What appears as a sign of things to come, companies are looking beyond Facebook and Twitter to reach out to their customers. Toyota in its latest move has announced Toyota Friend, a private social network for its customers and their cars. While we believe the engagement on their current Facebook and Twitter accounts would continue, Toyota Friend would perhaps emerge as a one stop destination for customer support and interaction.
Perhaps Toyota believes in “Facebook is for people who love Toyota while Friend is for people who own Toyota” which is why the company has tied up with cloud computing company Salesforce to implement Toyota Friend. The social network would derive features from Salesforce Chatter, a tool many businesses use for their private networks.
Toyota Friend will provide a variety of product and service information as well as essential maintenance tips, creating a rich car ownership experience. For example, if an EV or PHV is running low on battery power, Toyota Friend would notify the driver to re-charge in the form of a “tweet”-like alert. In addition, while Toyota Friend will be a private social network, customers can choose to extend their communication to family, friends, and others through public social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The service will also be accessible through smart phones, tablet PCs, and other advanced mobile devices.
While private social networks seem a brilliant idea, it is often riddled with poor site features and low adoption rates. Ning for example, has less than a hundred thousand private networks. The most important question though is, where would Toyota’s customers prefer connecting with the brand? Customers log into their Facebook or Twitter account on a daily basis and logging into Toyota Friend would just be an overhead.
Image via Wikipedia
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