Case Study: Social Media Monitoring @ Toyota analyzes social media data for sales improvement, quality improvement & marketing

Toyota uses social media monitoring to analyze the social media data across social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. to keep a track of what customers are thinking about their cars, specific models, customer feedback, and quality issues and use this data to improve the sales of cars. Social media monitoring and sentiment analysis have become a key element of social media strategy for companies as the customers actively engage on various social networking sites and voice their opinions and often criticisms about the company’s products and services. In a CIO.com article by Zack Hicks is CIO at Toyota operations in North America and group vice president for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A, “Today, we use social media data analysis across many areas--sales, service, quality, marketing and product development. For example, if a customer expresses interest in a car, we can determine engagement by analyzing the frequency of dealership visits via their Foursquare check-ins, understand their dealership experiences, and even understand what features may have sparked their interest in a competitor's product. This allows us to stratify leads based on their readiness to buy, moving stronger leads to the top of the list.” One of the best methods of analyzing the social media data is the keyword correlation and linkages that will help the company analyze what all options the customer looking at before buying the Toyota cars and what keywords customers are using for the search and whether the key words reflect the company’s brand image and reputation.

Social media monitoring also helps in competitive intelligence by using the sentiment analysis the company will study how customers are talking about Toyota’s car models and is that talk is materializing into final purchase of the car by the customer and accordingly use the information in predictive analysis of future sales. Toyota also uses the social media data to understand more about their existing and potential customers like their hobbies, interests, what movies and TV shows they like, what sports they like and what all other social networking platforms they actively use which will help Toyota to do brand collaborations, place ads, promote such events and use their marketing and advertising budgets efficiently. Toyota is also immediately responding to the quality, product and service issues faced by Toyota customers and resolve them as soon as possible to avoid backlash. Toyota is also using social media platforms to identify the prospective customers, analyze their needs and requirements, understand what other brands of cars the customers are looking at and also target the customer with specific offers like discount coupons, providing customers the necessary information and clarifications so that they can make easy and fast decisions. Toyota also uses the data to study the effectiveness and performance of their dealerships and how dealers are pushing the sales as dealers are critical link in the car sales. Social media has become a critical platform for the automobile industry particularly car industry, as the car makers are aggressively using social media for product development and reduce lead times by testing the concepts on social networking sites. Social media monitoring has become a big competitive advantage for the auto industry and Toyota is using the social media monitoring strategy effectively. Social Media Monitoring is proactive strategy that helps companies to understand their customers and develop products accordingly.