)

  • Blog Archives
    • September 2008
    • August 2008
    • July 2008
    • June 2008
    • May 2008
    • April 2008
    • March 2008
    • February 2008
    • January 2008
    • December 2007
    • November 2007
    • October 2007
    • September 2007
    • August 2007
    • July 2007
    • June 2007
    • May 2007
    • April 2007
    • March 2007
    • February 2007
    • January 2007
    • December 2006
    • November 2006
    • October 2006
    • September 2006
    • August 2006
    • July 2006
    • June 2006
    • May 2006
    • April 2006
    • March 2006
    • February 2006
    • January 2006
    • December 2005
    • October 2005
    • September 2005
    • August 2005
    • July 2005
    • June 2005
    • May 2005
    • April 2005
    • March 2005
    • February 2005
    • January 2005
    • December 2004
    • November 2004
    • October 2004
    • September 2004
    • August 2004
    • July 2004
    • June 2004
    • May 2004
    • April 2004
    • March 2004
  • Contact Chris
    • blog at chrisbrogan.com
    • +1 978-885-1551
    • AIM: cbrogandotcom
  • Find me on LinkedIn
  • Search
  • Tag Cloud
    advertising Announcement Article blogging blogs books branding business chrisbrogan community conference conferences customerservice email event events friendfeed google howto interview linkedin marketing networking personalbranding podcamp podcasting pr Promotion rss search self-improvement socialmedia socialmedia100 socialnetworking socialnetworks SocialSoftware software Strategy technology twitter Uncategorized video videoblog writing youtube
  •  
  • Lijit Search
  • Upcoming.org Events
    More of chrisbrogan's events
  • new marketing summit
  • save $200
  • freshbookslogo

Powered by Wordpress | Based on WP Premium theme by WP Remix. Customized by SnowyDay Design.
All contents Creative Commons licensed. chrisbrogan.com. Click here for rights info.