Looking Into the Share of Voice of Volt and LEAF

This blog has followed a lot of the marketing efforts of two very compelling vehicles from the past several years: The Chevy Volt and the Nissan LEAF. Both cars are currently taking charge (pun intended) in the battle for green bragging rights with consumers and now Nissan has thrown a new punch at its Chevy competitor.

The new ads feature life with gasoline fueled appliances. The ads look into the continued dependence of gasoline engines as an old technology that is far behind the times, of course most of Nissan’s own portfolio of vehicles are hence old technology, but this is about green bragging rights and Nissan showcasing its competitive advantage.

Chevy has ensconced its Volt as a fighter of “range anxiety.” Range anxiety is the uneasy feeling that one’s all-electric vehicle may run out of charge before reaching the owner’s destination. Chevy has a backup gas engine to avoid such moments of concern, of course that’s pretty expensive backup plan but thankfully both the Volt and LEAF gain from current $7,500 government incentives to offset costs.

I wanted to take a look at how performance for both of these vehicles is doing online and worked with some great people from MutualMind here in Dallas who ran some social media analytics against the two cars for the week of May 29 - June 4, just to get a peek at what is going on in the social conversation.


IMG 1: Brand Hits refer to the Nissan LEAF, Competitor Hits to the Chevy Volt


It’s interesting to see they are both neck and neck as far as coverage, mentions of the two vehicles are with the Nissan LEAF having a slight edge, but that may be due mostly to the new ad campaign that is gaining some visibility internationally since it is creatively similar to a Renault ad running in Europe.

Sentiment is where the data gets a bit more interesting. Negative sentiment for the Volt is almost two times higher than it is for the LEAF, but that’s only half of the story. Positive sentiment is 34% higher with Volt than LEAF. What's this tell us? At least in social media conversation, Volt is a more polarizing vehicle meaning people are either defending it or criticizing it.

There are some rumors circulating around GM doing an all-electric Volt (GM has denied this.) It’s highly doubtful GM would use the same vehicle name (or even the same brand Chevy) to compete more directly with Nissan’s LEAF and Ford’s coming Focus EV. Like the hybrid market, the electric-vehicle (EV) market is sure to get very competitive and not be as simple as evaluating two primary competitors.

For now though, it is interesting watching these two solutions from two big brands battle for the hearts and minds of the green crowd as we move into the Post-Prius green vehicle movement.

Later this week I'll be sharing some of my personal thoughts on the Chevy Volt after driving one several days.

Thanks to Babar Bhatti from MutualMind for providing me with some great data. For more information, please contact:

Company: Mutual Mind

Website: http://www.mutualmind.com/

MutualMind is a social media management and intelligence platform that enables businesses to monitor as well as promote brands on social networks while providing actionable analytics and insights to increase social media ROI. MutualMind offers a platform that allows users to aggregate and analyze feedback and conversations regarding their products or services on all of the major social media platforms. While many alternatives on the market today are limited just to listening or publishing, MutualMind’s has taken its value proposition further through the ability for users to actively engage with and manage the various social media outlets. The functionality of this platform can be used for a myriad of business applications including: measuring market receptivity to products or services, tracking consumer or political sentiment, reputation/crisis management, generating sales leads, benchmarking versus competitors, and customer relationship management to name a few.

Google+ Is More a Threat to Twitter than Facebook

Let's talk about the latest buzz in social media and even though this article will not be talking directly about automotive I still think it is relevant here.

After a week of using Google+, I think a lot of pundits are off on who Google+’s competition is. It is not Facebook. It is Twitter. It may be Facebook someday, as Google continues to rollout more functionality and soon will launch brand pages, which will begin their pilot phase in two weeks, but for now the site really looks like a challenger to Twitter.

Let me explain.

Circles are Better Lists

Everyone is talking about Google’s Circles functionality that allows one to select which group a new person you add will exist in. People can be placed in multiple groups, for example I can add someone to my local Dallas group and in a work-related group. To me, this is an improvement over Twitter Lists where one can divide their community in an easy way and filter their “Stream” by circles, similar to how one might display a Twitter list as a feed only viewing the tweets for that group. I use lists more than I’ve ever used groups on Facebook and the intuitiveness of Google’s Circles feels like a great evolution of this functionality.


