Social Media – a new way to sell more cars?
Social Media is strong in many ways and can do some extraordinary things, like sending messages and pictures from Mars via MarsPhoenix from NASA, raising donations for Haiti earthquake survivors, informe flight passengers wether flights are cancelled due to volcanic eruptions in Iceland or giving information about discounted flights. Car manufacturers use more and more social media like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Flickr, not primeraly to sell cars, but defenitely to get connected with social media users on a emotional basis. The audience decides which brands they feel a connection to and interacts with them.
As an example of using combined social media efforts, I would like to tell you a bit about MINI’s approach: With the debut of the new MINI Countryman, MINI announced ‘The MINI COUNTRYMAN PRODUCT DESIGN COMPETITION’. In this competition the MINI fan gets the chance to design the long console between the front seats and the two rear seats, what he or she thinks should be defenitely a part of his or her lifestyle at his or her fingertips. The audience can post their design ideas to win a trip to Paris and visit the Paris Motorshow in October 2010. The winning design will be made into a prototype and debuted at the show. Furthermore the audience is able to follow newest tweets, where for example ‘celebs packed a MINI Countryman for their own personal Getaway’, to join the MINI COUNTRYMAN community on Facebook, watch related videos about the new product on Youtube, read up-to-date blogpost etc.
The audience is social and likes to get even more socialized. It’s a a part of their rhythm of life, day by day. Even if the quantitiy of ‘followers’ or the ‘fan’s like this’ is not the biggest one, it’s more the quality of the audience which counts and the chance for companies to appreciate the value in building authentic relationships. Relationships via social media to get direct dialog with the audience and to hear from those ‘fans’ without filters.
To sum up this post let’s get back to the question @ the beginning. Is social media a new way to sell more cars? Definitely NOT, BUT with the right social media approach companies have a good chance to make business decisions based solely on the feedback done by their social audience, which can lead to better customer satisfaction, customer service and even to sell more cars @ the end of the day. That’s the social media story from my point of view!
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