2010 Ford Mustang

2010 Ford Mustang

I had the great pleasure of meeting the inimitable Scott Monty earlier this year at the Marketing Profs Digital Marketing Mixer, and he was kind enough to spend the time and answer a few questions for me about Ford’s approach to social media.  If you aren’t familiar with Scott, he’s the head of social media at Ford Motor Company, and you can find him on Twitter at @ScottMonty.

I think it’s super cool how this big, lumbering company is working so hard to integrate social media into their marketing (note the “integrate” part, and Scott’s response about that below…). So I asked Scott a few questions not so much about tactics they’re using, but anecdotally about how they’re approaching the social media space overall. (Scott, don’t think I won’t be pestering you to share some business results with us down the road…)  There’s lots here, so apologies for the length, but it’s good stuff and worth a read. Enjoy.

Do you have a “social media mantra”, and if so, what is it? Tell us why you believe its so important to success in business.

First off, I strongly believe in the need to put strategy first. The tools are immaterial. What’s hot today may not be hot tomorrow. And for a large brand, we need to look at mainstream adoption anyway. So today’s shiny object is less interesting to me than the why and the how behind our communications efforts.

Secondly, for any business that’s serious about this, get out there and be part of these social networks as individual people. Are you customers on Facebook? Get on Facebook! Are they experimenting with Twitter? Get a Twitter account and start by actively listening. You need to understand the rules of engagement before you take part.

And finally, know that many customers simply want to be heard. You may not be able to solve every problem or adopt every product development recommendation, but if you can make it clear that your customers matter and that you’re paying attention to them, you’ll be ahead of the curve.

What do you believe is the single biggest mistake companies make when integrating social media into their efforts?

Ah – you’re assuming they integrate. In my time working in social media, I’ve seen too many examples of companies saying “We’re ready to launch the campaign – now what are we doing to do for social media?” It’s not an add-on or afterthought. It should be completely integrated from the beginning. Just because much of the interaction occurs online does not preclude offline components of social media. And if you’ve effectively planned from the beginning, you can integrate such ideas early on.

What have you found to be your biggest challenge in social media with Ford, and what lessons have you learned as a result?

When I joined Ford, I found my colleagues to be very receptive to me and excited that I was there. So much so that they did (and continue to) invite me to more meetings and projects than I can possibly handle. At some point, I’m just one person and I need to let go. My goal is to be able to distribute social media knowledge and experience across the company, while still acting as a conductor of sorts to coordinate it all and ensure that all activities are accoding to strategy.

Do you have an independent budget for your social media initiatives, or is it part of another budget?

I have a budget related to my agency and some limited work that I do at the corporate level, but since many of the activities are related to specific products, there are also digital budgets set aside in many of the product communications plans.

Tell us what aspects of a company culture are critical for social media to succeed.

First and foremost, there needs to be a culture of openness and trust. Companies that don’t trust their employees will engender a culture of fear, which further leads to individuals shutting down rather than engaging. And the concept of shared knowledge is important – “knowledge is power” has been the mantra of many siloed and political orgnazations. But the “we are smarter than me” model is the one that’s going to help companies succeed. Internally as a company, we have a mantra of One Ford: One Team. One Plan. One Goal. And to me, that perfectly states what we’re trying to accomplish with social media.

How are you integrating social media initiatives with your traditional marketing and public relations?

I’m much more closely aligned with PR, since I sit in the Communications area. But I’m also in regular contact with the Digital Marketing team as well. I work closely with both to ensure that new opportunities include a social media component and that the digital influencers are considered an important part of the mix.

How many people work with you on social media endeavors for Ford, and what departments/disciplines do they represent?

There are many. There are a staff of about 8 people who work on my team in the U.S. that handle web publishing and online/broadcast media, but I’m really the go-to guy for social media. There are people in Customer Service, Marketing Research, Digital Marketing, IT and Engineering, to name a few. Altogther, I probably have regular contact with between 75-100 people within the company that have something or other to do with social media.

With the overwhelming amount of tools available, how do you determine which fit with your overall outreach strategy?

For us, it’s largely about mainstream. Joining a large company has helped me to understand that much of the social media experts/evangelists have their heads in the clouds with respect to the technology. We’re so far ahead of the curve, it’s not funny. For my audience, blogs & Facebook are safe havens, and Twitter is pretty advanced. If I said “Plurk” in a meeting, I’d be laughed out of the room (or asked if I was feeling okay). And for our customers – people who buy cars – are the mainstream.

What advice would you have for a company contemplating an investment in social media?

Start by listening. Understand what’s being said about you (and your competition) before you decide to do anything. Decide if it’s right for you. If your customers or target audience aren’t participating, then maybe you don’t need to either. Be aware that because the tools are free or relatively inexpensive, there is a significant cost in terms of human capital; it’s not scalable and requries personalized approaches rather than mass marketing. And ultimately, just be yourself. Customers will appreciate that more than you know.

The million dollar bonus question: How does Ford measure and quantify social media success?

Very carefully. 😉

Currently, we use the Social Media Group’s Conversastion Index (r) to track general sentiment of Ford and our competition in key areas. We monitor the trends month-on-month for a macro-level view of what we’re doing. But we also track impact vs. cost on individual programs, and we measure the distribution of the content that we’re constantly producting via our Flickr, YouTube and Digital Snippets channels.

As we prepare to finalize our social media strategy, we’ll be in a better position to measure what matters against that goal. It may be the above plus some other tools; I have no idea at this point. But once we’ve got a goal in place, we’ll be able to determine what success looks like and how we measure it.

Special thanks again to Scott for taking the time to tell us a bit about what he’s up to over there.  Tomorrow, I’ll talk a bit about my takeaways from these tidbits.  What are yours?

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