Add to Circles is More a Follow than a Friend Request

You can add anyone to a Circle who is on Google+. There is no request, the person being “circled” does not have to approve your decision to include them in your community and I’m sure we’ll see social media articles in the near future talking about the ratio of people in your circles and how many have you in their circles and if you should circle back others who circle you. Community building sounds more Twitter-like than Facebook-like to me.

Extending One’s Community is Like Watching @ Mentions

I find a lot of new people in my social sphere by seeing who people I follow on Twitter are conversing with and when it looks interesting and that person’s profile and content looks compelling I follow them on Twitter. I don’t do this on Facebook. I don’t send friend requests to people my aunt might be talking to in a comment thread or send a request to a co-worker’s high school buddy even if I think that person’s comments are interesting.

Google+ is different since I can easily add people to Circles who have common interests and it’s not as awkward as sending a friend request to someone you have never met before. Perhaps adding people to Circles will be less social as more people join and it really does become an alternative to Facebook than Twitter. Currently adding people to a Circle is a behavior that is more socially similar to a Twitter Follow action.


Hangouts are the New Hashtags

Want to join a more focused instant conversation that anyone can join and jump out of easily? Well Hangouts are for you and I’m sure we’ll see brands using this functionality in a way twitter hashtags are used. I’m guessing Hangout trivia contests to win products and weekly Hangouts will develop around specific days and times for the community to come together to discuss their shared interests.

SEO is Google+’s Silver Bullet

Like Twitter, Google+ content is publicly available on the world’s most used search engine and many are wondering how Google might change its search algorithm to benefit Google+ content. This is important to brands, publishers, content creators and others who concern themselves with things like Page Rank and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), but I can guarantee you my old high school friends or family members have no idea what Page Rank and SEO are nor will they ever care. So the Google+ silver bullet may be an audience that is interested in how content better lives in search and again here is where the link to Twitter as a competitor is more apt than Facebook. Many are on Twitter trying to get better SEO and I’m sure they will also join Google+ to improve their search rankings.



The Stream

Google’s feed is called the “Stream” and it pretty much behaves like Facebook’s News Feed with the ability to add links, images, videos, or a location along with commentary plus your community can comment and +1 (similar to “Like”) your posts. This functionality is very much like Facebook today, but if people recall the evolution of Facebook’s News Feed borrowed from Twitter’s interface (and Friendster.) Sure it is more media-rich than Twitter, but this feels like Twitter on steroids and allows for conversations around a particular topic, but I agree this functionality is most like Facebook and hence why most feel Google+ is a Facebook competitor; however, I feel this is where Twitter ultimately may have evolved if Facebook hadn’t beat them to it.

Still Evolving

Google+ certainly feels more like Twitter today, because a lot of the people I’ve connected with have come from my Twitter connections than say real-life connections. That of course may change if the masses, read my mom and non-social media types, start to gravitate to Google+. Without a compelling reason to move to another social community platform for the masses, it is doubtful my mom will want to re-establish all of her connections on a new website when Facebook has years of photos, years of accepted friend requests, and years of familiarity she has come to like.

For now, Google+ isn’t replacing either Facebook or Twitter since the community is still small and invitations are slowly trickling out, but as the site gains momentum it will be interesting to see if Google+ takes time away from Twitter more than Facebook. My guess, after a short week of using it and liking it, is it may be a formidable challenger to Twitter.

Do You Have Automotive Klout?

I ran across an interesting development in the online influencer news today. No I don't know what Brian Solis had for breakfast; instead, there is news today that the controversial influence score website Klout teamed up with Audi's Facebook page to create unique content only available to those fans who have enough social "influence."

I put quotes around influence because many feel, and yes I'm one of them, that Klout's scoring system is far from perfect, but I will give Klout credit in that they are trying and evolving their system in ways that are interesting and worth watching. They also are not trying to determine one's full influence, it is only a view at one's online influence which mainly focuses on social conversation and how much one talks online and one receives two-way conversation in return. It's more accurate to call it a volume score than an influencer score, but you can read a gizillion blogs on that topic.


So what is Audi doing in this? They are using the Klout engine to provide special access to content. Today's launch of the functionality is around their recent win at Le Mans. It was a great race and win from Audi. What a year and what a horrific beginning to the race that fortunately resulted in zero causalities other than a couple really expensive Audi cars.


