General Motors In A Time Of Crisis

One of the biggest and most publicized crisis situations that General Motors has had to face since its creation 100 years ago is actually currently taking place. GM’s current financial crisis has been plastered across news headlines all over the world and especially here in the U.S. A drastic decline in sales, extensive layoffs and a poor economic environment are all contributing to this issue.

General Motors is by no means the only American auto maker currently having to deal with this crisis; Ford and Daimler-Chrysler, which are the other 2 companies that make up the “Big 3” American auto makers, are also trying to overcome extreme financial turmoil.

Many things are being done to try to turn the company’s finances around. Some of these methods are shown in a positive light, while many others are having more negative effects. Currently GM and the rest of the “Big 3” are appealing to congress for a multi-billion dollar “bail-out” plan. This bailout is very similar to the one that the nation’s financial sector just received. The intent of this bailout is to keep these auto makers from going under completely. While many Americans view these federal bailouts as necessary in our nation’s struggling economy, many are upset at the idea of having to put the country farther and farther into debt so save these companies.

General Motors has also received a large amount of negative publicity for another crisis aversion technique; layoffs. GM has been forced to layoff thousands of employees and even close factories due to the dramatic decline in sales among the domestic car market. Though these layoffs are enabling the company to save money by not having to pay nearly as many employees, the negative publicity that the company is receiving is overwhelming. Unemployment officials have even hinted at these layoffs, by GM and other auto makers, have had a great effect on the growing number of Americans that are currently unemployed.

General Motors is trying to pull themselves out of the gutter in some more positive ways as well though. For almost a year now, General Motors has been offering “GM Employee Pricing” among other special pricing deals on nearly every make and model in the GM lineup. This pricing campaign is aimed at getting more people to purchase GM vehicles by offering dramatic discounts on mostly every car they offer. This campaign not only proves to be beneficial to GM, but additionally to the nation’s economy as a whole.

General Motors is also relying heavily on the introduction of a new Chevrolet car which GM hopes will attract buyers. The Chevrolet Volt is the car that GM is placing a heavy burden on. The Volt is the world’s first totally electric car, emitting no emissions and requiring only electricity as fuel. GM and Volt developers are hoping that the sheer originality and innovative nature will arouse customer interest and make customers flock to dealerships for their chance to purchase this groundbreaking car. The only concern coming from GM officials, automotive enthusiasts and economic researchers is the estimated $40,000+ price tag the GM is anticipating for the Volt.

Photo Credit:
Photos applied from Google Images

http://tinyurl.com/6zo5b7
http://tinyurl.com/6z68r6

Information Citation:

Vlasic, B. (2008). Each Player in Big Three Is Devising Its Own Plan. New York Times

Ask Not What Your Community Can Do For General Motors, Ask What General Motors Can Do For Your Community

General Motors has always been noted for not only taking care of their employees, but for also helping to take care of the communities around them.

GM offer a variety of community enrichment programs as well as GM sponsored educational programs. The auto giant has received numerous humanitarian awards throughout their existence as well as an overwhelming number of accolades for their variety of scholarship programs that are often times open to any and everyone who wishes to apply. The company also offers scholarships that are exclusive to employees or the families of General Motors employees.

General Motors also helps to sponsor or make large charitable donations to organizations such as The American Red Cross and The United Way, as well as St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and The American Cancer Society.

General Motors has always been a firm believer in giving back to the community and even in times of economic turmoil, they continue to find the resources and means in which to continue with community and charitable contributions.

Photo Credit:

Photos applied from Google Images.

http://tinyurl.com/6sy3cl
http://tinyurl.com/6rkey3

Information Citation:

General Motors Corporation, (2007). Message posted to

http://www.gm.com/corporate/responsibility/partners/community/index.jsp

General Motors Corporation, (2007). Message posted to

http://www.gm.com/corporate/careers/student_center.jsp?p=scholarships

General Motors & The Groundswell

When it comes to General Motors and their interaction and use of the groundswell, there is definite room for improvement. GM and their subsidiary companies have all began to tap into the groundswell in one form or another. When you look at a company the size of General Motors, many would think that the last thing they would be concerned with would be feed back and communication with past, current and future customers. GM, on the other hand, does a wonderful job with not only gathering information from customers, but unlike many companies, GM uses the information in a constant trial to help improve the company, how they are perceived in the community, as well as ideas to help improve or create their vehicles.

Much beyond the General Motors website, GM has a serious vacancy in the social media networks. Many of these social media networks, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and PRopenmic provide not only people, but companies to greatly improve their inline presence all while opening up a new means in which they can communicate with audience members which they may not have heard from before.

