Social Media by the Carload
March 25, 2010 by Costa DeVault
This is a guest post from Bess Auer, founder and editor of the Central Florida Top 5 and The Undomesticated Diva. She can be found on Twitter @CentralFLTop5.
Many of today’s executives have such challenges when it comes to understanding the power of social media. I discovered this firsthand when I was chosen as one of four bloggers to participate in the Southern Chevy Dealers’ “Girlfriend Getaway Orlando” promotion marketing for the Chevy Traverse. As an experiment in customer-based marketing, four Central Florida women were each given a car to drive for a month – all the while blogging, tweeting and using Facebook to share our experiences on the road.
Jennifer Leet is a Nielsen Top 50 Mom Blogger, while Meghann Anderson and Caitlin Boyle are health and nutrition bloggers who have more than 400,000 hits per month on their blogs. My blog was voted #1 Neighborhood Blog by the Orlando Sentinel.
The day I picked up my car, I met the participating dealers. I was a bit surprised when part of this meeting was still “selling” the idea of social media to the executives. It wasn’t until we introduced ourselves and our social media reach that we began to get their attention. The executives slowly began to understand that we could reach several hundred thousand people in a short time.
Through Twitter, a Facebook fan page and a “Girlfriend Getaway” blog, where we post entries, pictures and videos twice weekly, we have successfully spread Chevy’s message about the Traverse. Cross-marketed with a free massage from Massage Envy, the target audience has incentive to get to the dealerships and test drive a Chevy, meeting the campaign’s ultimate goal.
This experiment goes to show you that social media is a valuable asset for all companies – from your local mom-and-pop stores to one of the biggest car manufacturers. Don’t let executives turn a deaf ear to social media – show them the power of this unique customer-based marketing in a way that complements your business model.
Traversing to the Art Festival from Bess Auer on Vimeo.
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