If you have a Klout score high enough to gain special access, you will be granted the bonus of a Le Mans wallpaper to save to your computer. Wallpaper? Can't I just use Google Images and find a ton of them including some amazing pictures from the great coverage provided by blogs like QuattroWorld (props to my good friend Mike Juergens)?

Regardless of how 1996 the free wallpaper incentive feels, there is an interesting event here. Brand pages can now reward their most social media active fans. Unfortunately, it's doubtful most fans know what Klout is or how to get it. And there is a potential backlash that a brand's most hardcore Facebook page fans lack enough Klout to get special access, since they may only be active on the brand's page and not across social media.

It will be interesting to see how this develops and kudos to Audi for taking the first try at this approach. I just wish it was something cooler than a wallpaper...



NOTE: Please let me know if you tried it and failed regarding your own Klout score, I would love to know how much one needs to score to get access.

UPDATE: There is no qualifying Klout score, at least for the current promotion today. Perhaps that will change, but according the Audi Facebook wall team "everyone gets one." You can see their Facebook post on the topic and fan feedback here. Most of it is very positive, no surprise. Here is an image of Audi's wall team's response to a fan asking about the score question:


I don't feel as "special" anymore. ;)

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: April and May 2011

I've been tracking Facebook automotive fans since November 2009 and have never missed a month of data until last month. Unfortunately my early May was extremely busy and I overlooked capturing Facebook fan numbers that month. What is here is fan growth for the months of April and May 2011 combined.

Let’s get to what happened in April and May for automotive brands on Facebook. MINI had the strongest growth over the past 60 days. MINI has been activating user participation with their simple, but elegant idea of “Getting Billboarded” where fans
were able to show their image on a MINI billboard in Berlin. Fans were given the opportunity to share their image from Facebook and those in Berlin were given a photo booth to shoot a picture that would appear on a real billboard. It was a great way to create out of home media with social media. Plus participants were able to save their billboards as images that they could share or use as Facebook profile pictures, but they weren't doing this to only engage but rather to win their very own MINI car.

MINI is also activating their global fan base as a lot of its fans are coming from many countries. This is creating some significant separation on this analysis as brands like Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Porsche are also all activating their global fan base and that is why they are growing at such a stride compared to brands with less of a global impact. Plus all of these brands are aspirational, which helps organic growth dramatically on Facebook, since people fan luxury, high social value brands.


The other brand with some significant growth is Mazda. It’s an interesting time to see some big growth from Mazda since they do not have a vehicle launch during this time.

Mazda is doing their best to increase engagement with their fans and are leveraging their other social properties on the Facebook fan page. They added YouTube and Flickr tabs and are actively promoting content through wall posts. They have also implemented a #MiataMonday idea that asks open questions to their fans.

Mazda is also doing a “Flickr Photo Spotlight” where they are actively looking for Mazda photos on Flickr and then asking photographers to join a Mazda photo Owners Group. Then they are choosing photos to feature on the Mazda Facebook fan page. See the image at left showing one such engagement from Mazda with a Flickr user. This is a great example of showcasing owner enthusiasm and it also brings some fame from the brand to the owner and does it in a simple, respectful way. Bravo to Mazda for being creative in how they leverage multiple social media channels.

One quick thought...

Most automotive ads I’m seeing on Facebook seem to be driving less and less to the brand’s fan page. Most automotive ad buys on the site are sending people to the brand’s website. This makes me wonder if brands are not seeing significant value in growing fans and instead are finding value in Facebook’s ability to segment ad buys by consumer interests and bringing people to brand pages where there is abundantly more information about the products than the brand’s Facebook fan experience.

We are all learning what works and does not work so well on Facebook. After seeing massive ad buys the past couple years from automotive brands spending media to grow fans and now not seeing that behavior; it causes one to wonder if fan growth is not THE metric of success as it once was, that said this blog will still track it to see how a brand’s audience grows.

Jaguar Tries Sponsored Stories on Facebook

Facebook launched the ability for brands to sponsor posts and this morning I caught one example from Jaguar who decided to shine some attention on a recent Forbes magazine review of its Jaguar XJL.

