Ford has always been one of the most proactive brands. Last Friday, the company created two accounts on Google+ to test the budding social platform for web traffic marketing. Although still in nascent stages, Google+ holds a lot of promise according to Ford’s social media head Scott Monty. Apart from good features, the developing social media platform’s integration with other Google products is one of its biggest strengths.
Both the accounts, Ford Europe and Ford Motor Company, started generating posts soon after their creation. The Ford Motor Company account initiated a Huddle, a Google+ feature which allowed Ford executives to interact with up to ten people. Monty believes Huddle to be one of the budding social media site’s most promising features as it has the capability of being used for analyst calls, webinars and for users to have face-to-face interaction with brands. The Ford Europe account organized an image caption contest with the prize of DiRt3 game.
During the limited test period, within 4 days of the Ford Motor Company account going live, 150 people had added it to their circles and the brand had added 10 people to its circles. The figures for Ford Europe account are smaller. Although these figures are tiny, they still demonstrate strong potential for the community to grow. Monty points out that Google+ is yet to develop brand friendly profiles and the site is currently focused on individuals rather than corporations.
At present there are only 6 Google+ users with over 10,000 followers. Even the accounts of Google’s top management and Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, have less than 30,000 followers each. Apart from Ford, other Brands to have created Google+ accounts include Mashable, ABC News and The Next Web.