Ford’s rules of engagement

Flickr - JD Hancock

Over the past year, there have been two constants in the auto industry:

1. Bailouts and restructuring
2. Ford increasing their relevance through social media

One garnered main stream media and congressional scrutiny, which is not something that needs covering. So today we’ll focus on the Ford Motor Company’s success via social media. If you have taken the slightest interest in the space, you have probably heard the name Scott Monty as well as some of his efforts making Ford relevant in the social space. Hell, they recently broke news with the announcement of a major initiative where a lucky Fusion owner, will get their recent purchase paid for and three friends will get free gas for a year.

While this is pretty cool and gaining more exposure to a brand in need of life support, Ford’s team has also set the standard for companies conversing in the space. So how do they do it? No need to pull a cloak & dagger to get the intel, just simply check out the slide below which outlines their social media rules of engagement.

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Understanding Twitter

By the title, you may think that I am going to let you in on some secrets of Twitter – sorry to mislead you – I am not, if you want to learn more about the social site, click here. Today I am going to look into getting buy-in from the higher-ups at your company into utilizing social media, and Twitter in particular to help manage your company’s brand online.

As you probably know, anyone with a computer has a voice and a soap box to hold court on within the realm of social media, blogs and the Internet. While it may seem like common sense to PR and marketing folks, all that is seen above is typically How does this help the bottom line? or How can we monetize this?

It’s tough to do this in social media and, as George Colony mentioned in his blog earlier today, “Social is like sex. It’s fun to talk about and read about, but you can’t truly comprehend unless you do it.”

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