So far in this week’s Friday Faceoff, Pete Wylie has weighed in on United Airlines’ online inadequacy, and Matt Bales shared the sour taste left in his mouth by Skittles’ social media efforts. But put to the test, do either reflect the most egregious missed opportunity in social media? Close, but not quite – I have other ideas…
Unfortunately, one of America’s wayward car companies holds the title for worst social media experiment thusfar. Chrysler, the beleaguered former giant, is simply missing the mark. This is not for lack of (perceived) effort – the Facebook and Twitter staples are checked off the list.
And to be fair, the Twitter feed is fairly active – Ed Garsten and Scott Anderson have done a respectable job of building a small community there, answering questions, posting links to deals, etc. Facebook is significantly less impressive – it’s a one-way street, a megaphone for disseminating information on new models and issuing “Happy Thanksgiving” messages. But there is not one response to the hundreds of comments and responses to those updates.
The crux of the issue is scale. The size of these networks is reflective of a severe lack of appreciation and commitment. Their Facebook fan page enjoys 11,363 sporadic followers, and their Twitter feed only has 3,540. (And The homepage is about as one-way as engagement gets.)
Compare to main competitors GM and Ford. GM has 106,081 Facebook fans, and multiple, active, robust Twitter accounts (ex: GM Blogs – 11,903 followers). Ford has 350,001 fans of the Mustang alone, and 20,181 Twitter followers. GM and Chrysler are in the same financial and public opinion boat, but it seems that GM is taking an active role to turn things around with legitimate, strategic, and engaging social media investment (coupled with classic traditional media appeals). Ford on the other hand weathered the financial storm sans-bailout, putting them in a different league than GM and Chrysler (i.e. not in such dire need of spin control and sentiment monitoring), yet it has been a proactive brand.
Granted, social media “gurus” (an arguably laughable term) and marketing experts alike have testified to the notion that it is not the size of your network that counts, but the level of quality engagement. I wholeheartedly agree. As a businessman I’d much rather have an engaged, active network of 100 followers who routinely buy my goods than an inactive network of 10,000.
But Chryler is a multi-national, multi-billion dollar company with a major PR problem, a shrinking bottom line, and a marginal market share. Their online network must be significantly larger – coming at least within reach of their competitors – for it not to be considered a complete failure and waste of time.
Mr. Sergio Marchionne (CEO) - We’ve appealed to you in the past. The American public wants to know what’s going on with its investment. I urge you to get your media house in order, and get yourself out there. You are one of the most intriguing CEOs today, yet no one knows it because you are not at the forefront. Take a page form the Lee Iacocca playbook, and give it a Web 2.0 spin.
The battle for the Chrysler image wages online whether you are there or not. And Chrysler’s current one-way street social media approach is like bringing a knife to a gun fight.
