Carla Meyer: Social Media Manager, Garmin
In this episode recorded on location at the Integrated Marketing Summit in Kansas City, I interviewed Carla Meyer. Carla is the Social Media Manager at Garmin International, the global leader in GPS navigation technology whose goal is to create navigation and communication devices that can enrich their customers’ lives. Garmin’s innovative products include automotive, aviation, marine, fitness, outdoor recreation and wireless applications.
The Leap from “Doing Social” to “Being Social”
As Carla shares in her interview, Garmin is in growth and transition mode. Over the past year, they have been using social for more customer interaction and engagement. She shares that Garmin is looking for long-term relationships with customers rather than just pushing out information to them via social.
Carla’s main business goal is to measure progress in understanding customer relationships and what those relationships look like long-term. She reveals how important it is to get the information that customers want to them in a timely manner. Segmented and targeted content is offered to the customer based on what they sign up for.
The Role of Content in Social
Content has taken on a larger role in social over the past year at Garmin. There is a mix of people providing content for Garmin from their marketing team to user-generated content from customers to social media ambassadors of Garmin’s different products.
Carla discusses the launch of their VIRB action camera that provides lots of user-generated content from customers. Customers share videos, capture moments in their lives and share them through VIRB. Carla and her social team get to see what customers really love by using Garmin’s products.
Catch the entire interview with Carla Meyer in the video above.
