This is interesting! Last week’s post with Ford CMO Jim Farley’s statements about how Ford has seen massive cost savings via Social Media proved to be quite popular. In fact I believe it’s the most RTed post I’ve ever written.
Well last Thursday after publishing the post, Ford’s Scott Monty contacted me and said that Ford wanted to use my tweet as a Promoted Tweet on Twitter! He explained that Ford is going to begin experimenting with using content from customers and 3rd party sources as Promoted Tweets, instead of just promoting its own tweets and content. Apparently my tweet was the first one from a 3rd party source that they had used as a Promoted Tweet.
I think that’s a pretty damn gutsy move on Ford’s part. And if Ford is willing to start promoting non-company content, it suggests to me that the company must be very satisfied with the results it has seen from previous social media efforts, to be willing to spend money promoting 3rd party content.
Why would Ford do this? Well would you rather hear Ford say how amazing it is, or would you rather hear what a Ford customer has to say? And even though I am not currently a Ford customer, Ford using my tweet as a Promoted Tweet is very innovative and of course I wanted to share it with you. So there’s additional coverage for Ford.
So what were the results? I asked Ford for the results and Brian shared these numbers with me from Ford promoting my tweet:
Impressions – 411
Clickthroughs – 26
ReTweets – 8
Clickthrough Rate – 6.3%
Engagement Rate – 8.27%
Now here’s how that clickthrough rate compares with other forms of online advertising/promotion:
So the 6.3% clickthrough for this Promoted Tweet is higher than the avg clickthroughs for email, Google AdWords, and Banner Ads. Now granted, this is a REALLY small sample, but the numbers suggest that the clickthrough rate for Promoted Tweets should be comparable to email, if not better in some cases. I also think this could suggest that Twitter users are more engaged and as such, Promoted Tweets could be a real business driver for Twitter moving forward.
Now those 26 clicks accounted for about 3% of my traffic on Friday, so it wasn’t a huge bump for me. Then again, Friday saw 754 vistiors here thanks to the popularity of the post with Jim’s video. So on a normal day, 26 extra visitors would be 7-10% of my traffic. So it’s a bit more significant.
One thing I found interesting was that Brian and Scott told me beforehand that they were going to buy the Promoted Tweet for my tweet on Friday, and told me the keywords they had purchased. Promoted Tweets work by showing up as the top search result when you search for the purchased keywords, and they are clearly marked as a Promoted Tweet. On Friday I searched several times with the keywords Ford had purchased to see if I could get the Promoted Tweet to show up in search results, and I couldn’t. So not sure how Twitter decides to insert the Promoted Tweets into search results.
BTW for the record, Twitter asked Ford to get my permission to use my tweet as a Promoted Tweet.
What do y’all think of Ford using content from its customers/other sources as Promoted Tweets instead of or in addition to its own? Will we begin to see more companies doing this, and if you were exposed to Promoted Tweets, would you rather have them come from the company, or its customers?
UPDATE: Just to clarify, Ford didn’t pay me a penny to use my tweet as a Promoted Tweet.
Mack,
Great post. I’m impressed. I think this a great strategy by Ford. They’re rewarding their online advocates and generating positive buzz — without any risk. This is one way that a big brand can actually “control the message” successfully with social media.
David
Hey David thanks for commenting! I agree with you, it’s a great move by Ford, and by promoting their advocates (literally), that will only encourage the advocates to create more content about Ford.
I also like that Ford is in a place where they are continuing to experiment with what social media can and cannot do. The alternative is to wait and see what other companies learn, and try to copy them. Companies like Ford and Dell are pushing the edges of what is possible with social media, and that’s why they’ll be reaping the rewards.
One of your positives is that you use reasonable data to point out whether something is effective or not. Too often, folks use theory, the numbers you share are reasonable and directionally similar to other direct marketing activities.