The ad shows up as a "Sponsored Story" from Interactive Jaguar, which is the Facebook fan page for the Jaguar brand. When you click the story you are brought to the Forbes website to read the review.

In a bit of media buying hilarity the Forbes article that Jaguar is sponsoring on Facebook is being heavily sponsored by Hyundai and BMW with the two competitors (well I guess only one is a direct competitor) advertising on the Forbes website. Fortunately the review is about Jaguar and does offer some great thoughts on the XJL for readers.

Promo Magazine Guest Article

I had the opportunity to do a guest article for WOMMA's (Word of Mouth Marketing organization) PROMO magazine. I covered some of the things we are doing at AT&T to tighten up our Facebook presence and why that matters on a platform like Facebook. Also, I should add that automotive brand Acura did a similar effort late last year as they moved to consolidate all of their vehicle fan pages under the one Acura brand fan page, a wise decision in my humble opinion.

Take a look if you are curious what I do in my day job leading social media at AT&T. Click here to read the article: "AT&T’s Social Exec Talks About Focusing its Facebook Presence"

A Few Automotive Brands Are Cruising Empire Avenue

There is a social network, or is it a social exchange, that is gaining traction after Jeremiah Owyang, who writes the Web Strategist blog, wrote a post a couple weeks ago titled “Empire Avenue Provides Social Gaming Opportunities –and Challenges– for Brands.” At the time of the article only a couple big brands were on the site including Intel and Audi, since the article Ford and Toyota have joined too (in full disclosure, so has AT&T, the brand I head social media for.)

What Is Empire Avenue? I’m going to let Jeremiah answer that one since he did such a brilliant job already:

“Empire Avenue is a social game. Each user is valued at a set share price around $9 “Eaves” (their currency) and the value will increase as others purchase their shares, or as the user does social behaviors on other sites, and also participates in Empire Avenue such as actions, unlocking features, or dividends from virtual goods or ownership in other members. As users gain more net worth, they’re able to purchase virtual goods, on a quest to be the richest player in the game. The net result? This is a highly addictive experience that is similar to stock market gaming of your own social network.”

Or if you want to understand the behaviors of a user on Empire Avenue, tech blogger Chris Pirillo demonstrates his enthusiasm in this video.


I should note there are two camps on what’s the point of Empire Avenue. One camp feels it is a site that evokes game theory and creates an interesting social dynamic for those who want to play the game. The other camp is more interested in Empire Avenue being viewed as a competitor to online influence ranking sites like Klout. This is the more controversial camp,, since whenever the word influence is evoked in social media circles everyone goes bonkers about what defines influence. For that perspective, checkout Stowe Boyd’s blog post and comments.

So what are the three automotive brands Ford, Audi and Toyota doing on Empire Avenue? Let’s take a look.

All three have their logos represented and have completed their page bios. Toyota’s bio is brief, “We are Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc.” While Audi brings some of its campaign language and promotion of other social website efforts into its bio, “Audi of America. Truth in Engineering. And now trading on Empire Avenue. Do you know #bolddesign? We're looking for Bold in your city. Help us build out Bold Design in America. http://apps.facebook.com/audi-bold-design/?x=tweet. The all-new Audi 2012 A7.”

Ford is the clear leader in the reciprocity behavior. As of this morning Audi has invested in 12 others on the site where Ford has invested in 118 accounts on Empire Avenue. Toyota who recently joined Empire Avenue six days ago has yet to invest in anyone. Why do I point this statistic out? It demonstrates a level of engagement. Brands, like individuals on the site, have a few touch points including shout outs on a person’s wall, discussion within communities, and purchasing shares in others. Buying shares back creates a conversation on Empire Avenue more so than say following someone back on Twitter; though, the concept is fairly similar. Here a purchase back is an opportunity to thank that person for investing in your brand and demonstrates goodwill.

The purchase of shares is a big deal on Empire Avenue, like stocks in real-life, investments increase share price and also demonstrates a confidence in a good investment. Brands that reciprocate back by investing in others create opportunities to engage. Consider the image at left showing Ford buying shares in others with another shareholder commending the purchase. Without buy backs, the opportunity for further conversation is limited. Sometimes these opportunities move beyond Empire Avenue conversation and into brand conversation about a person’s experience with the brand.

