Toyota: How to Leverage Social Media to Build Brand Advocacy — Live from BlogWell

Coverage of this session by Bryan Person, the social media evangelist at LiveWorld. Follow him on Twitter here and check out his blog here.

1:30 — Andy Sernovitz introduces Toyota’s National Digital Marketing & Social Media Manager, Kimberley Gardiner.

1:33 — Kimberley has been with the company for 11 years. She spent several years working for the Lexus brand, and then a couple of years at Scion. She’s been in her current role with Toyota for the last 6-8 months.

1:35 — Kimberley: During the recall, a lot of us were really in shock, and we didn’t always know what to do. The social media team had only been in place for a short time when the crisis hit.

1:36 — Kimberley: The first mention of the recall hit in January/February 2010, which led to an overwhelming amount of negative sentiment online for several months.

1:36 — Kimberley: We know we’re not of the woods. We know we have a lot of work to do to regain trust, to return to a position of being the “darlings” of the industry.

1:37 — Kimberley:  Talking about ourselves publicly, and not just internally, is something we haven’t been very good at.

1:39 — Kimberley: From February-May 2010, we were trying to overcome the negative sentiment. We put together the Sienna Campaign, and had to fight the challenge of minivans not being considered cool. Created “Swagger Wagon” videos. They have been a “phenomenal success,” with 11-plus million views.

1:40 — Kimberley: We created a Swagger Wagon Part 2 video, to capitalize on the sustained levels of engagement with Swagger Wagon.

1:41 — Kimberley: We launched the Auto-Biography campaign on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/toyota. We needed a platform for Toyota owners to share their stories. It’s a place for Toyota owners to share their stories and photos.

1:42 — Kimberley: We were able to tap into a wide variety of media channels (TV advertising, etc.) to drive people to Facebook.

1:43 — Kimberely: It’s not so much about we say about the company; it’s what other people say that matters.

1:44 — Kimberley: We’re not editing the stories that are submitted to Auto-Biography. We share them as they’re submitted (as long as they’re clean, etc.).

1:44 — Kimberley: Metrics from the Auto-Biography campaign: 147,388 visitors. 13,180 stories submitted. Page “Likes” doubled in the first 2 months of the campaign. People spending an average time of 2 minutes, 38 minutes there.

1:45 — Kimberley: We took six of the top text stories submitted and turned them into 60-second animated shorts.  We’ve had nearly 100,000 views since October 2010.

1:46 — Kimberley: We’re moving into a Phase 2 of the program, which will have richer engagement opportunities.

1:47 — Kimberley: We’ve looked to our car owners to help us be more transparent and owners.

1:48 — Kimberley: Longer term, we’ll have a place for Toyota owners to share their stories.

Q&A

Q: How did you find the loyal owners who wanted to step up and support Toyota during the crisis?

A: Kimberley: They were showing up on Twitter and Facebook, but also calling our customer support and sending letters.

Q: How much has mobile been of value to Toyota, especially for the Auto-Biography campaign?

A: Kimberley: The Auto-Biography app in Facebook is not yet mobile friendly, but it will be on some of our other channels. We’re seeing a huge amount of mobile growth across multiple platforms over the last 18 months.

Q: What’s your advice for getting ready for a crisis before it hits?

A: Kimberley: I don’t think we would have got there at all had an actual crisis not hit. Sometimes it’s hard to do that. Some of the criticism during the crisis—and rightly so—was not so much about the product but about how we handled it. But if we had been able to get ahead of this, the long-term impact would not have been severe.

Q: Now about Phase 2? Will it live on Facebook or a more centralized location on Toyota.com?

A: Kimberley: It will live first on Facebook, but then the content can be shared out to other properties.

Q: How willing have you reached out to third-party communities? Car brands tend to have a lot of communities and forums outside Facebook and Twitter.

A: Kimberley: We’re doing some of that with the Prius, which has a following like no other. We’ve also been looking at more seeding and blogger outreach.   We’re careful not to be too aggressive, though. We’re working with owners that are coming to us and strengthening those relationships first.

Q: How did you respond during one a smaller recall that took place last week?

A: Kimberley: It was actually a Lexus recall. Now that we have a plan in place, we can have information goes out “within hours.” Info goes out to social channels, and then from customer service and corporate to our dealers.

Q: Bureaucracy-wise, how long did it take from the time the “shitstorm started” [in the major recall] to get your public communication in place.

A: Kimberley:  A couple of weeks (though I wasn’t actually on the team then). We sent out some info within a few days, but in terms of actually getting ahead of the story and being more proactive, it took a couple of weeks. Now that we have more of a comfort level and a triage system set up, we can move more quickly.

Recalls happen, and more frequently than the public knows. Our recall may have been a blessing for the public, because now they know that they happen. The industry has also learned from our experience. You have to be prepared, have good communication, and get out in front of the story.

Q: Was the Swagger Wagon campaign borne out of broadcast? Also, was the internal marketing team involved? How did it happen? How integrated was it.

A: Kimberley: Yes, it did come more out of broadcast channels, originally. The mix more happened that way. But, it was only put out over YoUTube.  We haven’t put out Swagger Wagon over TV, only over our digital channels. And that was because that’s where the groundswell was. An agency was involved throughout, too.