Thanks Kevin. When Ford contacted me about doing this I stressed to them that I’d like to post the numbers here, if they were willing to share the results they saw. I think the numbers for this small sample are decent, not shockingly good, but if other campaigns see similar numbers I think it’s strong enough to warrant further investment.
Great move from Ford, and definitely kudos to you to demand statistics to prove the point. It’s very important to have metrics, and most importantly, I think it serves Twitter itself a great service in order to promote their revenue model.
Mack, I like you. And this is a solidly written post. I also like Scott and Ford, and what they have been doing in the Social space.
I will be fair and reserve judgment on the wisdom of this kind of tactic for later. It might actually help sell cars, and I can applaud the effort to test this option. But here is what troubles me a bit:
1. You aren’t a Ford owner. If you were, I could see the relevance of a promoted message about Ford. Disclosure would be the only issue: “I am getting paid to say this, but I actually LOVE my Ford” makes sense. I can wrap my mind around that. But this? Hmmm. I could backfire for both Ford and you. (I hope it doesn’t, but consider the possibility.)
2. Impressions and clickthoughs are soft conversions. What I would be more interested in, as a Ford exec, would be conversions to Sales. Legitimate, unprompted recommendations from peers = relevant, sticky impact. Prompted, paid-for sponsored tweets from peers = my next door neighbor wanting to sell me tupperware. The first kind is more likely to result in a customer. The latter is more likely to prompt an unfollow, and a negative reaction to the brand behind the tactic.
Those are my fears. Not saying that’s what will happen. In fact, this may turn out to work very well (and I hope it does). Just be careful with it. 😉
Hey Olivier, as to your points:
1 – In general, I agree, I think a Promoted Tweet from a satisfied Ford owner/advocate resonates more than one from a 3rd party. And to clarify (I just edited the post to add this as well), Ford didn’t pay me a penny for the Promoted Tweet. And I believe they are thinking of using Promoted Tweets with sources AFTER the content is published, not as a way to entice them to publish favorable content, and/or pay them for that content. But maybe they are thinking differently, I have no idea.
2 – Of course Sales are more important than clickthroughs. Actually I think I gave the wrong impression by not disclosing in the post at first that I was NOT paid for the Promoted Tweet. I didn’t even consider that anyone would think Ford WOULD offer to pay me. Guess my Ego 2.0 isn’t big enough 😉
I just wanted to show the numbers because I think we were all interesting. I don’t think they are jaw-dropping, but interesting, nonetheless.
Hi Mack –
First, I agree with Kevin. You are one of the few #socialmediapeoplewhokillme who provides numbers. I like that about you.
Second, e-mail open rates and clickthroughs are not at all the same as Twitter impressions and clickthroughs. Saying e-mail and promoted tweets are similar is a VERY big leap. Read: Grand Canyon-sized. Not to mention that the sample size was, as you said, REALLY small.
I am not convinced that promoted tweets will sell a bunch of cars for Ford but the publicity they get from guys like you could provide them with a lot of link juice, that’s for sure.
Hi Amy! I agree with you that I’m not convinced that Promoted Tweets can directly sell cars for Ford. In fact I would be shocked if it ever can or will directly result in sales on anything other than a marginal basis.
But can it lead to some other activity like exposure/awareness that indirectly leads to more sales? To me, that’s a far more interesting question, and I like that Ford is brave enough to do some experimenting with the possibilities. Unfortunately, there’s still WAY too much we don’t know about the realistic potential of social media in a business setting, so I like it when companies like Ford and Dell are pushing to see what is possible.
BTW on a completely unrelated note, I like how Twitter is handling Promoted Tweets by inserting them into search results. So as it stands now, if you don’t want to see them, you won’t unless you do searches. Now if they eventually start randomly inserting them into user’s timelines there will be some big pushback, but that’s another debate for another day. What do you think about how Twitter is trying to monetize its service?
Certainly, direct sales aren’t likely through this, however I think the savvy social media marketer realizes this. Social media is more about actual relationship building and, less directly, publicity.