Though General Motors could definitely use some help with their online presence, their community presence is among the best of any other company in their industry. This high level of community involvement not only helps with the GM company image, but like the social media sites on the internet, it allows them to tap into a segment of audiences in which they could have missed before.

As I stated before, General Motors has began to tap into and utilize the groundswell, but there is still much room for improvement. GM and the many companies that are associated with them have the money, resources and the man power to use the groundswell to their full advantage but now we just need them to actually USE IT!!

Photo Credit:

Photos applied from Google Images.

http://tinyurl.com/6ax4lu

Information Citation:

Li, C. & Bernoff, J. (2008). groundswell. Boston, MA: Forrester Research.

Which Of Grunig & Hunt’s PR Models Best Fits General Motors?

In reference to the different Public Relations models produced by Grunig & Hunt, General Motors fits into 2 of them a little more than the others. The Two-way Symmetric and the Two-way Asymmetric models are by far the most prevalent models that GM utilizes.

GM and the Two-way Symmetric model becomes more obvious in the times in which GM or its representatives are actually meeting face to face with current or perspective customers. This face to face interaction allows for GM to get immediate feed back in response to the information that they are sending out.

The Two-way Asymmetric model is the model most commonly used by General Motors. General Motors is constantly sending out information through a variety of sources, some of which allow for feed back, while others done, but with this diminished amount of feed back coming from their audience makes GM fit into this model more than any other.

Photo Credit:

Photo applied from Google Images
http://tinyurl.com/5g3wgv

Information Citation:

Doorley, J. & Garcia, H. F. (2007). Reputation Management. In Media Relations (p. 67-101). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Group.

General Knowledge of General Motors Power Point

General Motors & The Groundswell

Does General Motors embrace the Groundswell? As I looked at the General Motors website, along with various other social media outlets, I quickly realized one thing; GM has definitely discovered the Groundswell but they are far from embracing it yet. GM has always been noted for listening to customers, especially those customers that end up purchasing a GM vehicle, which makes up a huge part of the Groundswell, but the means in which they are listening to them is very limited.

There are quite a few places on the General Motors website that customers and GM owners can go to voice their opinions, ask questions, or simply communicate with other GM owners, but much outside of their own website it is hard to find GM. If you are to search “General Motors” or “GM” on Twitter, you will get pages of customers referring to the car company, but you will find no one that is actually associated with the automotive giant.

One of the areas in which GM is in fact embracing the groundswell is in, surprisingly enough, the popular social networking site, Facebook.com. When you type in General Motors into the search bar, you will get back pages upon pages of results that include fan groups, member created groups relating to GM, along with hundreds of employees that have General Motors as one of their networks. To be completely honest Facebook was one of the last places I thought I would find an overwhelming GM presence, but it seems to be the place to go if you want to support GM or any of its subsidiaries. The GM groups on Facebook will send you updates, news and information about the company, all while providing yet another place for the general public and GM owners to come and voice their opinions about the company and the cars that they are producing.

When it comes to the groundswell and GM, there are definitely things that still need to be done. They have tapped certain aspects of the groundswell, they are listening to their customers and owners, and in many cases they are even talking with the groundswell by releasing information, updates and news in a variety of places, but GM is far from embracing the groundswell as a whole yet. GM should strongly consider tapping into the many different social media outlets that are found all over the web. Twitter and other social media sites like it, are great ways to connect to potential customers that may have discounted or disregarded you in the past. GM prides its self on being one of the most technologically advanced and modernized car companies in existence, but we now need them to bring that over into their online lives as well as their public auto lives.

Blog Review: PRos in Training

The second blog that I chose to review for my Corporate PR class is a blog entitled PRos in Training.

The banner under the title of this blog reads “ Tips, tools, resources and random thought for students (and veterans) of public relations” and I feel that is totally what this sight has to offer.

As a senior PR student myself I found many different posts that not only provided interesting information, but also provided some creative insight into topic and issues that I had never really thought about before.

I have to admit that I feel that this blog definitely offers more in the “random thoughts” area than any of the others, but even those random thoughts still provide quality and well thought out information.

Personally the pictures, videos and other graphics associated with this blog definitely help with making it as pleasing to look at as it is. The clean design makes it easy for any reader to locate and read a posting on basically any topic that you can think of.

The only change that I would make is a purely personal preference and that would be to make the actual columns that the text is in wider. Like I said it is a simple personal preference but still one that I think would make the blog look better as a whole.

Beyond the look and feel of this blog, I have to admit that nearly all of the posts that I read or saw definitely had great and very useful information, which is what we are all really look for in the long run anyways. I would definitely recommend this blog and as a soon to be newbie in the PR working world I could definitely see myself using this blog as a useful tool to help me transition from student to professional

Review of: Public Relations Comentary

Per an assignment in my Corporate Public Relations class, I was to read and review a series of PR blogs. The first blog that I chose to review is entitled Public Relations Commentary.

