Harley-Davidson Social Media

The thrill is gone!

We know we can connect, but can you affect our regular human everyday lives? That’s where the new frontier is, making us feel better about our existence when we’re not tethered to the computer, tablet or phone.

We’ve got social media fatigue. People have seen the movie, and they don’t need to waste more time.

I remember reading a retail industry study a few years ago which concluded that on average only 1% of total retail businesses actually have a written marketing plan in place.  It would seem that many H-D dealers have hitched their wagon to the theme of creating a monthly flyer (print or email) or as I call it, a marketing calendar that has a “reason to buy today” theme dedicated to each month.

This re-active theme is to make their sales messages more compelling, regardless of what media they choose to get the word out.

And getting the word out they are!   The motor company and now most of the local dealers are relentless.  They think they need to be everywhere.  Email blasts, posting on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram, Flickr, FourSquare, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Vine, etc.  Talk about getting distracted in so many different directions.

If you look at industry statistics, 6% of people ride motorcycles — and that’s in the best markets. If you’re marketing and casting a wide net, 94% of people you come in contact with aren’t going to be interested in what you offer. So of that 6%, what percentage are males? 90%. And what is the main demographic composition of Pinterest? 80% female. So for this particular market, investment and time in Pinterest is not going to be profitable or effective. It’s just not a fit, demographically speaking.

Another example is G+ which is Google’s answer to Facebook.  It’s only a couple years old, and has grown very quickly.   But, if you look closely you’ll discover that for some industries like photography it is great.  However, there’s very little moto-involvement and likely to be ineffective.

And then there are the ‘old skool’ methods.  Remember that t-shirt you purchased in route to Sturgis at the Montana dealer?  Yeah, they got your U.S. postal or email address and now you’ve become their new BFF with all the local promo’s, rides, service deals, photo contests and HOG prizes.  Talk about an example of casting a wide net… a thousand of miles away!

And speaking of Twitter, like every fad, once upon a time Twitter was cool. You know how it works, you hear about something from your hipster friends, you say you don’t need it but eventually you dive in, love it for a minute and then abandon it because it’s hard to be witty and viral all the time and do it in 140 characters.

My view is that Tweeting is like peeing off a cliff in the dark. No one sees it and you risk getting yourself wet.  Which is why Twitter is a sea of dropouts.  In addition, those who fan the flames of cool, (i.e. the youth), are always on the hunt for the latest and the greatest, moving on to new social networks (i.e.. ask.fm, SnapChat), only to abandon them when they fall out of favor, or when everybody else is there, and lose their cred.

I’m not saying there’s nothing there at Twitter. There is a nugget now and then. But following people, corporations or dealers is time-consuming, and ever less fulfilling. As for participating yourself, why would you?  The Internet has turned into a giant game that everybody’s trying to win.  Remember when everybody was gonna have a Webpage, then a blog?

So, here are some unsolicited thoughts for Harley-Davidson and it’s dealers. 

Clutter is our enemy.  We hate advertisements.  We want information we can use. The more drivel, the less we pay attention.  Just because you have our ear, does not mean we’re interested in everything you have to say. Either play to your core or play to everybody. If you’re doing the latter give us less information.

We live in a word of mouth culture and those social site quantifications are meaningless, because the system is being gamed.  The number of likes and followers are like virtual badges, they’re ultimately meaningless. 

Social media is no match for word of mouth. They can be one and the same, but frequently are not and consumers know the difference between what is hype and what is genuine.

Photo courtesy of m2mediamanagement.com

All Rights Reserved © Northwest Harley Blog

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Harley-Davidson – The Lady Gaga Edition

Let’s be clear.  Lady Gaga (a.k.a. Stefani Joanne Anglina Germanotta) grates on me.

Her lifetime achievement of ten songs are not only a derivative, but uninspired.  More on music later.

She’s been everywhere: award shows, gay-rights rallies, magazine covers, stadiums, YouTube, Letterman, SNL, Grammy’s, etc.  She consistently makes headlines for wearing outrageous outfits – a meat dress here, a spiky scepter there – and for spouting sound bites such as, “I can mentally give myself an orgasm” or “I smoke a lot of pot when I write songs” … it’s gag-a, gag-a all the time.

She is clearly a celebrity overexposed and should just go away.  But, her “little monsters” are goo goo over gaga and won’t let that happen so, what to do?

Call Mark-Hans Richer to suggest he create and capitalize on a “Sputnik Moment” as President Obama evangelized.  So here it is… drum roll please…the headline would read: Harley-Davidson signs Lady Gaga to an endorsement deal!  I can’t think of anyone else other than Lady Gaga who cuts across multiple gender identities, social boundaries, is an erotic taboo breaker, a mainstream manufactured product who claims to be singing for freaks, the rebellious and the dispossessed.  If there ever was a Harley-Davidson brand ambassador she would be it!

So, I put the question out to the Northwest Harley Blog think tank (a.k.a. my pet cat Smurf!) and the name H-D: Lady Gaga Edition rose to the top.  A close second was Lady Gaga: Dare To Be Different clothing line.  Honestly I think Lady Gaga’s fashion style is weird and qualifies her for worst dressed, but what do I know?  My fashion wardrobe is mostly black t-shirts.  However, the youth crowd demographic — which H-D desperately seeks – see’s her as agent provocateur.