Recently Ford, the most active of the three automotive brands on Empire Avenue, created a private community for Ford Motor Company. It’s a new effort with only 11 members so far and we’ll see how it evolves.

A lot of things are evolving at Empire Avenue as more brands are joining everyday including Dell, Match.com, PR Newswire, and yes even Penthouse. It will be interesting to see if other automotive brands join, since Toyota joining last week no other automotive brands have followed Audi and then Ford’s move to join the site.

What are your thoughts about Empire Avenue? Do you think it’s worth the time of automotive brands (or any brand) to get involved with this rapidly growing online community/game/influence metric?

Also for some other perspectives checkout the following blog posts:

Ford's own Scott Monty talks about "The Gamification of Social Media"

PR Newswire's Victoria Harres writes "Empire Avenue Feels So Much Like 2008...And That's a Good Thing."

Introducing the All-New "Doug" to Yahoo! Mail Users

I really like the ad unit Yahoo! started last year on their Yahoo! Mail website where a company can purchase the entire login page's background. It has a crisp, generous look and the ad never gets lost in the typical clutter of ad banners, typical of other Yahoo! web properties. Today Ford decided to run a full page unit for the Ford Focus. Or did they? It seems like that was the plan until someone, or is it some thing, decided to takeover the promoting of the all-new Ford Focus.

That "thing" if you haven't heard of it by now is Doug, Ford's Spokespuppet. And yes, "spokespuppet" is not a real word; instead, it is a whole new concept in automotive marketing lingo. Doug and his human sidekick John are bringing some humorous snark to the launch of the Focus. It's almost a little sad that the focus (pun intended) here is an orange puppet when Ford has an amazing new re-introduction of the Focus, having finally brought over to the States the European model that many have been asking for for years.

Back to Yahoo!

Ford's ad unit brought significant awareness not to the car (well indirectly it did), but to a puppet. All of the calls-to-action for the ad unit go to Doug's Facebook Fan page where one can "Like me. Love was not an option." Not one link goes to the Ford Focus website to learn about the car.

It's an interesting decision and perhaps a wise one as one website put it, "Ford Profit Fueled in Part by Social Media".

I can't think of any situation in the almost 4 years I've been writing this blog where a major ad buy from a car company drove entirely to a puppet on Facebook. Sorry, "spokespuppet."

Lexus Sponsors YouTube's Indy Film Content

YouTube is making a play for developing custom content or content that can't be found elsewhere online as it defends its competitive video position against rival Hulu. Part of that defense is the YouTube Screening Room which has been around since 2008, but appears to be making a comeback with YouTube finding new sponsors to promote the films.

What is the Screening Room? From the channel's description, it features "top films from around the world to find the audiences they deserve... While the majority of these films have played at international film festivals, occasionally you'll find films that have never before screened for wide audiences."

Today American Express is sponsoring the Screening Room, but last Tuesday Lexus did its marketing sponsorship duty and brought the Screening Room content to the YouTube audience with a front page banner ad, intro commercial before the film played, and some banners promoting the all-new CT200h filled the screen.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: March 2011

March was a rather subtle month without a lot of on-site fan growth ads from the automotive brands, but it was the first month a new brand returned to the United States. It’s been 27 years since Fiat has sold a car here. They returned with the Fiat 500 and I have added Fiat to this list. Like BMW, MINI and Mercedes, Fiat also has a USA-focused Facebook fan page, but like those brands I am reporting on the global brand’s Facebook fan page, but do record all of the USA-focused fan pages.


Meanwhile, Acura continued to run and promote their “Compete Like a Pro” contest for the all-new TSX Sport Wagon (as an interesting side-note, the TSX Sport Wagon is the Japanese Honda Accord wagon that everyone was hoping for back when the Honda CrossTour was announced last year causing quite an uproar on the Honda fan page.) The “Compete Like a Pro” contest is an interesting example of fan growth from marketing, CRM, and engagement.

Back in January they promoted the contest and bought some Facebook ads to support the effort creating a 23% increase in fan growth. In February, some marketing continued but most of the effort to promote the contest was done through Acura’s email communications (see image at left from a February 22 email) and there was some promotion by contestants to create interest (votes) for the contest that resulted in a 10% fan growth. As the initial surge of contestant promotion tapered, so did the fan growth, as it was only 5% in March when the contest was closing the voting.

