Twitter Isn't The Best Place to Ask Automakers About Slogans...

"Satish Kondapavulur" (becauseCAR)
09/04/2013 at 11:31 • Filed to: None

Recently, after four years of expressing my thoughts in 140-sentence papers, I finally got a Twitter account. There were a couple reasons for this, none involving upping my Klout score. One was to keep up with the ever-eccentric tweets of Taki Inoue. The other involved making unsolicited car recommendations to people. Only one of these has been successful in practice.

Sure, Twitter has its share of fun moments, mainly when Edmunds's Scott Oldham went after Ralph Gilles !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , demonstrating that even full-fledged grown-ups can still argue about sharing toys.

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Thankfully, my experiences with Twitter haven't come anywhere near that. Mainly because I have only 13 followers, which hasn't helped the Klout score. That and I can't figure out how to express things in under 140 characters after four years of being a history major.

Having a Twitter finally came in handy (or so I thought) last week when I asked certain car manufacturers !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . I ended up tweeting at 35 car companies, asking what their slogan was or if it had changed. Only 12 responded within the next 24 hours, effectively a hit rate of a little over a third. Which I have to say is pitiful.

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Up to that point, I had used Twitter for only two things: not finding Travis Okulski and Matt Hardigree during Pebble Beach weekend and giving Doug DeMuro an unsolicited car recommendation on what to replace the CTS-V wagon with. (For the record, I suggested a BRZ/FR-S. He promptly shot it down as “too common.”)

But back to my paltry results. Maybe I’m naļve as a three-week-old Twitter user, but you would think that the person in charge of a company’s Twitter feed would at least know their company’s slogan. But the fact that more than half didn't respond or don't have a corporate tagline on their corporate website perhaps speaks volumes.

Some of the companies that did respond obviously had to go to their company’s YouTube channel or find the latest print ad in order to determine for themselves. Such was the case with !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and the UK division of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! .

Despite this, it seems Twitter is not used for promoting a company's tagline. You would think the social media marketing gurus of all people would know or work up a company tagline, since they create numerous hashtags and other things that have to fit within 140 characters. But I have to venture that many of them probably don't due to the paucity of responses. As a result, they don't respond to a simple question of "What is your company's slogan?"

What apparently does warrant a response is when people tweet like this:

Drove the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Jetta to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! with my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! watch, while watching !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on my !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! phone. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Meanwhile, my tweet,

!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Does Ferrari have an advertising slogan?

deserved no response. Instead they retweeted Maria Bartiromo promoting the Ferrari F12 on her CNBC show.

I can understand the logic behind that, since she probably has wealthy followers on Twitter. But would you seriously take car recommendations from Maria Bartiromo? Wall Street doesn't even take her investment advice.

Now, I've done a little bit of research of who does the corporate Twitter feeds, and it's usually not the company itself. They outsource the tedious work of updating a corporate Twitter to an !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , who perhaps doesn't know the latest advertising campaign of the car company. Such was the case with Chrysler a few years back, right up until we saw tweets like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . It probably still is, and these social media marketers probably just don't know the slogans.

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So I guess I wasn't dealing with The Man at the car companies like I thought before. Instead, I'm dealing with underpaid employees of social media marketing firms, who are seemingly contractually obligated to inform followers of sales promotions, corporate charity programs, and retweeting owners' tweets at the company praising the product. Which takes a lot away from my future adventures with Twitter.

In the end, I think I'll shy away from asking automakers' Twitter feeds questions like "How do you plan on meeting CAFE requirements?" or "What is the most popular color on your cars?" that'll make the people behind them actually work a bit to answer.

It turns out I'm perfectly content reading the out-there tweets of Taki Inoue and voluntarily providing car recommendations to people who didn't ask for them.

And I just discovered my Klout score went up to 30. Which makes Twitter all the more worth it.

DISCUSSION (17)

Fred Smith > Satish Kondapavulur
09/03/2013 at 01:05

Seriously, your posts that aren't gimmicky listicles are awesome. I LOVED this. Thank you for doing actual writing, because it's seriously fantastic when you do.

ChiffChaff > Satish Kondapavulur
09/03/2013 at 01:41

I don't "twit" but I also enjoyed and actually read this entire piece...go figure!

Speedmonkey > Satish Kondapavulur
09/03/2013 at 03:49

You have another follower. @speedmonkeycouk

Satish Kondapavulur > ChiffChaff
09/03/2013 at 11:09

Thanks! But seriously, don't get a Twitter. It's actually somewhat of a chore. And it wastes a lot of your time if you use it religiously.

Satish Kondapavulur > Speedmonkey
09/03/2013 at 11:14

Thanks! Don't expect any frequent or profound tweets from me though. It'll probably be just me making unsolicited car recommendations and nothing else.

Speedmonkey > Satish Kondapavulur
09/03/2013 at 11:17

Those are the best tweets

Satish Kondapavulur > Fred Smith
09/03/2013 at 11:19

Thanks! I appreciate the comments! I'm trying to break out of doing the lists (though there still is one coming next weekend).

ChiffChaff > Satish Kondapavulur
09/03/2013 at 12:17

Understood: Done and (not) done!

Satish Kondapavulur > Satish Kondapavulur
09/04/2013 at 11:33

deekster_caddy > Satish Kondapavulur
09/04/2013 at 11:42

I looked at twitter once. I saw a lot of babbling flying by and I got away from it. Still don't understand how people make heads or tails of the stream of info. I get that everybody tweets lots of useful things. But since I couldn't find any useful things I stopped looking at it. Oppo is much more useful to me.

I guess I'm a luddite when it comes to social media, which is odd because I'm in tech and have no problem working out a VE table.

td:dr - I can't understand why twitter exists

Satish Kondapavulur > deekster_caddy
09/04/2013 at 11:51

I agree a lot with you. Following someone means nothing, because then I look at all those tweets, and then realize most of it's gibberish.

And don't worry. Working out a VE table is much more useful than using Twitter.

Atomic Buffalo > Satish Kondapavulur
09/04/2013 at 12:23

There could be some comedic value and noteriety in making unsolicited car recommendations. Think of a famous person and what car they should drive to improve their image.

Satish Kondapavulur > Atomic Buffalo
09/04/2013 at 12:28

That seems fun. Maybe I'll tell Ralph Gilles to buy a new Corvette to replace his Viper...

Atomic Buffalo > Satish Kondapavulur
09/04/2013 at 12:35

When did a Corvette ever improve anyone's image?

Satish Kondapavulur > Atomic Buffalo
09/04/2013 at 14:01

If they had a Porsche before it. :)

FourLions > Satish Kondapavulur
09/07/2013 at 22:22

Wow, you wrote 140 sentence papers! English majors call those introductions.

Satish Kondapavulur > FourLions
09/08/2013 at 14:46

And yet another reason why I didn't become an English major!