Ford

The Power of Strategic Social Media Marketing

As business storytellers, we have spent the last three years watching, learning, and immersing ourselves in new media. The digital evolution yields immense value in audience reach, messaging power for B2B and B2C companies, and in accessibility to customers and information. The number of participants engaged on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube demand a company’s attention.

How to harness the power of these channels is the key marketing question. In much the same way we begin every marketing initiative, we start with the end zone—what’s the goal and how will we reach it? For our clients, Return on Investment is answered in the larger context of strategic marketing and public relations; social media is not a stand-alone marketing channel with a disparate ROI.

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How to add Twitter to your PR mix in 9 easy steps

On December 6, 2010, I was privileged to be a guest on #MMChat (Marketer Monday Chat), hosted and created by @JeffAshcroft of @TheSocialCMO fame. My esteemed PR colleague, Amy Howell, owner of @HowellMarketing Strategies, was featured with me and our topic was The Impact and Value of Social Media in PR. You can find the transcript here and glean some amazing insight from practitioners around the world. Not only was it a fun and exhilarating online experience, it also prompted this post on Twitter and its PR potential.

The digital channels can be consuming, and it’s important for those of us in business—whose first goal is to run a profitable company to sustain our employees and our clients—to stay abreast of communication trends. To make sure that we achieve optimum PR health for ourselves and our clients, here’s a quick Twitter primer. No more excuses for PR colleagues who say “I don’t get Twitter.” If the government is using social media for PR, and the business community is not, there’s a disconnect.

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Encouraging Executive Participation in Social Media #MMchat with @ScottMonty

For our seventh MarketerMonday Chat #MMchat our SPECIAL guest was @ScottMonty who is the Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager at Ford and also the man who coined the term “tweetup” and our topic for the evening was Encouraging Executive Participation in Social Media!

This is only the seventh #MMchat we’ve held and see #MMchat for more details on MarketerMonday Chat our previous SPECIAL guests, transcripts and our upcoming schedule.

Thanks again to Scott as well as all of you AWESOME #MMchat tweeps who joined us and participated in this interesting and very interactive chat!

Check out the full transcript of tonite’s chat at http://bit.ly/Scott_Monty and please join us next week as @JeffTheSensei joins us! Jeff Wilson is Head Mountaineer at Sensei Integrated and a member of the @TheSocialCMO Crew and will be joining us September 20th at 8:00 pm EST to discuss Online Demand Generation!

Cheers

Jeff Ashcroft

@TheSocialCMO

Ford CEO Shares Executive Leadership Lesson in 140 Characters

Photo courtesy of Flickr Ford APA

One of the most valuable shifts in business communication is taking place on Twitter: a global audience can now learn from industry leaders and apply high-level advice in real time. At Amazon.com, there are 28,242 books written specifically on business strategy. Since it’s impossible to read and filter all that advice, there are competitive advantages to connecting with executives and learning from a primary source. And even more valuable to have access to a Fortune 10 executive’s insight.

On March 31, Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally joined members of his management team at the New York International Auto Show for 30 minutes on Twitter. Pictured with Digital Communications Director Scott Montyand fresh from co-chairing the prestigious China Development Forum (CDF) in Beijing, Mulally was available for conversation and questions. Named one of Barron’s World’s Greatest CEOs in March, Alan Mulally’s accessibility defines Ford’s corporate culture.

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The Role of Leadership in Social Media

We often hear of social media being equated with tools and platforms. But it’s really much more than that.

If you’re adopting these technologies and behaviors at your company, it’s not about the shiny new toys. It’s fundamentally about culture change. And that type of transformational change – which may include updating business practices – must come from the top. But more than a top-down dictum, it’s got to be part of leadership.

I’ve previously discussed leadership here – in particular the leadership from Ford’s CEO Alan Mulally, who really gets social media. He promotes a culture of transparency and openness that is completely aligned with the way we’re trying to engage with consumers online and think about how we do business. Consistency of purpose and of message is key.