Many of us see friends in our own communities promote – ask for – votes when they do an online contest. This initial surge in friend participation comes to an end rather quickly and then near the end of the contest, the highly competitive top people in the votes make an additional request for votes, but this is a much smaller group. What we see with the Acura contest is fairly typical and shows that the biggest impact in fan growth is still advertising to promote instead of counting on organic growth. The final 5% growth in March is a normal organic fan growth so the contest was doing very little in fan growth. Of course it might of (and hopefully did for Acura) create more clicks to dot.com and engagement which were probably the primary goals of the contest.

There was very little else going on in March for the automotive brands on Facebook. Lexus saw some positive growth with the biggest bump of 22% fan growth coming from their heavy media buys around the all-new Lexus CT200h.



Note: Unfortunately I missed a month in March, a first since starting this monthly post in November of 2009. I did record the fan numbers and you can see the early fan numbers from March in this post. I never did a February 2011 report, but have all the raw data if any one wants it. Please send me an email at red335i@yahoo.com if you do.

Buick Goes for an Emotional Brand Campaign for NCAA

Buick is sponsoring the NCAA and as part of that effort they launched a new series of inspirational videos featuring several athletes who have overcome adversity. The campaign is called the Human Highlight Reel and as part of the launch Buick bought the homepage ad unit on YouTube last Monday.

This is all part of Buick's transformation or is it reclamation as the brand moves upmarket as a premium brand. This is the segment brands like Lincoln, Acura, Infiniti and to some extent Cadillac has played in for the past couple decades. Some people also call them segment affordable luxury. It's that awkward place between general consumer and luxury consumer vehicles, essentially the brands that cannot directly compete with the likes of Mercedes, BMW, Audi and Lexus; although, Lexus is a primary target of all these brands. Lexus breaks convention as they have beaten the Germans in some vehicle segments.

Buick wants to own the Premium space and as Cadillac continues to evolve and yes become a direct competitor with German luxury brands, now is the time for General Motors to show keeping the Buick brand, after closing several others, was a good decision. Fortunately, the products are getting better but the brand itself still has a major way to go as it assumes a more lofty aspirational brand identity.



The Human Highlight Reel campaign is a fairly typical attempt at facilitating the brand change. I'm sure the consumer research came back showing that Buick considers or the aspirational customers Buick wants to attract are free thinking (think brand agnostic), self motivated people who don't want to follow the herd. As a way to attract these consumers, the brand is trying to appeal to that person through inspirational content that shows the spirit the brand wants to embody or at least thinks its desired customers embody.

I'll admit it is personally difficult for me to see Buick as anything other than my mom's car. She had a nice, yellowish 1976 Buick Skylark coupe. It was mom's car from 1976 until the late 1980s when she finally sold it. Amazingly, it looked just as good the day she let go of it as when she bought it off the car lot. I definitely get my cleanliness when it comes to cars from my mom (my dad's Nissan Sentra had several weeks old McDonalds bags and various trash all over the floor. No wonder they got divorced.)

Fortunately, others may be more open to the Buick brand than I am and fortunately too they are making some solid products to back up the marketing change, because it doesn't matter how bad you want to attract new customers - you have to have the right products to meet the desired change.

One Way to Get Your Dealers Involved

I’m guilty like most automotive bloggers of covering the larger brands more than some of the small players in the market. One brand that doesn’t get a lot of play is Mitsubishi. Well I wanted to find out what a Mitsubishi was doing with their efforts in social media and to my surprise I came across an unique way for the brand’s Facebook page to include their dealers.

Right now Mitsubishi is asking its fans to vote for the best dealer walkaround video. A walkaround video is where a dealer employee shows the features of a vehicle. The Facebook fans were asked to select from several dealer videos finalizing on three videos that are currently competing for a $2,500 prize to be awarded to the winning dealership.


Some of the videos are typical walkaround experiences where the dealer representative simply details every single feature, one with background Minnesota polka music. There definitely is a format to what the dealers were supposed to do here as all the videos cover every feature inside and out and run about 4 minutes plus in length.

Other videos are more entertaining with a bit more style, but still with substance. “Check out my curves and check out my lines,” sings one Omaha dealer who realizes there has to be some personality to keep people’s interest. Unfortunately like the more professional examples, none of the videos are that compelling and sitting through three 4 minute videos with basically the same exact content is a lot to ask, even from your fans.

