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Welcome back to Online Marketing TV.
We're here with Charlotte Blank.
Charlotte, welcome.
Hello.
Thank you.
Thanks for joining us.
So why don't we just start off with little bit of a discussion about you.
Tell us kind of your background,
what you do, and then we'll jump into the fun questions.
Sure, I'm Charlotte Blank, I manage
Social Media at GM supporting
all four of our U.S.
brands and a little bit of global consulting as well.
It's kind of interesting,
I was thinking about when you
kicked off the conference today asking
about, you know, how specialized are you in the audience.
I think my role is
transitioning from being a
just social as a vertical
to a little more of a
holistic digital marketing role and
that's just part of this trend
where I think big companies are learning
about social or specific
sub-disciplines of digital marketing.
Can't really exist on their own
and we need to reorganize internally so
that it's all around the consumer
and it's all around analytics and
data and we're all
kind of maybe experts in
certain things, but we've got
a good understanding all the way around about how those need to connect.
So I think this year my new
role will let me you know,
learn a lot more about some of the other elements.
So talk to me a little
bit about your role and
how that pervades throughout the organization.
Give us a sense of what's going
on behind the close doors there and
who's working with who and how you kind of fit into that whole equation.
Sure, that's really been a
big part of, kind of, my
job at GM in the last
year and a half is we started
out with an inventory and
a just lay of the land what's
the social ecosystem at GM?
Because it's kinda new,
it's hot, everyone's doing a
little bit of it, we work with
dozens of agencies and partners,
and it was kind of a mess.
And so, there was a
need for central kind of
a subject matter expert group and
an agency helped us with
this as well to kind of figure out who everyone was.
So we basically now have it
set up with each of
our four US brands has their
own digital marketing team with
support from their creative agencies.
They manage their own social channels.
They manage the tone of voice,
the way they speak to their consumers,
the type of content that resonates depending
on their campaigns and their ongoing messaging.
My role from a central
standpoint is a lot
of internal organization issues; helping
us set vendors and suppliers
and help us organize a lot
of communication with regular ongoing meetings.
And I also manage a lot of
our relationships with our
partners in the social space,
you know, big platforms like Facebook, etc.
Got it.
Interesting.
You know what I heard that is,
it sounds like to
me you spend significant amount of
time managing relationships to get
everybody to get on the
same page, to do some
things help each other in
terms of drive this whether it
be a technology partner, an agency,
or an internal constituents, what's
one of the kind of "aha"
moments when you tried to
manage all these various folks
moving the ball forward.
We go wow, if I could
just encapsulate that idea and keep it moving.
Anything that kind of stuck out to you while you were going through that process?
I think we've been swinging on a
pendulum of centralized versus decentralized
in the model the way we manage social media.
There was a real need I think
two years ago to kind
of put a spotlight on it
at the center and have a
social agency that did
everything for us and we
did everything kind of from a central standpoint.
kind of moving it back towards
the brands and giving them
more of that creative voice and
the ability to come
up with big ideas where social is at the center.
But there are some elements of
social media that we still
feel very much need to be
centralized, and I think the most
important is probably metrics and analytics.
So when we use social listening
tools to understand what people
are saying about us, our share
of voice and sentiment, but how
that ties in from
a market-mix modeling standpoint, where
it's we're looking at results
from our OLA campaigns and our
web analytics, bringing all of
that together in one central
brain that ensures consistency across our brands.
I think it's something that we're really
missing because sometimes we
tend to you know, big company
[xx] and you know,
Chevrolet might be doing one
thing and find success one way
and buick another way.
So I think this is
going to be effort for us
going forward this year is bringing
that all together in a central.
Great so OLA.
Online advertising.
Got it.
So I make sure everybody understands OLA.
So let's get a little bit on to the tactical side.
What are you starting to see that's
driving the needle for where
you go, "Wow, if I had
to place my bet on one
area to kind of put
more budget in and to be
known for in the organization
and put my full gurth behind it.
What would you, what would you
say and what are you
seeing really kind of make
things you know, push forward more than the others.
I think a big area of
opportunity for us this year
will be mobilizing our owners,
current GM vehicle owners.
Mm-hmm.
We've been using our social
channels to focus really
upper funnel on lifestyle/passion connections.
You know, Chevrolet has a music vertical.
We're doing lots of music videos and
that sort of thing, and Buick
with a culinary approach, Cadillac focusing on it's halo products, racing.
So that's where we see people really light up in the social space.
But at the same time we know
that most of our fans on Facebook are owners.
So how can we enable them
to, to share the
love and to let their friends
know how much they, they love our Got it.
So we're coming up with
great advances in our owners'
center, kind of a
one-stop shop experience for once
you purchase a Chevrolet or other
GM-branded vehicle, that you
have everything you need there, and
what can we do to amplify that
with social opportunities like Open
Graph, so that every time,
I as a Chevy owner engage with my vehicle somehow.
I know oil change is
always the first thing that comes
to mind, but maybe something more fun and awesome than that.
Maybe a little offroading or something like that?
Yeah.
Every time I do something
fun, listen to, you know,
created a new Pandora station in my vehicle.
Right.
Now that that's, you know.
Sounds a little dangerous to be
creating a Pandora station in the vehicle as you're moving, yeah?
Maybe my passenger does it.
Or maybe I do it while I'm stopped at a red light.
Well done, well done.
