Toyota Motors brand-damage repair continues-works with social media outlet Twitter

Crashed cars, airbags deployed, displayed at Toyota's "Global Outstanding Assessment" exhibition at Toyota City, central Japan, March 4, 2010. Charges of hidding black-box crash data emerge as the company employs Twitter for damage control.

(AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

 

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Toyota Motor Corporation continues its struggle to stem the public relations disaster that its vehicle recalls have caused. Compounding the issue is the information that has emerged suggesting that executives have stonewalled the authorities and hidden damaging data for years.

Brands have been turning to Twitter to participate in conversation with consumers and to influence how they are viewed. Toyota is now seriously entering the field of social media and are trying out Twitter according to the LA Times. The LAT points out that Twitter is an effective public relations tool--good or bad. (Look at what happened to Southwest Airlines at the hands of a social media campaign!)

Here is its Tweetmeme channel--Toyota Conversations. Matthew DiPietro, director of marketing services at Federated Media, said: "Negative stories are not filtered out of Toyota Conversations in any way whatsoever except for offensive content and the like. The channel is based on Tweetmeme's technology, surfacing the most relevant, useful content based on community activity."

A check of the Toyota Conversations reveals some damaging or negative comments in the list. This gives the appearance of transparency in the public relations brand-healing process. The other element that human beings naturally seek as an essential element in brand-healing is truth.

Both the transparency and truth elements have been further damaged by the observation that Toyota has for years blocked access to data stored in devices similar to airline "black boxes" that could explain crashes blamed on sudden unintended acceleration, according to an Associated Press review of lawsuits nationwide and interviews with auto crash experts. Learn more here.

Locate Toyota dealers in Shreveport and the ArkLaTex area here.

© 2010 by Paul Elliott. All rights reserved worldwide.

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