There has been some hype recently over how celebrities, while having many followers, aren’t really that influential in social media spheres. I think there’s a direct correlation to be made from that to this.
The promotion was small, and had a small (but impressive) response. But I’m willing to bet that those who clicked and responded feel they have a stronger relationship with Ford. And that, I think is the key to a successful social media ad.
I agree with David – I’m impressed with what Ford’s doing. They’ve found a way to make social media profitable, and so now they’re pioneering how big bad brands can do it even more.
At first I was pleasantly surprised at the CTR for the tweet being the highest of the 4 you mentioned. But, once I chew on it a bit, I think I would actually expect it. On Twitter especially, the savvy are using it just as much as a content delivery/curating system as anything. So you mix an interesting tweet from an interesting guy about a highly recognizable brand that’s innovative in its marketing, and you get some clicks.
Thanks for sharing the stats –
bd
@bdunc1
Your last post I brought up in conversation at the conference I was in this past weekend. This just adds weight to the discussion on how traditional outreach and marketing is making a big shift and it WORKS! I linked to your last post Mack in hopes that more folks in multifamily will be able to see that brands are shifting in how they connect and it applies even to companies who deal with a transactional cycle of 1 or more years. I look forward to more stats from this relationship with Ford.
Thank you Jonathan! Social media will never replace traditional marketing, but it can shift the possibilities when used alongside traditional methods.
There is still a LOT of learning left to be done though. These are still VERY early days.
I agree with you sir.. it has been interesting to see businesses with limited budgets trying to leap into the space. I am with you on the learning curve..wake up each day and close it with “What did I learn today and can do better tomorrow” is the best mentality.
It’s an interesting approach for sure. I just hope it’s not going to create a bunch of faux Ford “fans”, who start waxing lyrical because of the potential to be paid for it.
Also, will Ford be promoting negative tweets, as an example of rewarding feedback that really helps the brand and product improve?
Hey Danny! Not sure what Ford plans on doing from this point forward, but they didn’t pay me for promoting my tweet, so I was assuming that they weren’t planning on paying anyone. And I don’t think they should.
As for promoting negative tweets/posts/articles, should we really expect them to do that? I think a far better use of their money would be to work directly with that dissatisfied customer to solve their issue and take their feedback internally to improve current and future processes.
What do the rest of you think?
Mack,
Pretty bizarre post. No disrespect to you, or Scott or Ford, I am and have been a Ford owner since I started driving, and my folks only ever drove Ford cars and trucks.
I Love what Ford is doing in the SM Space, and I applaud them for reaching out to leverage folks FOLLOWING, however I am surprised you would drift down that path with no real Ford experience. Again, not a slam, just a question, as this seems more like “celebrity” focus on your following and reach, Frankly, GM is doing a similar approach by giving ever blogger they can find a car to drive for a few weeks, except at least they drove the product.
Doesn’t that go against the grain of everything you write about?
Hey Eric, I think you might be confused about exactly what happened here, let me better explain the events:
1 – My friend Kaitlyn, who works for Ogilvy PR (who has Ford as a client), told me that she had the chance to interview Ford CMO Jim Farley at the Paris Auto Show recently. She emailed me and a few other marketing/social media bloggers to ask us if we would like to send her a question for Jim. I said ‘absolutely!’, and sent her my question.
2 – Kaithlyn asked Jim about 5 questions from different bloggers, and recorded his answers in the video in this post – https://mackcollier.com/ford-cmo-jim-farley-social-media-leading-to-massive-cost-savings-for-ford/
3 – I then took the video, and made a blog post out of it, the one you see linked in #2.
4 – The day after I left the post, Scott Monty contacted me and said Ford would like to use it as a Promoted Tweet, and asked if I was ok with that. I said that I absolutely was.
Just to clarify, I had no idea Ford would want to use my tweet as a Promoted Tweet when I wrote that post, and they didn’t pay me a penny to do so.
