Last week, the SMCNYC was treated to a great presentation from Scott Monty, head of Social Media at Ford and Craig Patterson, Ford Explorer Brand Manager. With the NY Auto show serving as an appropriate backdrop, Scott presented us with an update to Ford’s Social Media programs, from the well documented Fiesta Movement, to the new campaign revolving around the all new Ford Explorer’s “Go Do” campaign, which gives lucky families across the country a dream vacation in a new Explorer, and then documents the entire trip online.  One of the highlights was a video with rocker Brett Michael flirting with his Ford Sync, the dialogue was slightly different than Haselhoff and his talking Trans-Am!

What a great audience. Several of them even wrote about their experiences of the evening.  Constance Korol of the Institiute of Business Forecasting and Planning wrote a review of the evening.  Heidi Cohen also wrote a blog post about the evening. She focused in on Scott’s five important social media steps:

1. Strong products. In the social media ecosystem, if your products don’t make the grade, it doesn’t matter how available you are on social media or any other venue.
2. Engaging content. Create compelling content that attracts and connects with  your prospects and your audience.
3. Speak like them. Check your corporate-speak at the door and use a human voice.
4. Let them speak. Allow your prospects and customers to express themselves.
5. Listen to them. Pay attention to what your audience is saying and acknowledge their concerns and respond to them.

Before wrapping up and taking questions from the audience, we were also shown Ford’s new campaign revolving around the redesigned Ford Focus, with a Crank Yankers -like talking sock puppet. Which got some good laughs from the very engaged audience.  I think the evening can best be wrapped up with Scott talking about engaging the audience on Social Media through the entire sales funnel until finally arriving at “They built a relationship with me, I trust Ford”.

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