Hey, found a very interesting interview with Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Co. He explains why Ford created the “Social Media” position. And what is so relevant of social media. Yesterday I had a wonderful chat with Martin Meyer-Gossner which we talked exactly about the same thing. Just listen!!!
Highly engaging, personal interactions between company and consumer don’t come naturally to the Internet, an inherently one-to-many medium. But Ford Motor Co., working with New York-based design and technology studio Firstborn and agency Team Detroit, may be poised to change that perception with a digital marketing campaign promoting the automaker’s 2010 Mustang.
The newest version of this legendary muscle car has been hailed as one of the most customizable vehicles in the world. In fact, the 2010 model features 9,224 possible accessorizing combinations, according to Ford. With its launch marketing, Ford sought to highlight this unprecedented customizability while making an emotional connection with consumers.
“This is about creating buzz and … a desire for the new car because of what you can do to make it your own,” said Scott Kelly, digital marketing manager for Ford/Lincoln Mercury.(via btobonline Sept 14th, 2009 | by Amy Syracuse)
Most Mashable readers have probably heard of the online retail company, Zappos. You may have learned of them via Twitter (Twitter) and count yourself among the 400,000+ people that follow the CEO, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay but who people refer to as Tony), or from a friend after she had one of the best customer experiences in her life.
No matter how you heard of them, we wager to guess that you did so through word-of-mouth. And word about Zappos has been spreading. . . . They did $3 million dollars in gross sales the day before our recent visit, and surpassed $1 billion last year. They are one of the companies forging a new era of business that emphasizes, in their words, “making personal and emotional connections.”
We visited Zappos recently, initially planning to have an hour with Tony and ended up spending the entire afternoon there interviewing not only Tony, but the in-house coach, the help desk coordinator, and many others. Once in the Zappos universe, we wanted to know, “What are they doing that is working? Why do they have a brand that is so well respected?” And, “Why does it feel so damn good to hang out with these people?”
Below are some of the lessons we gleaned from our time there. (via Mashable April 26th, 2009 | by Soren Gordhamer)
Many brands still try controlling their community via “I have a message and I want to deliver my message to my target group”, this is nothing else than having a monologue. No wonder that big brands try to push their attitude onto digital marketing. Sure, in some cases it still works, but only in some!
What does it mean having a conversation with my community. Actually nothing else than ‚to talk “with” them rather than “to” them. What is on my mind, what do you have on yours. A recommendation, something to agree or disagree on, share exiting moments, go shopping etc.
Brands need empathy!
We need to move away from finding an excuse to say things to people and start to identify something we can do for them. Brands have to leave their ivory tower and open the door.
Give digital branding the right place in our communication. Build an emotional connection between your brand and your customer. Create a community of people that can then further talk about your brands. Engage your consumer in a branded content and branded experience.
The social web is free to express ‘what, when and how I want!’. Do your business in a new way!
Nowadays, more than ever “out-of-the-box” thinking is required in our business life. Various communication platforms are challenging us. Staying constantly in touch with our community is one thing, but to get feedback is another. The interface between marketer and consumer generated content is the sensitive part of successful social network marketing. This is where ‘try-buy-talk’ works as an important circle.
Besides the emotional need for efficient social marketing you also need very smart applications for a good support between those two parts, such as applications which measure your project and guarantee a very close connection between your online presentation and your social network.
It is a positive development that many of the social network platforms are opening their systems through ‚API’-support. For many companies a great opportunity to show what possibilities are in place to keep both part marketer and consumer generated content closer.
We are witnessing a global communication shift. Social network platforms have existed for almost five years, but this year we have a massive uprise in the usage of those platforms. Partially over 500 percent in some countries.
The question to be asked is why this year and not since beginning?
Well, it has to do with support of the applications. Since some platforms provide open source, social networking is very interesting for brands. Even immensely important, because you can measure, track and count detailed numbers about consumers in the community. To understand the entire system means let the user participate in your project. Let them try your product. They talk about it wether convinced or not.
You get the testimonials from them in comments, numbers and measurements, in utmost detail. In the end if done correctly all your products, brands & services are spread over the entire globe. Even you having the right application can help you monetize through those platforms. The smart & clever avenue to do this has to be found and the chance to find this is now indeed even bigger than ever before.
Sometimes systems need a reboot in order to run better. And that is the reason why we thought to reboot not only our website, but also our company strategy. This gives us a great opportunity to think about where we came from, where we are and where we want to go.
The first announcement is that our Partner agency ‚ “SamArt’” is joining our company and this is something we are very proud of. Now even more design and brand experience is under one label, while different multidisciplinary influences are expresses with one voice.
The consequence is that we are not only an agency of branded entertainment but rather a brand and commercial socializer. We love to connect and be connected. Ted Paulson is passionate about embedding brands, products, spaces and services, while thinking in digital, experimental and classic channels.
We conceive strategies focused more on a sharp impact than on one wide mass blast.
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