TataNano Superdrive2 Blogs: Bad social media strategy?

Disclaimer: I’m not a social media expert and this post is a humble and unsolicited opinion only. Tata motors and its agencies are under no obligation to implement these and may have their own reasons to adopt whatever social media approach they’ve adopted. This post just aims to suggest what could have been done in a better way and do not intend to hurt/criticize any individual/agency/company. Accepting/Rejecting it is at the discretion of reader.

This post is purely about the way various blogs are created for nano superdrive and not about the  contents in them or efforts put in by bloggers.

As I was part of Tata Nano Superdrive 1, held during June 2010, I was curious to know more about its second edition, which is currently in progress.

Because I couldn’t get involved due to work related obligations, following the updates through their blogs is the sole way how I can stay tuned to the event. The PR company regularly issued press releases to media, but press release being standard stuff, blogs are the better way to know what’s happening on the ground.

However while attempting to know more about the event,I realized that the blogs for the event are created without proper planning and strategy. I should have brought this to the notice of the company instead of making it public, but looks like people I were in touch with last year aren’t reachable anymore, as mails are bouncing back.

Last year, Tata Nano Superdrive had 3 blogs:

1. http://superdrive-greenroute.blogspot.com/ (which was being updated by me)
2. http://superdrive-whiteroute.blogspot.com/ (taken care by Sankara)
3. http://superdrive-saffronroute.blogspot.com/ (taken care by Deb)

Having 3 different blogs was not advisable, but our task was to blog the event and not worry how and where it is published. Understandably there was also time constraint to do more and eventually the event reached a conclusion.

This year, for 2011 edition (Tata Nano Superdrive2), the organizers have created 6 wordpress blogs, one each for the six routes

1. superdrive2-south2.wordpress.com,
2. http://superdrive2west1.wordpress.com/
3. http://superdrive2east.wordpress.com/

and 3 more... I feel the strategy adopted in creating the blogs is unprofessional and whoever is advising on Social Media to tata motors are not doing a good job.
I see following concerns with the above approach:

• Not having a custom domain looks very unprofessional
• No centralized place to keep track of whole event
• Having too many blogs dilutes attention, PR and makes it difficult for people to keep track. 3 blogs of last year, 3 this year and some more for future editions- having too many blogs is just not a good idea.
• Newly created blogs will have ZERO Pagerank and their chances of topping google search are very low for generic keywords
• Any backlinks received for last year’s blogs are rendered useless and any links received for this year’s blogs will be useless next time.

While moving to wordpress from blogger is a good move, A more professional approach would have been as below

• Create one blog, hosted on wordpress, with a custom domain- may be tatananosuperdrive.com
• One Category can be created for each route and posts from all routes can be published in one single blog, under respective categories. Wordpress offers category specific RSS feeds, hence those who wish to subscribe to specific route can subscribe to respective category.
• Having one single blog will make it easier for people to remember and will add SEO value, since there’ll be no need to abandon the site next year.
• Maintenance becomes easier

Ford India did a relatively better job last year- they used their already running blog, DrivingFord.in Similarly, Tata motors should aim to sustain the nanosuperdrive blog beyond the event and keep it active throughout the year

Similarly some event organizers name their websites like event2011.com, while ideal approach should be to have eventname.com/2011 as the same site can be used next year, instead of creating a new one. Read more about it here

Best wishes to Superdrive 2. Image is sourced from Tata Nano facebook page.