Honda recently caught my attention with their new social media marketing campaign - "Everybody Knows Somebody Who Loves a Honda". I found this particularly interesting because Honda is directing people to Facebook in order to participate in the experiment [1]. I could not recall another company of Honda's stature using a foremost social media platform for an official marketing campaign and customer engagement platform. Interesting!
After visiting the page myself, I see that Honda has amassed an impressive network of 268,000 fans (as of Nov 2009). Counting all of the fan's friends, this network reaches over 3.3 million Facebook users.
How is this particular social media campaign important? Honda is increasing their customer engagement by providing a mainstream medium for individuals to exchange stories, pictures, memories, and connect with other users sharing a common interest. All of this social interaction works to naturally build a diverse and loyal community of customers and prospects who engage in two way conversations about the brand. This activity strengthens brand loyalty and advocacy, and increases brand awareness to a broader cross section of individuals (e.g. friends of users participating in the experiment). Leveraging social media also gives Honda a very cost effective means to engage a massive web of individuals while still keeping the brand in touch with some of its best customers at a micro level. In further reading and exploring, I learned this campaign may be a multi phase project with additional Facebook application features to enhance the overall customer experience.
I find Honda's experiment as an important step forward in the evolution of social media marketing and customer engagement methods. I am excited to see how this marketing initiative plays out and any new inroads it may pave. Stay tuned!