Mediameme

Love that companies like Zappos are incorporating Twitter into their social media plan. Even the evil Comcast has a sad little messenger taking heaps of insults from the twitterati. And, since I live nr the Motor City, just a little frustrated that the car companies are like deer caught in the proverbial headlights. It’s a conversation — just start talking. Eventually someone will respond, even if to tell you to ‘shut up’.

Which led me to thinking about why companies are experimenting with social media at all. For some, like Zappos, it will result in sales. Their corporate ethos is that they are a service company who happen to sell shoes, so their Twitter strategy makes perfect sense.

If the same logic were to apply to Comcast (e.g. “We’re a service company who happen to ‘sell’ access to communication), I’d wonder why they were on Twitter. Pls note that Comcast and I have been in an exclusive relationship for 8 years and my bitterness is born from all the times Comcast stood me up for our dates, never calling to apologize but instead, prompting me to call and to reschedule my life…again. Comcast likes to think its dependability is a strength, but more often than not I’m disappointed by its inability to perform. And Comcast is EXPENSIVE — more than a car payment every month!  Because I have Comcast in every room with at least 7 screens.  If I could file for divorce, believe me, I would.

Car companies have the opportunity to be manufacturers of the American dream, who happen to make cars. Yet, every single car brand’s message is so splintered and disingenuous, adding another ‘channel’ like Twitter, is just another line on the media plan’s excel spreadsheet. Which is ironic, given that the bulk of Madison Ave media money is donated by the automotive industry.  And we all know that the big media business model is broken.  More channels means less money for the dominant players in an industry dependent on scarcity for survival.

The first car company to truly embrace — I mean from the C-level throughout the entire global business — that all they need to do is support the passionate relationship that often already exists between their owners and their brand — and let THAT core belief dominate messaging, will reap the rewards.  This isn’t about the democratizing of business.  It’s about responding to what customers want because they ultimately hold the future of (your) business in their hands.  In order to understand how brands ARE communities, social media channels should be utilized to listen and learn.  And then join the conversation.  Find neighborhoods online where are conversations are already happening and start sharing, listening to feedback AND communicating frequently.

Yes, the brave new media is much harder but the payoff is much greater in terms of loyalty.  And the money that has been wasted for decades on media can be reworked into the economy through contracting work from millions of stay-at-home moms, students, wounded heroes — Americans, in other words, who would love to be paid for being online and doing what they love to do.  It takes courage to lead companies in a new direction, but the payoff is there for those souls brave enough to take on the challenge.

P.S. Reason #704 why I love Twitter…in an exchange yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Sr Analyst and über blogger on the topic of social media + corporate institutions posted a link to this wiki listing companies with a presence on Twitter. For the most part, follow them and they will follow you.  You can keep track of their activities and, if you get tired of their barrage of press releases, you can unfollow them after a while.  By the way, the password to access the wiki is on the Home page so you can edit pages and add your company name + twitter account.

GM now has a blog for their workers in Europe. It’s kind of like Twitter in 9 languages. This is in addition to their portal of corporate blogs and their newly launched uber-impressive corporate communications social media newsroom called GM Next.

Walmart quietly started a worker-recommendation site called Check Out in December that appears to be actual Walmart buyers posting comments about the good, bad and ugly of the products they are reviewing for their company.

Seems as though the Fortune 10 leaders are figuring out social media for themselves. If I was at the helm of a major agency or holding company with strong ties to the automotive industry, say like Interpublic, I would be re-reading the Kimberly-Clark case study from Good to Great this week.

Power to the people.