Now I could wax on about some ideas of a limited edition, “Bites of Enlightenment” Sportster model with Beef Jerky strips as the paint theme or “The Fame Monster” FatBoy model complete with a “Glam” accessory kit like a hair bow, hat, sunglasses, gloves and even a couture neck brace!   But you’d likely think I’m just grousing and I wanted to get back to music.

Speaking of, there’s no cheating music.  Let’s be clear, you can imitate, you can rip off what’s been done before, but there is no short cut.  There’s a schism between “performers” and true artistry.  The artist stories are all the same.  They bought records and practiced in their basements until they were good enough to get a gig.  Then they gigged long enough until someone noticed.  Then they got a chance and some broke through.

The Eagles - 1973 on BBC

Speaking of breaks.  A reader emailed me a video.  My jaw dropped.  It was an Eagles performance on the BBC.  It was like being transported back to 1973 instantly.

So for all you Gaga haters out there the clip begins with “Train Leaves Here This Morning.”  What’s stunning is the band is sitting on stools singing all the music.  ALL the music.  Incredible harmonies.  There’s no one in the background, nothing electronic-fied or on tape.  The 4-part harmonies are almost perfect.  And when something is almost perfect you get “chicken skin.”  Hell, Bernie Leadon is wearing a UCLA t-shirt which was likely the first thing in his suitcase.  It was about the music not the look.  Randy Meisner smiles when singing “A Certain Kind of Fool” and when Don Henley sings “Witchy Woman” it takes you back to the first time you ever heard it, when you had no idea who he was.  This is a band.  Remember bands?

This is not Glee.  It’s not a look-a-like tribute to Madonna.  It’s like stumbling onto the Dead Sea Scrolls.  You can be broke and still sing “Take It Easy” with the wind in your face on the open road and you’re right where you want to be.  It’s reminiscent of a time where radio was about music, not commercials.  This is the way it use to be.  Something that exists in the mind of the artist/players not some stylist standing in front of the mirror perfecting your ‘do.

Photo courtesy of Lady Gaga, The Eagles, BBC and various publishers.

All Rights Reserved © Northwest Harley Blog

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Legends Never Stop

H-DNet Web Site

Working together to improve their joint bottom lines IBM and Harley teamed up for a new television ad promoting the way IBM’s portal technology (H-Dnet) helps the motor company advance its brand identity online.

The four-minute ad was filmed on location at Milwaukee HQ, in Daytona Beach, and at Hal’s and Wildfire dealerships.  It’s a testimonial-type ad shifting from one speaker to the next and again talks “lifestyle” (Harley heritage) more so than products and how they’re using IBM technology to reach new riders.

See the 4 min video on YouTube HERE.  I watched the ad and think it will get favorable responses from the public at large.

H-DNet photo courtesy Harley-Davidson web site.

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Harley And Social Media Strategies

Harley YouTube Channel

If you’ve been out of the country this month without any internet access you missed that Harley-Davidson has joined the Web 2.0 movement and is executing on a so-called social media strategy. By social media I’m lumping together blogs, RSS, social networking (Facebook), video (YouTube) and bookmarking.  All of this presents the marketer on Juneau Ave with a rich set of new tools to help generate new business.  And new business is what it’s all about as the company could post a sales decline percentage for July and August in the “mid-teens,” which would follow an 8.7 percent drop in the second quarter.

Harley-Davidson “virally” launched a Facebook page earlier in the month and the official channel on YouTube was launched today.  It’s loaded with content straight out of the motor company. All of this is part of an effort to satisfy the most passionate motorcycle enthusiast.  You see, consumers are no longer sitting around for commercials; they are looking for new experiences. Whether it’s the bad-boy-aura of the riding experience, or the 105^th event and ride home blogs, or the active participation in the BB communities, Harley has recognized the need to follow these consumer trends. They’ve looked at the dynamics of their relationships with customers and the nature of their interaction and have concluded that they need to move with the shifting customer base and changing market conditions.

Harley Facebook Page

Harley’s new social media and branding is nothing but the continuation of selling a lifestyle, a personality and it is also about appealing to emotions of customers. Increasingly, it has become more and more about creating an experience around the product than the product itself!

I’m of the viewpoint that the current social media directions won’t achieve the results they hope for on the sales front.  You can’t approach new media with old thinking. Taking full advantage of social media requires understanding and adopting a specific social media strategy.  Instead they have implemented a “me-to” approach.  Meaning they have followed the others in corporate America and will tie a range of old-school services from their CRM tools and do database development and case management in order to get the database analysis to the telemarketing team.  I just don’t see how all of the new media will connect back to the dealer network to help drive sales.

But, if that’s the way Harley views social media, a set of tools to perform a set of incremental tactics to reach the set of objectives they have always tried to reach with their marketing campaigns, then not only are they really missing the opportunity, they will probably find themselves wondering what all this Web 2.0 fuss was about.

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Laughlin Video Remix

I’ve been playing around with a new application called Animoto.  They are a bunch of techies and film/TV producers who decided to make an application that automatically generates pro-quality videos from pictures.  Very cool!

I mixed some photos from recent trip to Red Rock Canyon and Laughlin, NV. It’s posted on Animoto as well as below on YouTube (however, the quality level on YouTube went down a couple notches) because I can’t determine if WordPress.com supports the Animoto embed feature.  It’s unlikely it does since WordPress.com won’t support Java scripts…it’s always something with WordPress.  I’m likely to be doing a few more of these videos in the future because Animoto just works so well.

Enjoy.

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