An old saying in the automotive industry states that every dollar spent on marketing should earn you three. It’s exactly this result-driven approach that makes it difficult for a rather conservative business to adopt new media as part of their marketing strategy.

Cars however, have large natural fan bases. As soon as the fans on Facebook and other social networks started creating their own groups, the brands knew they had to dive in the social media pool themselves. However, it is a process that – like in most industries that are still being run by 40+ year old Marketing Managers – takes a lot of time and effort.

While not getting into specific brands, let’s look at a few examples:

A brand headquarters in Munich only just recently decided to appoint a staff of two to maintain the company’s international Facebook page that now has over 263,000 fans. The former Brand Manager in the Netherlands tells us the German HQ has a well thought out content strategy for the page.

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