Last January, GM became the first automaker to use Facebook Live. Fittingly, instead of streaming from a motor show, as Nissan had done the previous year when it broadcast on Ustream the launch of the Maxima at the New York Auto Show, GM chose to offer the first view of its new electric vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).
Introducing the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV, Mary Barra, chairman and CEO of GM, explained how the company met frequently with senior leaders at Facebook, and she expressed her excitement at being the first automaker to use the social media giant’s new live video feature. She then described the company’s new electric vehicle and talked the audience through the car’s sales points. Altogether the 25-minute video won around 24,500 views and was accompanied by a second 360-degree video that allowed viewers to look around the interior.
Those viewing figures were clearly much smaller than the audience that a traditional peak-time television commercial would bring, but the video made up just one small part of a comprehensive content marketing strategy.
In a discussion with ecological driving website GreenCarReports later that year, Darin Gesse, a marketing executive with responsibility for Chevrolet’s Volt plug-in hybrid and the new Bolt, explained that the carmaker was planning to use “much more targeted marketing methods, messages, and channels to find buyers” who had purchased similar models. The focus would be on digital technology coverage with media buys in Wired and Scientific American. Billboards were aimed at technology commuters in California. The commercial released before the launch was distributed online instead of on television, and replaced the usual shots of winding roads and driving fun with images of the car’s parts and its drive system:
So where did live video broadcast fit into that content strategy? What did it bring that other forms of content missed, and what can other businesses learn about the way that GM used live video as part of its campaign?
The format’s biggest appeal would have been not the size of the audience that live video brought but the nature of that audience. Darin Gesse admitted that Bolt buyers often know more about the car than the brand’s dealers; they’ve done their research, they know exactly what they want to buy and why they want to buy it. Although only a small fraction of Chevrolet’s 17 million Facebook followers watched the video, they would have been the people keenest to make a purchase and the people most likely to talk about the car with their friends.
Live video, then, is content that reaches directly to a brand’s most loyal customers and its key influencers. Brands can think of it as a particularly powerful weapon in Facebook’s finely targeted arsenal. That’s because the great advantage of social media in general — and Facebook in particular — is the ability to use demographic data to reach precisely the audience most likely to respond. Because live video demands a commitment of time that the brand, not the audience, chooses, brands can be certain that the people who accept that demand will be its most enthusiastic customers. That isn’t to say brands should never aim for a broader audience, but live video will attract the most loyal buyers.
It’s also interactive in a way that no other content format can be. As Mary Barra was giving her presentation at CES, Chevrolet’s social media team was busy reacting to the comments the viewers were posting on Facebook. They were able to answer questions and share the online video commercial with people who wanted to know more. Fans were given a personal connection to their favorite brand.
And the live video was also able to create urgency. People interested in GM’s electric car had been able to see a video about the Bolt for some time. But they had just one chance to see the launch itself and to hear the CEO discuss the car’s features.
That requires preparation on behalf of the brand. Audiences need to know when the broadcast is taking place and how to watch. The broadcast needs to last long enough for late joiners to watch and for viewers to tell their friends. The return for that preparation is greater loyalty. The brand makes its audience feel special; they know something about this product that most people don’t know.
GM produced a content strategy with the goal of promoting a particular message about its electric vehicle to a carefully selected audience. Its print ads in science and technology publications delivered part of that message to some of that audience. Its billboards helped it to reach another audience segment. Facebook Live expanded the audience further. It provided more information in a 25-minute segment than any commercial could have done, and it engaged its core audience deeply enough to generate over 800 comments.
Live video isn’t a replacement for traditional advertising. Brands aren’t using it instead of posting videos to YouTube or buying pages in magazines. They’re using it to supplement those channels to reach more audience segments and to work with those audiences in a whole new way. Other businesses can do the same thing. It's clear from GM’s strategy that live video, like every other form of marketing, is not an end in itself. It’s not a magic bullet that can hit every target. But it can hit the most important target, and it hits hard. Because of this, live video needs to be a part of every brand’s content marketing arsenal.
