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Glad to see that next week Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda will appear in Washington and spend some time doing something that Tiger Woods would not do yesterday – answer questions. Word from Politico's Mike Allen is that Toyota, who spent $4.1 million lobbying Congress last year, also hired our friends, DC communications firm Glover Park Group to help manage the crisis (likely a long-term assignment).
After Mr. Toyoda's appearance in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, I recommend that Mr. Toyoda continue his day by reaching out personally to a few of the most influential voices on this issue in the social media space. The full-page ads and talking points pledge transparency -- almost nothing would say more than a few minutes with the following bloggers and Twitterers:
(1) Start with @RayWert, editor and chief of Jalopnik, Gawker's car blog, his blog has more than 500k monthly visitors and more than 3,000 people follow him on twitter. His Twitter feed in particular has been pushing and RTing much Toyota content in the last week;
(2) Reach out to "emptywheel" from Firedoglake (an online news site featuring original reporting and commentary w/ 260k+ monthly readers), who has a post specifically about the Congressional hearings:
"Rather than have a guy bearing the company name testify, Toyota was sending Yoshimi Inaba, President of Toyota North America and–rather significantly–someone who was away from the company for two of the years in which Toyota was not responding to its own brake problems. In addition, Inaba’s background with the company is also primarily in sales, not engineering. In other words, rather than have Toyoda testify, the company was sending a guy who, just six months after he assumed a position of authority, agreed to recall millions of cars."
(3) Follow-up with one of the auto bloggers, like Chris Morran, from Consumerist, who recently wrote:
"Now that Toyota has almost nearly completed its time in the naughty spot for dumping a few million potentially deadly vehicles on the market, the world's largest auto manufacturer is looking to make nice. But instead of flowers, candy or poetry, Toyota is making plans to woo you back into their showrooms with increased cash incentives and improved maintenance plans."
Unfortunately for Toyota, who until very recently, lacked a serious social media strategy, rebuilding their reputation will take longer and cost more than it might have otherwise. For other car companies and corporations in the U.S. and abroad, identifying your most important influencers and engaging them when times are good, is no longer a luxury.
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