Last Friday evening, Ford hosted a party at the Liberty Grand to launch its new 2013 cars. Here is the catch, many guests at the party were bloggers and part of the Toronto Twitterati, the ones who generate hundreds or thousands of followers. If anybody noticed their Twitter topic trends list #FordBlue was there as people at the party were generating hundreds of tweets. Clever PR move by Ford to have a party with the social media elite! Many bloggers wrote about the event after the event and posted pictures from the event as well, the cars shown were all Blue, the colour scheme at the party was blue and the party favours such as candy were wrapped in blue foil, pretty funky considering the Ford logo is blue. Many guests generated positive reviews about the party and talked about how enthusiastic the people who actually work for Ford were about discussing the new lineup of cars.
This is not the first initiative between Ford and the social media community, at the Detroit Auto Show, Ford invited several bloggers to the event. By doing this, Ford was able to create more buzz on social media channels. Most car companies like to court the press at these types of events as articles from car shows will be published around the world.
Ford has been a pioneer as a business using various social media channels. Ford was one of the first companies to embrace the use of Google+. Ford has a page dedicated to social media: Ford Social. It is a very interactive website where people can submit ideas to Ford about new ideas and enhancing current services. People can submit stories about what it is like to own a Ford car and share memorable events that they have had with their Ford car.
The company that I think will follow Ford’s footsteps is Volkswagen. VW Canada has quite the presence on Twitter and it is very interactive with its followers. VW usually hosts events across the country where you can test drive several of their models. VW is all about the user experience and holds several types of events where people can participate in.
Photo taken from facebook.com/vwcanada
Volkswagen is king when it comes up with drumming up good publicity. At the 2011 Super Bowl, the VW Passat Star Wars commercial was one of the most talked about commercials. In 2012, VW did a follow-up Star Wars commercial with the new Beetle that did generate a lot of hype and talk on social media channels.
2011 Super Bowl Ad “The Force”
2012 Super Bowl Ad “The Dog Strikes Back”
The 2012 Canadian Auto Show in Toronto starts this coming Friday, the 17th. It should be interesting to see how the event is tracked on social media channels and if many of the auto companies are going to use social media to help promote their company at the show this year.
Words and Thoughts 