But there are all these great opportunities.
Our OnStar-enabled vehicles have
kind of an Open Graph opportunity
now with new apps being developed
for it every day so we've
got great partnerships with Pandoras of the world, etc.
So as an example, something
you can do in your car
you spend so much time in your car, as an owner.
So each time you interact with
it somehow, how do we light that up in the social space?
Yeah.
You know, using responsive stories
you know other opportunities to
get people engaged because they see their friends.
We need to figure out this telepathy
thing so we can start like just
having these things go strait into
our tweet streams and them make
it like [xx] That would make it easier that would.
That neuroscience degree [xx].
There you go perfect.
So I love what you
were talking about in terms of
lifestyle because what I hear
you say is that we're building
our social media presence into what
people are doing and how
they live and what they really
like because a lot of
times they're not enthusiast about the
actual product at an
individual level but they're enthusiast
about that product as it relate
to certain areas and moments in their life.
Yes.
Talking about just how do you guys integrate in the lifestyle.
Do you guys have to partner to other
organizations that aren't lifestyle built
or are you just trying to build
your own mini-brands that are
lifestyle built, that incorporate the product, if that makes sense.
Certainly.
I think,again, it depends on the vehicle.
So we do have for you know, on the nameplate some people.
Camaro fans, they just
want to just read about
their Camaro and they want all content that's Camaro related.
But for say a big
brand Chevrolet, which means so
many different things to so many different people.
Right.
You know, we range from
a Sonic to a Volt to
an equinox to a Corvette and
to a Camaro, they're very very different communities.
So it really underscores the
importance of research, and
knowing your target and what they are interested in.
And from the lifestyle perspective, I think Chevy's music.
Hiller is a good example.
We recently launched the Sonic, which is our new small car targeting millennials.
and more specific than millennial,
it's the cytographic is kind of the first timer.
It's the time in your
life, yes, you're buying your
first vehicle but you also
maybe you have your first serious
boyfriend, your first real job out of college.
It's a very interesting time in
your life when everything new and exciting and different.
[xx] first time.
So it's how do you tap into
that feeling that resonates with
people, more so than just, oh, you're buying your first car.
Here's why you should buy a [xx] it's much more of a tap into that excitement.
So that's what bore this
Conic Stunts campaign which we
highlighted at the Super Bowl and
seeded throughout the internet with a bunch of YouTube videos.
Was that the bungee and out of the airplane?
That's a great ad.
We got to Sonic off a
building with a bungee cord, we
had Rob Dyrdek the skateboard
celebrity doing a Sonic kick
flip, the first time a car has been flipped like a skateboard.
Yeah.
So just really fun things that you wouldn't ever see a car doing.
The first time you time a car did this.
So, that's just an example
of how you can kind of tap
into some lifestyle.
And leveraging a big media
spend into the lifestyle and
social and integrate it all the way back.
And that's been such a key learning for
us, is that, I'm sure
that a lot of big brands struggle
with this, that misconception that
social is free, and that,
oh great, we can just save
so much money and just create viral videos.
You've got to get it out there, right?
We've learned that if you want
Chevy numbers in the
reach that we like to see
with on Chevy, you've got to find
some Chevy weight.
So when is the campaign
going to come out about the first
time I made love in the back seat campaign.
Because that would get a lot interest out there, right?
I'm not sure if that's completely aligned
with the Chevrolet everyday hero platform Right?
But the Camaro guys, they could.
Maybe they the Cadillac,
the Alpha dudes for sure.
There you go.
Good.
So, let's wrap up
on one question we're asking everybody in the show here.
Talk to me just about a piece
of advice you can give to
a lot of people that are, to be quite frank, aspiring to be you.
I mean, you're doing a lot at GM.
It's really exciting.
I'm sure a lot of people
out there are looking for careers
like that, looking to grow their
career within their organizations, big company and small.
What's allowed you to get to
this spot where you're at now
and what advice would you
give folks that are trying to
climb those various ladders out there?
I think the advice that I would give people is really follow your passions.
I think I kind of broke outside the mold of it.
I have kind of a traditional
media and an MBA background
and just had this
passion for Detroit and auto
and just wanted to do
something different, and it looked a little weird.
Hold on.
A passion for Detroit, really, or
is this just the Chevy spin on this whole thing?
Oh, not at all.
No, Chevy, Chrysler owns that.
We're America, we're in there,
but in high sight I was
applying at a company and
tearing the walls down trying to
get in to this dream job really
while they were filing for bankruptcy, it makes no sense.
Yes.
You know it was an intuitive decision.
So that's kind of the advice
I give people, that if
you're passionate about something, that's the best way to get in.
I love it.
And you said something that's really key.
I mean what we talked about it
earlier today is just allowing
it to kinda flow it by
itself because if you try to
get in the best moment, the best
company, the best time, you probably go into a very short-lived situation.
But if you get in at the
not-so-best time, a little bit worse, a little bit hard.
You've got to put in the effort and help build it up.
Yeah.
Those opportunities, if you allow
yourself to think like that, allow
the short term to be supplanted
by the long term, great piece of advice.
Love it.
Since I've been there, it's been like catching a kite tail.
I mean GM has just been
performing so well in the past year.
I'm so proud to have been even a tiny part of it.
That's cool.
Great, look forward to watching
you as your career grows and
everything else and thank you for joining us on the show.
Thank you.