This blog, at first glance, the Public Relations Commentary blog covers most any PR base that you could ask for. The thing that I personally liked about this blog was that the different posting were not all by the same person. There is a list of contributors to this blog that is listed to the side of all postings. Though this may seem simple and seemingly insignificant to many people, it strikes me as this sites biggest asset. Having a variety of contributors ensures different points of view on any, and all topics that maybe discussed on this blog. Multiple contributors often will also eliminate bias and strong personal opinion that plague many other blogs.

Beyond the esthetically pleasing colors and set up, this site is very easy to navigate and follow. The latest post that was made in this blog was one that dealt with Crisis Communication. This post was very well written and informative as well without being overly wordy or full of opinion and insignificant, unrelated information.

Personally I would highly recommend this blog to any communications student or professional. Students would definitely get a large about of useful information for class, personal use or projects, while professionals can get a continual update on career related information as well as a look into what is new in the field of Public Relations and other communications careers.

As I said before I would HIGHLY recommend this blog and feel that if can, and will act as a wonderful tool in the areas of research, news and ideas in the areas of not only communications but a heavy emphasis in the field of Public Relations as well.

All I have to say to the contributors and creators of Public Relations Commentary is GOOD JOB, VERY WELL DONE!

Article Review: Public Relations and the path to innovation….

In volume 2, number 3, of the 2008 Summer edition of the Public Relations Journal, I found a very interesting article written by Sandra C. Duhe’.  The articles is entitled Public Relations and the path to innovation: Are complex environments good for business, and sheds a bright new light on the way that I personally look at not only our economy and our environments, but at the way i view businesses themselves as well.  

First and foremost, I found this article more than interesting.  Once I started reading and getting into the hard information I found that I couldn’t stop.  Part of the reason that I found this article so interesting was because, I finally found an article that talked about business and current complex environment in a positive light.  Personally, I was very surprised to learn that businesses tend to be more successful in a complex environment.  Once I finished the article, it made complete since to me that businesses would succeed in these fast paced environments.

One reason I like reading articles about topics such as this one, is because the open my eyes to ideas, that in reality are quite obvious, but many times we overlook.  When you think about these complex types of environments, it is normally quite obvious that the more innovative and new concepts would come from this, but I personally never thought about it that way.  I never realized the importance that an environment potentially has on the creativity of people, firms and businesses.  I also never really thought or realized the importance of a firm’s ability to adapt or change in these complex environment.  Once again, once I completed reading the article, this and many other thoughts and concepts stood out unlike before.  

I found that this article really did help with potential ideas for the company that I have chosen for my final product; General Motors.  As we all know, our economy has hit a rough patch, and it is becoming harder and harder for companies to post profits; this is especially true for the automotive industry.  GM can definately take some advice from this article, especially when it comes down to working with the community and then environment that is around you.  Though GM has already started to play into this idea, they still have a long way to come, and even farther to master the struggling auto market.

Personally I would love to know more about how many of the companies and firms in these complex environments help eachother, all while keeping a healthy and needed level of competitiveness.  I would also like to see more about how firms and businesses located in environments that are not as complex can use some of the same techniques to succceed on the same levels as those that are in the more complex environments.

I also think that it would be very interesting to get specific examples as to what some of these companies and firms used.  I would want to hear of both success and failures, and see what I can learn and take away from all of those.  Lastly, I would have liked to have seen some more information about how to change, adapt and succeed in less complex environments.

One Week With Twitter

Per an assignment handed down by my Corporate Public Relations professor I was required to create an account on the social networking site called Twitter.  I found that this site was very similar to another social media site that I am a member of, facebook, but twitter basically encompasses the status portion of facebook.  

Twitter gave me the ability to connect with people, not only in the USA, but all over the world.  I began “following” (recieving the posts) from quite a few important and experienced people in the fields of communications, advertising, and the automotive industry.  

Though i enjoyed the short time I have been on twitter, keeping up with people, seeing when new people decide to follow me and seeing what new and exciting people I can find to follow, I have to honestly admit that I do not feel that I would keep up with or follow twitter as much as I do with some other social media networks that I am a member of.  

Twitter is a WONDERFUL network full of valuable information and sources that I truly wish to oneday uncover but i am less than impressed with the idea of only being able to post no more than 140 characters per post OR private message.  

I do NOT intend on deactivating my account, and fully intend on maintaining it and seeing what other twitters out there can offer, but i stongly foresee myself using Facebook, PRopenmic and LinkedIN more than twitter.