How Kia Motors Can Enhance Engagement with the Groundswell

A few weeks ago I posted my first report on the results of the social media monitoring I did for the Kia Soul "In My Mind" ad campaign. Since then, not much has changed in terms of response from the Groundswell. The focus has mostly switched toward Kia Motors' new Kia Soul 2013 in terms of excitement about this particular car and overall, I found more negative feedback or an absence of engagement than I had in the first half of my monitoring project.

Social Mention Results

The Social Mention results have mostly stayed the same since my last report except for today when the strength of the advertisement decreased to 1%! Honestly, that result does not surprise me as the ad is getting very outdated and was originally only reaching within the "Kia community" in the first place.

Trends

10/29:

11/07:

With the exception of a large dip at the end of November, the reaction from the Groundswell according to Google Trends has kept a steady rate.

Positive Response on Twitter

Positive Response on Facebook

The response from the Groundswell has stayed pretty much the same in terms of positive reactions.

Facebook Likes

11/01:

11/07:

11/14:

Recently, a significant amount of people have stopped talking about the Kia Soul. I predict that this is because of the introduction of newer cars and the aging of the ad campaign. Also, there has been an increase in negative feedback from my last report:

Negative Responses

(Ice Rocket was unable to find Twitter results on October 29th)

Some people found the advertisement annoying and besides the point of the car. While I disagree with them about the effectiveness of the ad because I think that it was a good idea to have a symbol such as the hamster and an interactive competition to peak people's interest, I do understand how some people could be annoyed by the music or the seemingly cheesy idea.

My predictions from my last report were mostly correct. As the ad campaign is becoming more dated, social media engagement has plateaued or decreased. I don't necessarily believe that this result is a negative reflection on Kia Motors but instead think that this is the normal course of ad campaigns such as this one that aim to create temporary excitement.

Steps for Kia Motors to Enhance Engagement with the Groundswell with their Kia Soul Ad Camapaign

As a result of monitoring the success of the Kia Soul advertisement campaign, I am able to give them suggestions to enhance their engagement with the Groundswell through Social Media.

• Listening: It is hard for any company to give up control of their brand or product to let the Groundswell in. I think that with this ad campaign, Kia Motors was aiming to "listen" what the Groundswell had to say through the use of Youtube and a popular song. They allowed the video to be about anything and required very little guidelines to be met. With that said, I am not sure that the Groundswell, through their efforts, necessarily felt heard. While there were not any guidelines associated with how one produced the videos, they had little relation to the car itself and all of the videos still had to be to a certain song and were meant to improve the Groundswell's opinions of the Kia Soul. The videos did not really allow for real opinions about the car or the company to be heard. I think that the ad campaign was creative and does not need to necessarily be changed on these grounds but I would suggest to Kia Motors to allow for an outlet where the Groundswell can participate more on their own terms in order to build trust and create deeper relationships. 

• Talking: While they have succeeded in terms of making sure their name is out there and that people know about their company, this particular ad campaign seemed to be more thrown out at the Groundswell without much interaction with their responses. By simply being more attentive to the actual people who are responding to their ads, they will be able to build on their goodwill and add more fans separate from the community that already exists. This is a key step in improving their engagement with the Groundswell.

• Energizing: I believe that the ad did a very good job of energizing the groundswell as it inspired, engaged, and connected with the Groundswell through a creative outlet of dance. Kia Motors should spread their ad campaigns through more social media outlets to engage the most amount of people and energize those that they have failed to reach by limiting themselves mostly to Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Only a fraction of the Groundswell was engaged and energized by this ad campaign.

• Supporting: My suggestion in terms of support would be to provide more information about the car through sales figures, owner reviews, online tours of the car, etc. because while the ad campaign was successful in spreading the word about the Kia Soul, they did not have enough information about the actual car to get people to move past the advertisement and become part of the Kia community. Also, the ad campaign only made the competition available to people who had access to a video camera and knew how to post their video on Youtube. If you were unable to spend the time and resources on participating, you were automatically excluded from the competition. Kia needs to find different variation of participation methods in order to engage and enhance participation.

• Embracing: Kia Motors should create an integrated communication option for nurturing the needs of the Groundswell. They should also aim to embrace the entire social media community by expanding their social media presence and reaching beyond their already existing community. The ad campaign did a good job of inspiring and driving action but only to a limited audience who had the resources and knew about the campaign.

With more use of social media tracking and monitoring abilities, Kia Motors should be able to accomplish a higher reach and more active engagement of the entire Groundswell. They must focus on the relationships they already have an aim to create new relationships by creating less exclusive ad campaigns and spreading their word beyond the few social media sites they are on presently.

The ad campaigns have been very successful in terms of inspiring participation but how they relate to the overall goal of the company still remains unclear. Somehow encouraging participation with the company after inspiration from the ad campaign may help to make this connection and spread the word and loyalty even further.