Why doesn't GM have an official spokesperson for the Internet boards?
This is 06, the internet is a huge form of FREE advertising and FREE marketing research. I know Scott is on here, but that's not his real job.
I would think someday the big 3 will realize how many people they can reach online on message boards like this. How much free feedback they can get, How they can even get photoshops of what someone wants to see and then have 50 people comment and get an instant feel for how well it is recieved without ever lifting a finger.
How they can get a free feel for what options people want and what percentage would be willing to pay what for them.
They can ease complaints, such as ones about weight, by actually reaching a message board with 10,000+users and explaining in detail why it is what it is, before 47 billion threads are posted about it. This makes the customer(us) feel like we matter and are important much more then a form letter we might get if we e-mailed GM.
There are so many other benefits, I just for the life of me can't figure out why someone from the big 3 hasn't jumped on this. I'm sure someday someone will and there will be a fulltime person that just types on large message boards all over the internet doing some PR work. Then the other's will be like why didn't we think of that.

 

Scott is here on an "unoffical" capacity.

He explained the answer to this question to me once, and the reasoning was very good but the exact answer escapes me right now. I am sure he will chime in.

 

but i think this is the wave of the future...

GM needs someone who is a little big closer to the public, to sense what the public wants, or feels... this way, they can retort any problems on a televised or printed article...

what if a fellow was to be treated badly by a dealership, shouldnt GM know what their franchises are doing?

What if someone thinks GM cars are unreliable, dont you think GM should chime in, instead of sitting on the sideline like a bench warmer?

what if someone thinks a particular model would be a good idea, and would sell... dont you think GM should know, perhaps that indiviudal is right.

GM needs to have better communication with the public, it doesnt need to be in a traditional sense... it just needs to exist that GM listens to its potential customers and existing ones...

not to argue with you jason, just suggesting a few things here...

 

I would suggest that a possible answer is that most "boards" are started by and frequented by enthusiasts - nothing wrong with that but of the overall consumer market for automobiles, only a relatively small percentage could be classified as enthusiasts and not even all enthusiasts spend time on boards like this.

No large nameplate can be large/stay large if they concentrate primarily on the high-performance/enthusiast segment of their business – there just aren’t enough sales potential there.

I don’t know what kind of stats are kept here at CamaroZ28.com but I would suspect that of all the members here, the overwhelming majority of activity (posts, etc) are done by a relatively few members meaning that, were GM to concentrate a lot of resources here, they would be getting real input form a very small group of people compared to the overall market…there resources, for the time being anyway, are probably still better spend in more traditional ways.

 

not all boards are about performance, some boards are just car folk.... like C&G... they seem to care a lot about buicks... talk about performance

just an ear would be good... not necessarily to listen to people talk about performance, but what would be understandable as overall brand perception.

 

I manage to surf this board and a bunch of others everyday and it's not even my job. Hiring a whole 10 people who are paid to do this is not exactly a drain on resources.
As for us being a 'small' market, in todays marketplace they concentrate ads on very small market segments just because 1 or 2% means a big advantage with such stiff competition.
There's 55000 people registered here, even though only a few thousand may post, a few thousand more probably troll and we know of those thousands we talk more about cars to our friends then your average 'buy a car for transportation' person. When it comes to someone saying they rather buy a 'quality' toyota people like us probably are the biggest defenders of GM vs most other people who would just go 'oh thats nice, have you looked at honda too?'
The cars that gets talked about most like the lucene and the solistice are the ones that sell the best. Press, makes sales and sales make press. One keeps builing off the other.
Then there's the other aspects I already mentioned.
A billion threads about weight and 500HP engines. In less then one month since the debut these two things are already so over speculated about that people are regurgitating them like fact.
Now you have two camps. One thats already pissed about them being heavy and one that will be disappointed with anything less then 500HP.
No matter what by letting these rumors drag on GM has set themselves up for disappointment.
Where as a GM PR person could have steered the ship earlier, explained in great detail why weight will be this and why HP will be around this most likely.
Right now there is a thread about how strong the IRS will be. This isn't surprising given the 10-bolt legacy, but now you have people thinking it could be made of glass. Again someone at GM could step up and say no we are definitely making it as strong or stronger then whats in the current GTO.
Where not sure how much stronger but we can at least tell you that.
Then someone might respond 'are you putting in 2 spider or 4 spider gears' to which the GM PR person would go find out where they are leaning right now. If the PR person comes back and says well right now they are thinking 2 someone is going to ask why when 4 is stronger.
To this the PR person might say well we are making it out of titanium so in reality it should hold a lot more power, weight less, cost less and have less parts to assemble, or maybe they won't have a good answer in which case they need to go to the bean counters and engineers and ask why is it like this? Are we saving a huge amount of money? Is it going to be as strong? What advantage are we(GM) getting? If there's no good business reason, stick the 4 spider in it.
That kind of sounds obvious, but just look at the 4 spider 9-bolt vs the 2 spider 10-bolt.

Anyway I could go on and on.

 

No need to, I totally agree, but they do have some good reasons. Scott will clarify.

 

What is to say that they don't? We are constantly told that GM monitors websites like GMI, C&G, and CZ28.com. Who is to say that people aren't on other boards watching what is going on also?

For all you know I am one of them.

 

Many companies are already doing this--on both the forums and the blogosphere. We're doing it for some of our clients. It's called "Buzz Monitoring."

The disconnect comes when you actively try to manipulate the forums to acheive your goals. Companies are still having trouble coming to terms with the key difference between unmediated, viral new media and controllable, zero-feedback old media.

Over 50% of online content is now created by the users, rather than the companies and advertisers. This means that any brand message that isn't congruent with perceived reality will be swamped by content generated by the users. Not that companies cannot participate in a dialogue--they just need to know it is a dialogue, and they cannot control it.

There is an art--and a deep knowledge base--required to do this effectively. It's not as simple as hiring 10 PR grunts who know how to post on forums.

 

Hang the traitor!

 

Oh, we know they WATCH and watch a lot, but from a distance. I think we are talking about actually interacting with everyone.

But you are right, they may be interacting too and we would never know. At least I would never tell. I can't even be bought.

 

Yeah reporting what you guys want makes me a traitor.

 

One comment Scott made to me several years ago is that the message boards are filled with anonymous people that can say whatever they want. Getting to actually know people at events lends credibility to what they say.

Who really knows that I'n serious about a 5th gen 'vert, or that I really have 2 99's and a TB/SS ... and that the Solstice is really ordered?

 

Why do we care what you own or say you own? Your going to say whatever you want rather GM is here or not. We are always going to get the anonymous user side of things. Would think GM might want to interject their own perspective.
Anyone ever heard of the term Groupthink? Thats what happens on here with the 500hp 4000lb camaro a lot.

Mark my words someday one car company is going to start doing this online PR thing. Then we are going to say how stupid the others are for being last to the party again.

 

Simple ... if I'm just a pimply punk flipping burgers at McD's do you really care if I think there needs to be a 500 HP Camaro? You want to know that the guy demanding the 500 HP Camaro is actually in a position to buy one.