Ford social media strategy is integrated into the company’s overall business strategy not just with marketing strategy. Ford had adopted the social media strategy that included employees, dealers and customers which helped the company to exactly understand the key drivers and critical success factors that are driving the company success. Ford social media also provides a unique view of the customers and other social media users’ feedback, opinions, wants, needs and this engagement also led to generation of crucial information that help Ford Motor Company to improve product development, advertising or product marketing. Ford has created its Social Hub, website called Ford Social which provides a platform for costumers and fans to consume information interact with other users and provide feedback and suggestions to Ford. Of all the ideas users submitted, Scott Monty, Head of Social Media, Ford Motors Co said that 40% were either already in vehicles or were currently being worked on. Ford spends 20-25% of their total marketing budget on the digital platforms that roughly estimates to close to US$150 million per year which is higher than any other player in the automobile industry globally.
Ford has integrated social media into its marketing mix through a hub-and-spoke model, which means employees throughout the company can play a significant role in customer engagement process by knowing the message the company wants to give to customers and communicating with consumers in their own voices based on their specialization. Ford Social Media Strategy can be summed up as consistent presence in free social networking sites, paid digital efforts and other emerging forms of public communication. Consumers can engage with Ford in everything from Facebook pages to ads, from Twitter profiles to promoted tweets and trends, and from banner ads to rich media. Ford has more than 1.9 million likes on Facebook, more than 244,600 followers on Twitter, more than 171,000 subscribers and 4.4 million views on YouTube. Ford's Yammer enterprise social network internally for engaging employees has grown to have about 17,000 registered users (about 10% of them active participants). Ford is using Yammer to prove the business value of internal social networking with employees but no long-term commitment to Yammer has been made as the technology of choice.
According to Scott Monty, Ford has begun implementing the “One Social vision,” which was approved by top management of the company at the end of 2012 which is sponsored internally by the Ford’s chief marketing officer, chief communications officer, chief information officer, and chief technology officer. Scott Monty said, “The vision has been approved but we’re going back to some of the executive committees to get a commitment to structure and funding and putting a plan together.” As it stands now, he explained, there are “four pillars” to the One Social vision: Listen and engage; measure and monitor; learning and training; and growth and scale. “The notion is, turn Ford into a social business,” bridging its external social networks presence and internal social structure so that there’s a free flow of information from one to the other. “Whatever department you’re a part of, any of these four pillars should be relevant to you,” he said.
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