Interview: Mary Henige, Director, Social and Digital Communications, GM

By: Martin Kahl, Friday, July 23, 2010, AutomotiveWorld.com

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Key experts provided insight into the use of social networking as a marketing tool in the global auto industry at a recent AutomotiveWorld.com webinar entitled Social networks and the global auto industry: the marketing opportunity.

General Motors boasts just under 150,000 fans on its Facebook page, and 14,866 followers on the main @GMBlogs Twitter account. The combined number of fans on its main Facebook pages, including people who have "liked" the pages of GM brands and models, stands at over 877,000.

In an interview with AutomotiveWorld.com held as a follow-on to this webinar, Mary Henige, APR, Director, Social Media and Digital Communications, General Motors, outlined the activities of the Social Media team and the way in which so-called traditional media and new media work together.

As well as discussing how social media activities can be measured, Henige underlined and illustrated the importance of listening to consumers, and suggested that the difficulties of managing a brand's presence on social media should in fact be treated as an opportunity. Her assertion that "you have to give up your brand" on the social web highlights an area where traditional media and social media fundamentally disagree, but at the same time, Henige's belief that GM needs to be as innovative as its products shows that GM - and its competitors - see the value of social media and innovative marketing and communications tools.

AutomotiveWorld.com: Can you please explain where the Social Media team fits into the GM media relations organisation, and who you report to?

Mary Henige: GM's corporate Social Media team was established back in 2001, when it started life as New Media. I ultimately report to Selim Bingol, who is our corporate communications vice president, but I report directly to Lori Arpin who oversees News Operations. I sit in the News Operations Team in Detroit, which includes straight news relations and broadcast communications. My colleague in Washington DC also reports to News Operations. We also have people working with us in marketing and in other divisions around the globe.

From an issues management perspective, we help to support corporate news. It makes sense - we take news and feed it out. I also oversee the media site with our partners in media relations. We have all this great content, and we want to get it out to all of our constituents.

I believe in "publish once and share often". The social web is hungry for content. If we are excellent content providers, then we are adding value for our consumers. For example, if somebody buys a Camaro, they are just going to want everything they can find about a Camaro, even if it is just for them to be able to populate their Facebook pages, or to send out a picture on Twitter. We want to make sure that when we develop this content we extend its reach as widely as possible.

AW: What is your background, and the experience of the people in your team?

MH: I've been at General Motors for 24 years, primarily in media relations positions and 11 years in marketing communications. About 16 months ago, I was moved into the Social Media team. We have five great people on that team, but we also work with our marketing and communication colleagues globally. One of the guys on our team worked at a few different vehicle manufacturers, and also at Edmunds, and then ran his own website for five years. He has a lot of marketing experience. I have also just hired a woman who spent a long time in automotive marketing.

AW: How long has GM been actively involved in social media activities?

MH: GM started working in social media in 2001. It was one of the first companies to launch a video streaming channel. In 2002, we started using RSS feeds. Now that seems like old technology, but most people at the time were using dial-up. For the early adopters who had the capability, we wanted to make sure we were there. In 2004, we did one of the first major corporate podcasts. In January 2005, we began our corporate Fastlane blog, which is still going today. Bob Lutz at the time wanted an outlet to be able to talk to consumers and set the record straight, without having gatekeepers. The traditional media relations approach is to do an interview, and then a gatekeeper synthesises your views and gives other perspectives. The beauty of social media is that we can talk directly to consumers.

Some people say the social web is faceless. In many ways it can be, but the real benefit is that it brings together people who really care about something and have an emotional connection.

AW: Can you please give an indication of the size of your social media footprint?

MH: We currently have 149,870 Facebook Fans on our General Motors Facebook page, and 14,866 followers on our @GMBlogs Twitter account. We also have Facebook pages for each of our brands, the most popular of which is the Camaro page with over 318,000 fans.