Hi Mack,
Thank you for clarifying, although I think I understood what transpired. And, know there isn’t a right or wrong here, this is all new, and I am not judging, but the bottom line is Ford wanted access to Mack Colliers following and reach, irrespective of if they paid you or not.
Actually Eric, you’ve got it backwards. We used Ford’s followers and reach to give attention to Mack’s content. It’s really no different than us posting something from Autoblog or the WSJ on our Facebook page. We’re highlighting what other people are saying about Ford.
Cool thread.. I talked to someone today who backed up my personal and company way of approaching business. He said to me “I don’t care whether or not they buy from me or use my services…I am going to keep reaching out and educating people on what I do and if they choose to work with me or use my services in the future..cool” I am not a current Ford driver, but let me tell you I sure talk about the Ford initiative in general conversation and in my classes. Having only brand advocates talk about you would only keep your reach within a given circle and it appears to me that Ford is working to broaden their circle with folks who will talk about them whether or not they drive a Ford product. Not sure if I made sense or not but those are my Thursday thoughts 🙂
Very interesting post, stats, and thread Mack. I’m glad we’re able to see the reach we have through social media. Clearly we aren’t going to be able to track conversions on a car overnight because its not that quick of a purchase decision. I am looking forward to the day when we can really tie conversions to this activity.
Jill
@jillmcfarland
Social media payola?
Even without any cash or gifts changing hands, doesn’t a large multinational corporation buying exposure in the social media space for someone in your position push you towards “shill” on the legitimacy scale?
(To be clear, I’m playing devil’s advocate for the sake of discussion and not actually suggesting any impropriety on your part.)
A shill gets paid to go and promote something AND is usually noted as someone who is less than genuine in his convictions. In this case, Mack had already spoken from the heart and then we asked if we could bring additional attention to it. Big difference there.
My goodness the things you can uncover when you read the post before commenting 😉 Sorry Scott, but as Mr. Monty said, I had already written a post WITHOUT Ford’s knowledge, which Ford then asked to promote. The content wasn’t created so Ford could promote it, in fact I had no idea that they would ask.
Hope that clears the air, but let me know if you have any further questions.
If a blogger who derives income from social media engagement gives positive review of a company’s product/service and then that company offers to use said positive review in a paid advertisement in social media space, don’t you that would compromise the blogger’s integrity?
Let me put it you another way, Scott: does it matter to you that movie networks use snippets of people like Roger Ebert (Sun-Times) or Peter Travers (Rolling Stone) to promote their movies? Does it make their reviews any less authentic or compromise their integrity?
Scott I would agree with your implied point IF I knew that Ford might want to use my post BEFORE I wrote it. As I stated in the post, my post was the first one Ford used from a 3rd party as a promoted tweet.
Again, I had no idea that Ford would be interested in using the content as a promoted tweet when I wrote it. I didn’t even know it was a possibility, because Ford had NEVER used a 3rd party source of content as a promoted tweet.
Additionally, one of the things I cover here is how companies are using social media. By letting Ford use one of my tweets as a promoted tweet, I can see the results from a very innovative use of social media, and report the results to my readers. It’s a win-win-win, Ford gets additional exposure, I get additional exposure, and my readers get better and more valuable content.
If after reading all this and hopefully understanding my point of view, you STILL think my integrity has been compromised, then I’m sorry you feel that way. But it’s an interesting point nonetheless and I appreciate you keeping these issues top of mind for me.
Really good strategy in my opinion, applying credibility to the brand with little risk as they are promoting via a channel that has no direct connection with the brand, hence no detrimental impact if it hadn’t worked. Quite evidently it did work…Be interesting to see who follows suit.
It’s not just the advertising which people relied on. It’s about the trust. Ford has already established so many things in the auto world and whether there’s advertising or not, people knew they’re legit. However in my own point of view, this one is a good tactic not just to encouraged people but through social media, they were be able to showcase not just their vehicles and Ford parts but also how people are satisfied in having them.