General Motors gets its share of negative social media comments, and staff are ready to respond if they need to. An article in Automotive News describes GM's extensive social media strategy.

To promote GM products, the customer service team Tweets, posts to Facebook, blogs, and runs contests. But GM also has an active defensive strategy. Here are a few examples of how they work:

• Eighteen employees monitor social media sites, including 90 car-enthusiast sites.
• Employees post online between 200 and 300 times a day (between 5,000 and 7,000 a month).
• 47% of staff interactions are in response to Twitter posts, and 47 percent are posts on GM customer sites.
• Employees clear up misinformation, give repair advice, and so on, to keep customers happy.

Discussion Starters:

• How do you think GM's strategy might differ from other companies' approach to social media? Consider the industry, brand, and customers.
• Search for GM responses on two or three social media sites. What works well about the responses, and what, if anything, could be improved?