One of the things we're trying to do is grow organically. You can grow a Facebook fan-base for instance, by advertising, even in traditional media. We have been growing our GM Customer Service twitter account, which we think is pretty cool. It is not just what Chevrolet does, or what General Motors does on a corporate level - we believe it is about what our employees are doing. We have more than ten employees with more than a thousand followers, further extending the reach of our stories through tweeting...

AW: ...are these employees that are tweeting on behalf of GM, or for themselves?

MH: Some are tweeting on behalf of GM on our social team. Others might just be in marketing or engineering and very engaged, and want to share stories. There might also be someone from the company who sees something they think is not right, and they quick-link somebody to information on the media site. It is also about engagement. You can have a lot of fans, but if they are not doing anything, if they are not engaging with you, and if they are not "liking" information, and posting to the wall, does it really matter?

AW: Where do GM's activities in this area rank against its peers and its competitors? Do you consider GM to have a lead on its competitors?

MH: As far as whether GM is a leader in this field, we are definitely in the hunt, but I do not really care whether General Motors is considered a leader. I am more concerned for people to see that Chevrolet or Buick, for example, is really good on the social web.

Partnering with marketing, we sponsored South By Southwest (SXSW), a huge festival in Austin, Texas. My team took the idea of sponsorship to Chevy. We suggested that this was a fabulous thing for the brand, and that it fits perfectly, especially with the Chevrolet Volt. The Chevrolet marketers agreed.

Having the community involved in your social site is really the way forward. It causes traditional communicators and marketers a little angst, but for the most part it works out really well, and what you get back from the community is usually a lot better than what you would have thought up on your own.

At the end of the festival, according to Adage (Advertising Age), Chevrolet was considered the best marketer at SXSW, primarily because we did it in a way that was not really marketing. We became part of the community and added value.

Every month, Social Fresh, a group of social media influencers, carries out a survey and asks the top 50 experts in this field who they think are doing it [social media] best. In May, for the first time, we began showing up in the survey, when Chevrolet was considered the fifth best marketer.

That really makes me happy, because I think there is a role for General Motors as a corporation and as we become a new company. But that is not how we go to market. When our brands are winning and when we help them to win, then that is how I measure success. Other manufacturers have done well around the globe too. Ford has done some amazing things. We are not alone.

AW: Can you give some examples of how your activities have had a measurable impact?

MH: A lot of social media is geared towards selling vehicles down the road. Social media is very "upper funnel". It is about creating awareness, creating affinity, and telling people you exist. I cannot tell you the number of vehicles that I have sold. I have given around ten presentations this year outside Detroit, and my track record seems to be one sale every time I go out. I'm not making a hard-core sales pitch, I just ask people to consider us next time they are in the market.

A woman in Jacksonville, Florida sent me an email to say she was an Acura driver considering a GMC Terrain. I sent her some information, and gave her some help, and she eventually went for the next model up, a GMC Acadia. I am eternally grateful that she got out of the Acura, and before that a BMW, and for the first time considered a General Motors product. She said I sold her when I went to Jacksonville. This illustrates the "human element" of what we are doing. That is really where "social" plays.

AW: You mention the human element, but social media is online and often anonymous...

MH: A lot of it is very much online, but the interesting thing about the social web is that when you go to a conference, and you've been friends with somebody virtually on Facebook and Twitter, and you know what their avatar looks like, you can sort of pick them out, and you already know their personality.

Some people say the social web is faceless. In many ways it can be, but the real benefit is that it brings together people who really care about something and have an emotional connection. You could attempt to use traditional marketing methods on the social web, and you could easily get it wrong and hurt your company. The companies which win in this powerful area are those which can figure out how to do it correctly and how best to work together with communications and marketing to share their expertise.

AW: Is there a future for traditional research methods of marketing and market research?

MH: You still need to market traditionally. There is still a role for print, there is still a role for television, but social media adds a new way. I think that, within the next five years, this will not be as big a deal, because it will have been assumed into traditional marketing and communications. I do agree that there is a grey area, because marketers are not used to hearing people speak back, and communications people are not necessarily schooled in search engine optimisation, for example. Having these two areas working together can be a strength for an organisation.