The Washington Post’s “On Leadership” feature recently did a two-part interview with Alan that captures some of the thinking behind what makes this major culture change at Ford such a success. I thought it was valuable to share these videos with you, since there are broader business lessons here that any marketing, communications or social media professional should understand.

Alan Mulally on catching mistakes

Transcript available here.

Alan Mulally on the “liberating clarity” of his mission

Transcript available here.

This kind of thinking and laser-like focus on our plan is one of the things that continues to set Ford apart. In social media as well as in the industry.

Scott Monty

How Ford Uses Social Media [VIDEO]

At the risk of giving away too much of what we do (not really – everything we do in social media is in the public, so you just need to pay attention or search around to find out), I’d like to share with you a little bit about Ford Motor Company’s approach to social media.

Here’s a great video that WebPro News did when we were at Blog World Expo last October. It captures a lot of what Ford is doing in the space.

I keep a clipsheet of coverage of our social media efforts (using Profilactic), which is helpful when speaking to reporters or digital media and they’re looking for examples of how our work has resonated. I simply refer them to our links and they can sort through the filters to find what they’re looking for.

On his blog, Jeff Bullas gave away The 7 Secrets to Ford’s Social Media Marketing Success last month. There are some great takeaways there for any company that’s interested in social media and some that are specific to Ford and our efforts. And Slate.com’s The Big Money covered the success we’ve seen from the first wave of the Fiesta Movement.

We’re working on a lot more – notably Chapter 2 of the Fiesta Movement, in which there are 20 teams of two in 16 cities across the country, creating mini marketing campaigns through social media as well as offline events and media. And our social media strategy is global, reflecting the growing interest from many areas around the company and around the world.

And we maintain profiles on a number of social networks, including profiles on Twitter: @Ford, @FordCustService, @FordFiesta, @FordAutoShows, @FordLatino, @FordEU, @FordAPA and more. In addition, we’ve got some employees on Twitter. You can find the full list at http://twitter.com/ScottMonty/ford.

We also have a number of Facebook pages, the most prominent of which are Ford and Mustang. All of our pages are favorited on the Ford page, so you can pick which ones you’d like to become a fan of.

ford

In addition, we’re active on Flickr for photo sharing, YouTube for videos, Plancast and Upcoming for events, Delicious for public bookmarking, and Scribd for document sharing (where we’re the #5 most followed profile). And if you’re ever in doubt where to find us, you can see our profiles on the front of Ford.com or on The Ford Story.

Lots of stuff going on right now that’s keeping us really busy. Just thought you’d like a window into what some of it is and why we’re doing it.

Scott Monty

Disclosure: http://cmp.ly/4

Ford CEO: 14 Lessons in Leadership & Marketing

Alan Mulally

“We are fighting for the soul of manufacturing. There is no reason we can’t compete with the best in the world.” Ford Motor Company CEO, Alan Mulally

With these words, Alan Mulally, dubbed “Ford’s Comeback Kid” by Fortune magazine, summed up his passion for success and his confidence in the resiliency of American ingenuity even in the worst of economic times.

Alan spoke these words during a charitable dinner, on February 5, 2010, in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The dinner was sponsored by a local Ford dealership, L.B. Smith, to benefit “The Second Mile,” a charity that offers a variety of services for at-risk children. About five-hundred people attended the event.

I had the privilege of attending the evening as a guest of the event organizer, fireball Anne D. Gallaher, a dear friend and business colleague, in the company of the great connector, Amy Howell, another dear friend and business colleague – a story of Twitter friends networking in real life, a story deserving of its own blog post at a later time!

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Marketing on a Shoestring: 10 Ideas to Gain Visibility and Market Presence

It is said that money is the great inhibitor of innovation. When businesses have to trim budgets and increase market share—the scenario most of the business world found itself in these last eighteen months—it presents an opportunity.

Wall Street Journal owner Rupert Murdoch seems almost prescient with his 2008 statement: “The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small, anymore, it will be the fast beating the slow, the nimble beating the bureaucrat, the aware beating the asleep, the world is flat and opportunities are for the taking.”

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