I do like the idea of getting dealers involved in a real way with the greater Mitsubishi Facebook fan base and it incorporates fans thoughts through voting which video is best. Unfortunately, the $2,500 prize money that is offered is offered to the winning dealer and not a supporting local charity which would’ve had a more compelling appeal to a national audience.

Regardless, Mitsubishi is getting inventive with how to engage fans and finding ways to bring their dealers into the conversation. Sure this example isn’t going to turn into viral gold (total video views on the 3 final videos is at: 1,839 views), but it’s one way to extend goodwill between the OEM’s efforts in social and letting the dealer network reap some publicity too.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: January 2011

There wasn’t a lot of growth in January’s Facebook fan numbers. Perhaps it’s all of the ad agencies working on their Super Bowl ads. Many brands were pushing their vehicle sites and a couple of German companies were focusing on their USA Fan pages, instead of their global brand pages.

Both Mercedes-Benz and BMW created USA focused brand pages in 2010 (see the USA pages growth in the image below to the left.) Mercedes just completed a “Tweet Race” contest between 4 teams spending all kinds of money on celebrities, charities, providing luxury vehicles, and all congregating this weekend at the Super Bowl in Dallas, Texas. Even though it was a “Tweet” contest, Mercedes spent quite a bit on advertising the event on Facebook throughout most of January.

BMW ran several advertisements promoting the new X3 and the all-new 1M. The X3 Matchup was promoted in January ads on Facebook to promote their coming Super Bowl ad. Players match different images and watch for clues in the Super Bowl ad to win a X3 for 2 years and a VIP trip to their Spartanburg plant, museum, and most importantly their Performance Driving School. Facebook fans are asked to build a X3 where they try to guess the exact build of the one appearing in their Super Bowl ad. I’m guessing silver.

Toyota heavily promoted their name the “Prius Goes Plural” campaign after the brand launched several new Prii, Prius, Prium vehicles at the Detroit Auto Show in early January. It seemed as if every day Toyota had the reachblock bought on my Facebook’s Home screen. With all of their promotion, only one of my Facebook friends voted and I have a ton of friends who are car nuts and in the industry (661 friends total.) Sure my checking my friends against people participating is far from scientific, but it did surprise me when the typical auto ad on Facebook has at least 3 or 4 of my friends liking it. Voting of course is different.

An important note on Toyota’s Prius campaign, it didn’t drive fans to the brand’s Facebook page; hence, the measly 2% growth rate for them in January. Fortunately, Toyota has a pretty strong presence with their Prius brand and many in the industry wonder if they’ll ever move Prius off to its own brand. Perhaps with so many new models that scenario may be playing out.


Finally, the strongest growth came from Acura. They recently abandoned their separate vehicle pages so now whenever they have a vehicle promotion they drive traffic to their brand page. In January, they ran a promotion to their “Compete Like A Pro” contest for the all-new TSX Sport Wagon. What’s great here is that they grew their overall fans instead of just a single vehicle fan page so they can promote other products to those fans. It was a smart move for Acura and their growth in January shows how it helps the overall brand presence.

After Losing Car of the Year, Nissan Promotes a Tweet

So you didn't win the big award especially after losing to your main rival. It isn't the best feeling. In this situation, Nissan LEAF lost to the Chevy Volt for North American Car of the Year at the North American International Auto Show but that didn't stop Nissan from promoting what they did win.

Today on Twitter there is a promoted tweet: "Nissan LEAF" that promotes their winning the Eco Car of the Year at NAIAS. There is nothing wrong with promoting this tweet and getting the word out. Nor is there anything wrong with the Eco Car of the Year award, I'm sure it's an honor.

I just wonder if it's a little sad after losing the big award to have to promote a tweet to get people to notice you did win something. After all of the press coverage of Chevy Volt winning Car of the Year on Monday, perhaps Nissan felt a bit left out and wanted to share they didn't walkaway empty handed.

Lastly, I would've never known they won if it wasn't for the promoted tweet so it definitely served its purpose.

