HIRE ME TO SPEAK
HIRE ME TO SPEAK

Christopher Barger on social media communications at GM

I write about strategies to turn fans into customers and customers into fans. I also share ways to use real-time strategies to spread ideas, influence minds, and build business.

Social Media  |  Public Relations  |  Case Studies  |  Brand Journalism  |  Best Practices

Gmblogs

Several people who have been following my video interviews with Fritz Henderson, CEO of General Motors and Bob Lutz, GM vice chairman have asked me how I was able to score such high profile discussions.

Here's how: I wrote a critical blog post in June Attention GM: Here are the top 5 marketing ideas for your reinvention. The post received hundreds of tweets and more than 50 comments. Very quickly (within hours actually) I was engaged with the social media team at GM. They turned me around. I went from a critic to a supporter. I’ll let Christopher Barger, director, social media at General Motors tell the story from his perspective in this video.

The video is 6 minutes. Below are some times if you want to skip to a particular part of the video.

Filmed with my Flip video camera and edited on iMovie.
Direct link to the video here.

Favorite quote: “Part of humanizing the company is showing that you have a life.”

:00 – 1:30 On how GM monitors social media and how my negative blog post and tweets were found by the social media team at GM.

1:30 – 2:50 The organization of the social media team at GM

2:50 - 3:30 Of the many thousands of people talking about GM online, how does GM choose who to engage?

3:30 - 5:40 How Barger deals with 24x7 communications in an always-on world.

Tomorrow I will post the final GM video interview. I also discuss some of the new GM product lineup and thoughts for how to market cars like the Chevy Volt.