OnStar has an emotional connection with customers - providing help at the press of a blue button. We continue that feeling by extending the experience online by letting fans know they will reach a real person. Facebook is the main vehicle to achieve clear goals: create ardent supporters, convert the dissatisfied and generate brand interest where our efforts have generated 400,000+ loyal fans. Even dissatisfied customers—like Travis—became ardent supporters of the brand. Travis was angry. He turned to Facebook to vent. In minutes, he received an answer from CE employees who used their real names to ensure his trust. Travis is now one of our most influential fans, and is quick to point out that “Stacy, Jen or Lisa will help you" often faster than they can respond themselves. We’ve had great initiatives, contests and social engagements. We’ve created Facebook ads that drove interactions. We launched a new product that drove people to Facebook to experience more. OnStar stands for many things, but first and foremost, it stands for connections. Connections to help, connections to safety and connections to real people. What better place to demonstrate that than the social space? There are several reasons behind our success. In 2011, we increased our fan base by 127% with a focus on continued engagement. One of the biggest caveats of a page is getting fans to come back and interact with you after that initial “like". We have implemented an intense engagement strategy when writing status updates. Monthly Active Users jumped 306% and drove engagement up 128%. Fan engagement is of particular focus - as we engage in 80% of conversations. This helps us to assist with issues and building strong relationships that have often evolved into ambassadors for the brand. Our page has become an engaged community where often times other fans answer questions for others before we are even given the opportunity. When responding to fans, we don’t just answer their question. We also ask other questions, prompting them to engage more and creating authentic conversation. Fans are eager to share their experiences/stories because well, someone actually asked! We hosted a sweepstakes to get our new product in our fans hands first, and build awareness. This sparked excitement and engagement by fans and helped us to increase fan growth for the month by 21%, 320% increase in tab views, and generated 24% of the brand hand raisers. It also helped to spark interest in fans that asked about pricing and compatibility on their own vehicles. In another relationship building strategy, we create “purposeful polls’. Posing fun, provocative questions: “What’s the strangest things use you’ve found for OnStar?" and “What’s the scariest road trip to take?" and use the answers as demographic info to encourage more sharing and engagement. OnStar was one of the first brands to use Facebook’s Expandable Ad Units. By choosing the right status update, we received high engagement and with click through rates beating the average established by Facebook. Creating that kind of fan loyalty and dedication is the goal of our work in the social space. Yes, we desire the big numbers of a huge social campaign, but it all comes down to how you engage with the individual. How you treat the everyday person on an everyday basis. OnStar’s product services help many on a personal, 1-on-1 bases. And our social media is a direct and successful reflection of that philosophy.