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: December 2010

Milestones are a time for celebration. BMW gave thanks to its fans when it crossed 1/2 million fans. Audi recently celebrated its reaching 2 million fans and Mercedes Benz also showed some appreciation when it hit 2 million fans. All of these prior celebrations involved a wall post and video, but none of the automotive companies have done anything truly creative to celebrate such a milestone until now.

Porsche passed the 1 million fan mark a couple weeks ago and as part of the celebration they are placing a special model Porsche in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart. Fans can ask for their name to be on the displayed vehicle by signing up on their Facebook fan page tab called "1,000,000". It's a creative way to bring the milestone to life, much more interesting than some thrown together ad agency video.


Major milestones aside, GMC blew everyone away with the most significant monthly fan gain - a whopping 95%. Like most double-digit changes, GMC's rise is attributable to media spend driving fans to their Facebook page. GMC has a sponsorship with the NFL that has fans voting for the "Never Say Never Moment of the Week." There are weekly prizes, a trip to the Super Bowl and a chance to win a 2011 GMC Sierra Denali.

Hyundai ran some reachblocks in the beginning of December. Other companies that did some marketing in Facebook were Lexus, Chrysler, and Dodge (this is not a comprehensive list just some of the ads I personally saw.) Mercedes-Benz worked to promote their Tweet Race. The ad units sent people to the recently created Mercedes-Benz USA Facebook fan page.

Yes, Mercedes like BMW, Mini and Smart now has a "USA" fan page. As part of their way to create interest for the page they are doing the "World's First Twitter-Fueled Race" which looks basically like a road-trip with four teams driving from four different cities to the Super Bowl in Dallas. This sounds eerily similar to last year's Chevrolet SXSW road-trip scavenger hunt. (Look for a coming article on Mercedes' event around when it begins on February 2.)

A final insight in December comes from Mazda. I find it interesting how some brands promote sales events (Acura has one right now), or they keep a corporate logo, or others promote a new product as part of Facebook's profile image. Mazda is promoting their new Mazda5 but they also found a nice, clean way to promote their other social media brand destinations in the profile picture. The promotion of other channels and their dot.com site is effectively communicated.



Download the Excel file: Facebook Auto Fan File (December 2010)

Automotive Facebook Fans by Brand: September 2010

Let’s get the big news out of the way. BMW surpassed the 2 Million fan number September 28th. On July 5th they hit 1 Million fans, so in a mere 3 months they gained over 1.1 Million fans. BMW has been on a fan rampage and finished the month promoting their secret reveal (I’m guessing it’s the new BMW 6-series.)

Hyundai saw a massive increase in fans as they nearly doubled their fans in September from 41,653 to 82,773 fans. This was done in part by some reachblock ad units I did see Hyundai run on the Facebook site. Others doing reachblock ads where Cadillac and Toyota continued to promote their safety and user story ads throughout the month of September.


Honda worked on promoting their Honda CR-Z Hybrid, but the ad units drove consumers to the CR-Z vehicle page. Honda saw a typical 10% gain on the brand page. Unfortunately, I think they missed an opportunity to drive more fan traffic to their primary brand page. It’s interesting to note that at the end of September Honda’s luxury family member Acura decided to abandon their vehicle fan pages. It will be interesting to see if Honda makes a similar move with their product fan pages or if other brands will follow Acura’s lead here, especially as brands probably look to 2011 and 2012 as ways to increase social media efficiency as social destination effectiveness comes clear with years worth of supporting data.

MINI finished their major Facebook campaign where they gave away a MINI Countryman from their Facebook fan page. Fred Manuel Roldan Rivero from Lisbon, Portugal won the MINI Countryman and the brand shared the giveaway PR event with their fans. Overall it was a nice promotion for the Facebook fans but MINI didn’t really see any major bump in fans which I find interesting because this contest may have more to do with energizing its fans than say growing the fan base. I don’t have any of the ad units promoting the event, if there were any, but MINI only saw a mediocre 11% increase in fans in September and XXX% in August. It’s tough to judge the contest as I don’t know what MINI was trying to drive. I assume handraisers and contest entries but Facebook fan growth didn’t seem to be a goal or a goal that wasn’t met.

In another notable move, Scion experienced a 34% jump that probably was due to the launch of Scion in Canada. Previously, Scion was only available in the United States. Scion launched the brand in Canada last month and one can assume the launch helped some fan growth from those to our north.