General Motors and Chrysler's requests for $21.6 billion in federal loans have a lot of citizens up in arms. GM has already asked for (and received) $13.4 billion in loans under the auto industry bailout, and the company claims it would need another $100 billion in government financing if it goes bankrupt.
But the good news is that the auto giant has a comprehensive, full-proof business model to confront the worsening recession:
1. Cut 47,000 American jobs
2. Close five North American plants
3. Drop several brands, including the lightweight, more fuel-efficient Saturn, and to counterbalance that, the "Why Jesus?!" Hummer brand
4. Hope the UAW doesn't raise too much hell over GM's inability to pay retirees' health care costs
5. Twitter
I learned of step five in GM's Vision of the Future when I twittered the following innocuous (or so I thought) comment:
allisonkilkenny: sees GM is phasing out the small, fuel efficient Saturn. Oil companies: 1, Earth: 0.
Seconds later, I received a reply tweet from something called GMBlogs:
@allisonkilkenny we don't have indiv trash cans at ofc cubes at hq, just an ex, not sure total $ saved from small ideas, but likely large
In other words, GM is still environmentally-friendly because interns have to share trash cans. Shaky reasoning aside, I was surprised that I had popped onto the radar of GM with my casual mention of their brand, especially when the company should theoretically be preoccupied with, ya know', going out of business.
I contacted Christopher Barger, GM Director of Global Communications Technology, about this weird prioritizing. Barger quickly responded to my questions, and he explained that GM is using TweetDeck to just search for mentions of GM, as well as interacting with the people who were already following the company. It's not unusual for a corporation to use Twitter to monitor customer reactions to its products, and Barger equated the practice to customer service, though he seemed to take offense when I pointed out the slim differences between corporate acts of "good will" and propaganda.
I responded that, unlike customer service, I didn't approach GM with a question or complaint. They specifically searched Twitter for mention of their product and then sent a messenger my way to post some talking points about The Corporation.
An entire department devoted to the cause of Tweeting and blogging may seem like a strange choice for budget allocation considering their economic turmoil, but GM has burst onto the technological scene with great gusto. GM is quick to rationalize, claiming this is totally 100% normal because corporations need to keep their fingers on the pulses of clients and customers, and GM is hardly the only corporation to engage in the magic world of Twitter.
"We knew that when [the loan request] was submitted last night, there would be a lot of people reacting to it -- on Twitter, on Facebook, in the blogs. We wanted to be out there answering as many questions as possible about the viability plan itself, the progress we've made in its execution since December 2, the impact of the restructuring on our brands and upcoming vehicles, trying to let people know that Saturn still may have life after GM, trying to gauge how people were reacting to the plan," said Berger.
Of course, gauging customer reaction shouldn't take a back seat to providing actual products and services, say cars and health care. If GM is looking for a reaction from American citizens about their billions of dollars in requested loans and mistreatment of their employees, I can save them a lot of time and Tweeting:
It's not good. It's very bad. Less people want to buy your heavy, fuel-inefficient cars, and almost no one is thrilled that taxpayers are paying you billions of dollars to close domestic plants and ship jobs across our borders. Few people like that you mistreat unions. No one likes that in your rush to modernize and embrace the technology of the internet (complete with Twitter experts,) you forgot how to compete with foreign car companies.
It is possible to make tweets private and avoid the watchful eye of corporations, though that protection has already been hacked. For now, know that while you may never again own a good American car, you're sure to get a prompt reply whenever you Twitter about GM.
Cross-posted from allisonkilkenny.com.