Greener Cars and Social Media

Automakers are seeing the value of social media to promote greener cars. Toyota, Tesla, Nissan and Ford are all using new media to pitch their hybrid and fully electric cars. The interactive format provided by social media give these companies the ability to communicate information and interact with consumers.

Toyota announced a line of new Priuses using social media and Toyota executives answered questions about the new models of Priuses via Twitter. The company also made announcements via livestream on the company’s website. In 2010, Toyota announced the release of six new hybrids with a tweet.

Nissan has a Twitter feed for its electric Leaf and electric car company Tesla used its blog to announce the completion of a working prototype of the company’s 2012 all-electric Model S sedan. Instead of more traditional marketing, Tesla used three high-quality videos that showed a walk-through of the car’s engineering.

Ford has established itself as a leader in social media marketing. With more than 20,000 Twitter followers, Ford has four times the number of GM’s Twitter followers. Ford’s new Fiesta, introduced contests for YouTube, which drew thousands of submissions, gained Twitter followers and generated a healthy dose of blog and news coverage. Ford has almost 250,000 videos on YouTube, while GM has a bit more than 13,000. Ford’s presence on YouTube has also carried over into Flickr.

Ford was also recognized as an automotive leader by marketing research firm Virtue. They published their annual list known as the Virtue 100, which covers the 100 most-discussed brands in America compiled using these five criteria:

1. Social networking (which brands are being shared)
2. Video sharing (which videos from which brands are being viewed and shared)
3. Status updates (which brands are being tweeted and included in updates — and how strong is each sharer’s influence)
4. Photo sharing (which photos are being passed around)
5. Blogs (general mentions in the blogsphere, including comments)

Ford is at the top of this list because Scott Monty (Head of Social Media for Ford) is working hard to give the company a dominant social media presence. However, Ford is followed closely by prestige brands Mercedes and BMW. With its line-up of fuel efficient and hybrid vehicles, Ford jumped 13 places over last year, while the ratings of gas guzzling Ferrari, fell.

Social media is a powerful form of interactive marketing that can spike awareness and help build brand affinities in a more cost effective way. Social media is clearly an increasingly integral part of car marketing that is garnering considerable attention, particularly for auto brands that have a green focus.

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