GM and Ford are diverging on their social media strategies:
The social media marketing strategies of rivals General Motors and Ford have diverged, revealing a sharp divide on the perceived value of Facebook advertising during the critical IPO week for the social network.
General Motors' decision to ax its $10-million Facebook advertising budget exposed a difference in marketing philosophies among the major automakers and illuminated a key question: Are Facebook ads worth it?
GM decided it wasn't reaping a satisfactory return on its investment.
In contrast, "Ford ... is sticking by its strategy of pairing Facebook ads with content on its free brand pages."
One thing I find amusing about this Detroit rumble is that their chosen battleground is not Facebook but Twitter. Odd, at least to me, that Ford would choose to defend its use of Facebook not on FB but on one of FB's major social media competitors.
Anyway, I still think GM's right and Ford's wrong. The people talking up FB remind me of nothing quite so much as the people who were talking up dot coms in the late 1990s.
