Social Networking and Marketing FORD

Ford gave a brief video interview of how social media campaigns helped them really evolve some of their products and build communities. The big campaign discussed was the Ford Fiesta where 1 year before the car would be released in the states Ford will let the community market the product. They gave 100 people 1 Fiesta each and then tracked the amount of buzz/traffic they got in their Ford Fiesta community and of course the tags via twitter and flickr. They were amazed by the results. They also did a campaign on Facebook where if they could get 30,000 "likes" I believe then they would create a sweepstakes. They got a tremendous turn out on Facebook. The last thing is a Focus rally where people try to enter a rally similar to the Amazing Race (who is helping develop this idea) and along this journey the episodes will be on Hulu. So these average people will compete in this race but receive help along the way from online strangers following the journey. At the end the winners get 10 Ford Focus' to give away to the people that helped them out the most on the clues and puzzles throughout the journey. It will be interesting to see how that campaign turns out.