AW: Do you think the dynamic is changing, with increasing emphasis on social media?

MH: Social media is an additional channel, rather than a replacement. You can advertise traditionally, and direct consumers to somewhere specific for greater engagement.

You still need to market traditionally. There is still a role for print, there is still a role for television, but social media adds a new way. I think that, within the next five years, this will not be as big a deal, because it will have been assumed into traditional communications and traditional marketing.

Social media is not going to replace traditional advertising, but at the same time, if you think about traditional media relations, you would have an interview, after which executives and PRs would be involved, and you would still have to wait until the next day for the story to come out. Now even traditional media sources publish instantly online, and they syndicate content to extend their reach and become more immediate. Social media is not replacing traditional media, but it is changing things. Just because we are a social media team in communications, it does not mean that we are not doing other things. That is why I think that in five years' time, it is not going to be a big deal.

AW: Which are the main tools you use for social networking?

MH: We use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. Video is huge, so we are doing more and more with video, because it is a far more emotionally compelling way of telling stories. Location-based tools like Gowalla and Foursquare offer a very interesting way for people to stay connected and for brands to get involved since they know you are there. We also use quick response (QR) tools, which take a photo of the code linked directly to a company's or a brand's web page to get more information. That is a huge growth area.

AW: How sustainable and future-proof are the main social networking tools, and how will this affect what you do? Visits to MySpace UK, for example, have halved since the start of this year.

MH: Sometimes you hear it said that people will leave Facebook, or will quit Twitter. Well, not really. These brands will evolve as the technology evolves. Facebook very wisely decided to take its reach beyond college students. Now many grandparents are on it to keep in touch with their children and grandchildren.

If you are not keeping your skills up, and if you think social media is going to go away, you are going to be left behind, because this is a whole new way of doing things.

For companies to be successful, it depends on how socially-savvy they are. Interestingly, the way advertising, media, marketing, communications and social media is being taught in schools today combines all of these topics into one. We have an intern on our social media team who is surprised that traditional and social media are separate. But this is an older company and we are trying to merge the two.

I think as the younger generation comes into leadership, it is going to be innovative. To me, this is one of the most fascinating times to be a professional in marketing and communications. If you are not keeping your skills up, and if you think social media is going to go away, you are going to be left behind, because this is a whole new way of doing things.

AW: Following that same line of thought, is there a danger that important voices are not being heard, or are being ignored, because they do not use social media?

MH: I think that it is important to have an all-encompassing approach to communications, rather than just focussing on one thing. It is possible that some voices are being missed, but we will be able to reach more people as mobile devices improve. People want their content when they want it, and they want it on their mobile devices. That is really important.

We also need to consider cars as mobile devices. Think of OnStar and the information that we can give to people in a car. If you even think about the possibilities there it is huge.

AW: During your webinar presentation, you cited the example of GM cancelling a Buick crossover based on the Saturn Vue, following a negative response from the social web. Given the time and money invested in new model development, and the logistics of media and public launches, how easy was it for you to convince GM that this model should be cancelled?

MH: We showed the vehicle at a consumer programme last August [2009], where we had instant feedback from those consumers, and from media during a separate day with them. We also saw a lot of activity on the web. Our social media team did not have to convince our leaders.

When we became a new company we acknowledged that we needed to move more quickly and to better listen to consumers. Yes, cancelling programmes is expensive. However, this circumstance was unique in that this technology was developed and scheduled to go into a Saturn. When we announced that we were going to sell Saturn, our leaders looked at putting that technology into another vehicle. In retrospect, after they cancelled the Buick, we acknowledged that was not the best decision for the Buick brand. In other words, our leaders listened to consumer feedback.

AW: How do you manage what is written about your brands, and how do you manage your responses?

MH: In a lot of ways, the social web is unmanageable. There is just so much to cover, and it is not possible to focus on everything. You have to give up your brand, because you do not really own your brand. You might own your trademark, but not necessarily your brand. Your brand loyalists feel that they own it.

