Socialmediaworx

Scott Goodson of StrawberryFrog has a post over at Reveries about the social media strategy they cooked up for the Toyota Scion. Understanding that the Scion owners – not unlike the MINI community – are an intensely passionate group of car owners, was critical to developing a strategy that connected with them in a relevant way.

Scion owners are all about customizing their ride, so Scott and his team created scionspeaks.com, which allowed Scion owners to create their own crest which could be painted or adhered to the car, or even added to your social network of choice. Scott breaks down some of the lessons learned, and what made the Scion social media strategy successful:

1. Define the key social behaviors of your target online.
2. Identify your brand’s social behavior and objective in the social space.
3. Create social-media content; don’t advertise on it.
4. Be careful you’re not duplicating established social communities.
5. Don’t hijack consumers’ social networks.

Ultimately, Scott writes that the campaign worked because they understood the culture and how to properly participate:

In other words, we did something most brands wouldn’t dream of doing: We handed it all over to our consumers. We furnished them with tools. We let them play with those tools. We let them talk about it online and spread the word, months before the official campaign launched. We let them take pride in it.

Then—and only then—did we open the floodgates and launch Scion Speak campaign. The point is, you don’t create an authentic social-media campaign. The culture does.

Be sure to check out Scott’s full article at Reveries.