GM – spreading the social media message worldwide

Using social networks for product marketing and customer service seems common these days, but employing this media to communicate with all stakeholders in a financial crisis is more of a challenge, especially for a global automotive manufacturer such as General Motors (GM).

Annalisa Esposito Bluhm, General Motors Corporate Communications Manager, who supported the company's restructuring process and is a key voice behind the GMBlogs social media activities across the web, including presences on Facebook and Twitter, shared her views with the Bangkok Post’s Database during her recent visit to Thailand on how to use social media as communication tools before and during crises.

"One of best things about social media is it gives GM a direct line to customers, which helps build trust and transparency," she said.

"Social media is used by friends and family to help them connect. It's real people who go online, so when used properly, social media allows you to have meaningful discussions with hundreds of real customers. It provides unfettered access to your clients, consumers and advocates. I had found social media and digital campaigns save time."

The company uses this technology for distributing product information, publicising promotions and offering customer service, and the role of these tools is increasing during the financial crisis.

"When the financial crisis hit, it was suddenly front page news, but GM gained credit by answering questions immediately, demonstrating trustworthiness and transparency," Bluhm explained.

She continued that the company had at least one person online 24 hours a day for a week. GM Communications team members in the US were encouraged to be online in order to be always be available to listen to customers.

"GM is not only a pioneering corporation in its use of blogs as communication tools since 2005, it was also the first company to use social media to communicate with stakeholders and customers during the financial crisis," she added.

Bluhm recalled that to avoid entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the company trained employees to use social media for communication. Firstly, GM developed a corporate code of conduct to help guide employees and provide a consistent structure. Then, it created online training tools for on everything from Twitter and Facebook to how to upload photos.

"It's critically important that our teams understand not only the best and newest tools, but really understand the psychology - why we engage online. That's why I'm travelling across the world to help share my perspective and knowledge to better cultivate our efforts," said Bluhm.

"Many of our global teams send daily emails encouraging employees to talk up our recent activities and provide links to our latest social media campaigns and efforts. Employees are our best advocates - we have to give them the tools and training to tell our story.

"In the financial crisis situation, internal employees can generate rumours when talking to outside people in their daily life, so we provide tools for them to access info or ask the questions to gain a better understanding of what's happening so that they can explain what's going on with the future of the company to the outside and online world."

She continued: "However, some other GM offices still do not yet consistently use social media. One country may only post or tweet its press releases without inviting comment, so I have spent time travelling across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America developing targeted social and consumer media-based programs for more than 12 countries.

"I asked the communication teams to pause and set a social media strategy to emphasise GM's transparency and honesty and encourage customers to take part in two-way communication.

"The team should understand who their customers are, what their customers do, when they are online and what they want to know, and to engage them in discussions and shared ideas.

"The best corporate social media efforts are those that are honest, forthcoming, genuine and ask users to participate. People online are looking for engagement, discussion and sharing."

Bluhm also sees this channel brings an opportunity to talk to people who have had a bad experience or wish to make a negative comment, especially as purchasing a vehicle is a huge financial and personal commitment.

"In Thailand, a motorist may get six years' use from a new car, so we at GM take this very seriously," she said.

"We cannot ignore or delete negative comments. We have an obligation to ask what's wrong or ask the customer to tell us more, so we can help them.

"By doing so, GM has a chance to prove our commitment as well as turn a bad experience into a positive one. In fact, GM Customer Service is very active at facebook.com/generalmotors and its own twitter account, @gmcustomersvc."

Bluhm continued that each country has own culture so the social media strategy will vary on local perspectives, but retain a common theme.

"The best social media efforts leverage what you are already doing and make it easier to share, track, access, research and promote your activities," she said.

"The company is not looking only at bloggers but also into a number of consumer-focused events, online tools and applications to help GM customers, advocates and sceptics to talk to us, such as lifestyle-focused blogs and sites, which give us a chance to reach people who might never consider Chevrolet.

"For example, providing tips for writing resumes and for graduate students attending interviews, as well as offering special discounts on first cars."

Furthermore, mobile devices amplify real life as consumers may take pictures from a birthday party, videos from a street fair, or send text updates directly to Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Mobile strategy is important and a natural fit for Thailand with its culture of sharing.

"When combined with location tagging services, this can be very useful for product marketing," said Bluhm.

"For example, with social networks, we can communicate simultaneously with users who, according to the location tagging service, are at the same place as the Chevy Cruze is located, and then tweet them an invite to talk with our car designer or take part in product promotion, and so on."

QR code is another interesting trend in digital marketing which is currently being used in Japan and China. Mobile phones can snap the barcodes on product brochures or packaging, and this can then link to the web to get further product information detail.

Another possibility is the use of Augmented Reality, which is the overlaying of digital data on the real world , which allow people to use camera phones to take pictures of vehicles on the street that interest them, and which can return interactive information showing cost of the car, safety systems, consumer opinions and dealers in that area.

There are many more opportunities for digital marketing and social media. However, there is no real measurement of the effectiveness of social media, although the company can view the number of retweets or Facebook comments and, more importantly, said Bluhm, "The more people who forward links or the more the users share links with their trusted friends, the more meaningful that is."