Chrysler, Ford not following General Motors on Facebook disengagement

What seemed to be positive for General Motors didn’t seem to be so for Chrysler or Ford.

The representatives from both the vehicle manufacturers stated that they are not going in General Motor’s direction for taking out its commercials from social media major Facebook.

It is worth mentioning that in terms of car unit sales in 2011, General Motors ranked as the biggest car manufacturer in the world. Headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, the car manufacturing giant faces steep competition from both Ford and Chrysler. Chrysler is another automaker which is based in Michigan with its headquarters in Auburn Hills. It has ventured into a strategic alliance with Italian car behemoth Fiat since 2009. On the other hand, Ford Motor Company is another major US-based carmaker which is headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford ranks as the second biggest car manufacturer in the US and holds the fifth rank in car making in the whole world on the basis of yearly car sales.

In this regard, Ford offers a specifically strong-willed justification of the social media platform. It said that Facebook commercials are quite successful when they are tactically blended with outstanding content, participation, and forward-looking techniques of narrating events. The success rate would have been much less if it was considered as a direct media purchase,

The social media head for Ford Motors, Scott Monty, said that they kept on enjoying a powerful and co-operative association with Facebook. This incorporated unique car displays, promotions and groundbreaking means of content sharing.

According to Monty, the fan base of Ford in all its Facebook pages had touched 10 million.

The engineers and technologists of Ford Motors were also functioning with the engineers of Facebook to design innovative and more dependable modes to combine the vehicle know-how with Facebook.

From the very beginning, Ford was an ardent supporter of Facebook as an ideal launching pad for promoting their brand. The car manufacturer is the first of its kind to introduce a new model particularly on Facebook when 2011 Explorer was launched in the month of July 2010.

In the interim, the spokeswoman of Chrysler, Dianna Gutierrez, stated the car manufacturer did not have any plan for going General Motor’s way in its attitude towards Facebook. All the brands of Chrysler are using Facebook for promotions as a part of its policy.

However, it’s uncertain if other car manufacturers will follow the GM trend. The marketing head of GM, Joel Ewanick, has been cynical about social media for an extensive period. Ewanick informed Brandweek in 2010 that he believed Twitter to be a short-lived platform. According to his opinion, it is somewhat hyped. A new media model is going to substitute Twitter in one or two years, Ewanick said.

However, there are opinions from the analysts that it was not a good move by General Motors and is short-sighted. The company was openly bargaining with Facebook for improved terms which the public will not take well. As a result, the biggest carmaker in the world might repent in the days to come. The defriending of General Motors of the Facebook promos would badly hit the users since Facebook would try to make it up with sponsored stories, paid status updates, App Center, and mobile advertisements.