For instance, Coca-Cola's Facebook page - which was started by the company's fans, not by the company - has close to 8 million fans. GM, with 150,000 fans, pales in comparison. There is so much more work to be done.

Having the community involved in your social site is really the way forward. It causes traditional communicators and marketers a little angst, but for the most part it works out really well, and what you get back from the community is usually a lot better than what you would have thought up on your own.

In a lot of ways, the social web is unmanageable. There is just so much to cover, and it is not possible to focus on everything. You have to give up your brand, because you do not really own your brand. You might own your trademark, but not necessarily your brand.

AW: How does GM manage the multitude of languages and nationalities commenting on GM and on its brands?

MH: There are communications and marketing teams in each country which have people working in social media, and they manage it. The old adage that all news is local is still true, but people want to know how a global story affects them. A global story about GM would be interpreted differently regionally.

AW: The online voice is anonymous, with no way of vetting a person's genuine interest or intentions. They may be working on behalf of a competitor, for example. Does social media provide a true reflection of what is being said out there?

MH: In terms of competitors behaving in that way, that does happen, but I think there is a pretty good level of respect among vehicle manufacturers in that regard.

Certainly there are listening tools, so you can monitor what is being said, and you can conduct research as well. If you are holding a press conference, for instance, and you are tweeting live, you can watch Twitter, and get a real-time sense of whether people get what's happening. If there is a crisis, a quick look at something like TweetDeck can give you a sense of what's happening so you know how to respond.

In traditional media relations, when you compile every news article that has been written about you - even back in the days when cutting and pasting meant exactly that - you can already get a sense just from the top six or seven stories of what people are saying about you. It is really the same thing in the social web. You do not need to know everything that is being said, but if you know the key sites, and the key blogs, you can get a real sense of what the influencers are saying about your brand and what they think. That way you can target your messaging at those key sites and key influencers for your brand.

AW: What authority is required to respond on behalf of GM, especially where legal and PR approval may be required? What processes are in place, and how quickly can you respond formally?

MH: In terms of PR approval, the social media team already has that authority. On a wider level, we have a social media policy and a web tutorial that GM employees can take. We have to be somewhat careful especially here in the US where federal regulations control the reporting of safety concerns. Employees know that. We also have had some FTC guidelines that talk about what advertisers have to do to disclose a relationship with the company, and we need employees to understand that.

At the same time, we want employees to feel somewhat empowered so that if they see something is wrong, for example, to let us know. We try to make sure that we have a really good website full of approved content. That way, employees can simply link to existing approved material.

The Social Media team sits with the Communications team, so we know what the messages are, and how to respond. We do not have to go through legal departments, we know what we're doing, and if it's out of our scope, we know who to turn to in the company. Also, the 140 characters allowed by Twitter is not sufficient to respond properly to someone, but it does allow us to link to appropriate content.

AW: How do you measure return on investment in relation to this activity, and how do you demonstrate it?

MH: We do a lot of research for GM. For example, we needed to know what we had accomplished at SXSW. Our results showed not only an incredible increase in traffic to our site, significantly increasing the number of Chevrolet Facebook and Twitter fans and followers, but also highlighted what people were saying. We were also the subject of around 250 traditional media stories. So, is anybody saying to me that if I cannot prove what benefit social media is bringing, GM will stop using it? No.

We want more and more to be able to demonstrate that we are adding value. Ultimately I feel that when I'm helping to change the opinion and consideration of General Motors and its brands, then I'm earning my keep. I need to sell vehicles too, but in a different way. We do things in a different way, spending time, helping somebody out, with a view to getting long-term consideration.

It is especially important for a company like GM, which is really trying to change entrenched perceptions, and to let people know that we are a different company, that we have great vehicles, and that we really do care about our products and our customers. We need to be as innovative as our products. We do not have to prove ourselves.

This is a huge growth area that cannot be overlooked. It takes a lot, but we are certainly seeing momentum, and making a difference, but you cannot put this down to one form of media alone. The successes are the sum of all the parts.

Published on Friday, July 23, 2010

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