OMMA Global 2009 Keynote: Social Media Strategy: Zero to 60

This morning at OMMA Global New York, Scott Monty, Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager of the Ford Motor Company shared how Ford set out to be the most social automotive brand in 3 years and how they did it in only 6 months.

First set expectations properly. It's not about turning a switch and expecting to see sales turn around right away. You need to have support of leadership. Ford has support right up to the Board of Director level and even the CEO is on Twitter a bit.

Ford set up a broad social media vision statement because they know how fast everything is evolving.

They wanted to have a: "Strategy to humanize the company by connecting constituents with Ford employees and each other when possible, providing value in the process."

Key tips:

• 50% of social media is just showing up, but the other half is the hard part.
• Make your company as accessible as possible.
• Don't try to game the system. Understand the power of Transparency.
• Be Authentic - be real people. People trust people like themselves. Remember "Your Brand is not my friend." Connect people to the design engineers, product managers, designers, etc.
• Make it work on a global scale with support from the leadership.
• Provide relevant but contextual information based on different customers. He doubts @FordMustang followers are concerned about the same thing that @FordGreen followers are.
• Aggregate social media content in one place to make social media presence clear.
• Take content and let it be free. Create embeddable, shareable content (this wasn't even an option for them even a year ago).

The result of all this effort was that by the end of 2008 Ford were the #12 most social brand.

What's Next:

• Cross training staff.
• Rolling it into other functions of the company.
• Goal is to get 1% of the 200,000 global employees at Ford to become digital ambassadors.
• Continue to listen to their community.

Thanks Bryan

Bryan is the co-author of the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, USA Today and New York Times bestselling books "Call to Action", "Waiting For Your Cat to Bark?" and "Always Be Testing".