Social Media Innovation- David Fink

Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

With social media being the new marketing tool, does every company utilize them? Are large company/corporations still relying on old advertising/marketing tools such TV and Physical locations? I chose two companies, that are important to me and that are large in comparison to brand awareness, and will research their social media involvement.

Volkswagen (no surprise I chose them) is the third largest automotive manufacturing company in the world. They are also the 53^rd most recognizable brand in the world. When you visit Volkswagens American site (www.VW.com) you are brought to a flash coded site with no initial icon or affiliation with any social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, but they do have a drop down menu labeled ‘Blogs’. Under the blogs menu Volkswagen has created specific blogs for the Jetta, Passat, Touareg, Beetle, Upcoming and Concept cars, TDI Truth & Dare, and VW events. Once you have accessed the blogs on the right side they have a menu that says, ‘Follow VW’, which has icons/links for Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Underneath that menu there’s another labeled ‘VW Fans’ which has a like button and a visual of people that have already liked VW USA on Facebook as well as a like count (which is currently 715,775). I already liked the page so I was able to access it right away and in my personal opinion they are excelling on the home front of utilizing Facebook. I despise Twitter and I do not have an account so I cannot comment on their involvement in that source of social media. I do enjoy Youtube and will give my $0.02 on their involvement there. Volkswagen has 1.9 million channel views, with 14,000 subscribers, and 48 million total upload views. I would say those numbers are significant enough to call their use of Youtube a success. Volkswagen is able to upload all of their ad’s, including The Force commercial which currently has 35 million views alone, as well as all of their debut and event videos. Overall, I would say Volkswagen has adapted to social media and is properly marketing their company with these new social media innovations.

*Note: This is all based on Volkswagen of America.

For my second company I chose, Fabspeed, which is a smaller company. Fabspeed is a smaller local company (Ambler, Pa). The reason I chose them is because I will hopefully (crossing my fingers) be working for them this summer. Fabspeed is one of the biggest performance exhaust and intake manufacturers for exotic cars. They specialize in Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW’s. When you go to their website they have logo’s on the right menu for Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Vimeo. Compared to Volkswagen, a large company, their social media pages are a lot easier to access. They have 490 friends on Facebook and on Youtube they have 369 followers of their channel, 15,770 channel views, and 1.6 million total views. The amount of total views in comparison to Volkswagen 48 million is great. I would say that Fabspeed is utilizing several social media applications very well.

Does Facebook and news go hand-in-hand? Honestly I would say it does. A large number of people use Facebook as their only source of news now. Most people when getting on the internet go to Facebook right away. I do not see why news company’s wouldn’t utilize Facebook. Instead of having to go to every news website you would be able to go to Facebook to access every skewed perception on different story’s. I see how the lack of advertisement revenue would hurt the company’s but the way the internet is going they will find new ways to get money.

"http://static.technorati.com/10/07/12/14791/facebook-panic.jpg"

This is not the first time I have heard the question of banning certain aspects of the internet in a company. To simplify an answer I do not think banning Facebook is a bad decision for a company and I would work for a company that has banned Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, I am not 100% behind banning Facebook I just feel that a company has the right to do so. Not to say work should be your whole life but when you are at work you should be focused on work. I do not understand why people are up-in-arms about Facebook being banned; they already are procrastinating at work:

• 30 to 40% of Internet use in the workplace is not related to business
• 64% of employees say they use the Internet for personal interest during working hours
• 70% of all Internet porn traffic occurs during the nine-to-five work day
• 37% of workers say they surf the Web constantly at work

(Employee Computer & Internet Abuse Statistics, 2008)

• 28% of those who made gift purchases did so from their offices or cubicles

(INTERNET USE STATISTICS, 2002)

Now there are some exceptions, which were noted in the post, such as if you are using Facebook for business purposes. I had a roommate a few years back whose dad was an HR manager for a software company in NYC. The dad told me he has a Facebook account but it is primarily for company use (before hiring you company’s do search for you on the internet). Another example would be the advertising/marketing departments which may utilize Facebook for the company (Just think of a company that doesn’t have a Facebook page?…Exactly). I also remember searching for a job a few months ago and seeing that companies are even hiring social media managers. These ‘managers’ jobs were to create and update all the social media pages for their company and if social media sites become that important company’s we may see some Chief Social Media Officer’s in the near future (Don’t quote me on that one though).

A few charts of info related to Internet use in the work place:

"http://social.och09.com/Blogger/Stats/0806-work-1.gif"

Facebook Statistics: "http://www.istrategylabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/facebook_demographics_statistics_2009.png"

Facebook Usage by Country: "http://www.nickburcher.com/2010/03/facebook-usage-statistics-march-2010.html"