Ford, GM and Chrysler have had their second pilgrimage to Washington D.C., proverbial hat in hand, asking Congress for a taxpayer-funded bailout for second time in as many weeks.
About a month ago, before the bailout talk began, I posted a tweet asking Ford Motor Company when they were going to build me a flex-fuel hybrid. Within a day, I was being followed on Twitter by none other than Scott Monty, Ford's social media guy. FordDriveGreen also started following me the same day.
When the auto bailout talks started and the auto company CEO's all showed up in Washington D.C. in their private corporate jets, people on Twitter were not keeping their opinions to themselves. Instead, they pretty much let Scott Monty how they felt. Me included.
At first, Scott defended the decision to arrive in corporate jets by citing Ford's proxy statement that all corporate executives are to use the corporate jet "for security reasons and to honor the exective's time." Whatever that means.
After they got some sense in them and arrived in hybrids two weeks later, Ford was tweeting a different tune, proudly announcing that CEO Mulally would be driving from Detroit to Washington.
The great thing about social media is that you can see people learning as they go along. In this case, the blogosphere and the Twitterverse responded to Scott and gave him crucial feedback, which he could then communicate back to the executives of Ford.
If social media is good for anything, it's good for listening. And that's what we did. Plus, we put together something that helped us tell our story a little more coherently: http://thefordstory.com
Scott Monty
Global Digital Communications
Ford Motor Company
Posted by: Scott Monty | December 09, 2008 at 11:14 AM