It Was The Best of Efforts, It Was The Worst of Efforts

Jeremiah Owyang just released his Best and Worst of Social Network Marketing, 2008 report (Forrester Research). In it he states that most social network marketing isn’t being done effectively. Mainly because marketers still don't get the space.

He reviewed 16 efforts. All but one failed, and half of them received a score of zero or lower. The only one that passed: BMW Series 1.

I have yet to shell out the $300 to read the report. But here's what BMW's been up to.

According to a NY Times article, BMW got Facebook members to design virtual cars and send them to their friends. I actually never saw this effort, but a couple of months ago, I reviewed BMW's Series 1 JoyRide app. I wasn't kind to it, although it did have 4,000 installs at the time. At a recent IAB seminar, this effort was brought up as a point of success, though they refused to release any numbers.

Looking at it now, there are hardly any users there. A mere 59 fans. And a few negative comments on the boards. A smattering of comments, some pos, some neg. I agreed with this one: "I expected much more of the application. minus 5 stars."

So that can't be it.

There was also a Road Trip app which allowed Facebook members to send a make-believe 1-Series on a journey from one profile to another, and a virtual toss of car keys between Facebook friends.

Probably BMW's best Facebook effort wasn't one of their own apps, but somebody else's. Over 6,000 Facebook people entered the "What Drives You?" BMW car contest through Graffiti's page. See the winners here. BMW isn't the only car company using Graffiti. Their sister, Mini Cooper used it as well. Not to mention Dell for their Regeneration experience.

Considering the effort BMW put into all this, you think they'd have a profile page linking to all this. As it is, searching BMW on Facebook sends one down a lot of false roads. Fan groups, members nicknamed BMW, etc.

I just may have to read that report. Well, if I can expense it.