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If you’re a regular reader of Neville Hobson’s blog or indeed listen to the bi-weekly podcast, For Immediate Release, he and Shel Holtz co-host, you may be aware of the new social media newsroom recently launched by General Motors Europe. Neville blogged about it on Tuesday and it was covered in FIR on Thursday (as I was given a gentle reminder by being a member of the FIR Facebook group) and it’s also been covered on subsequent blogs since. UPDATE: Drew’s just written about it too.

I was lucky enough to be granted an email interview with Keith Childs, the guy behind General Motors’ social media newsroom, and here’s what he had to say (my questions in bold):

Thanks for taking the time for this interview Keith. First off, can you give a little background about yourself and what you do at GM Europe?

I worked in marketing communications and then joined GM Europe in corporate communications working on ad campaigns. The digital revolution arrived. I guess I saw it as my role to champion web-based communication inside my sphere of influence. I’m responsible for all our media sites in Europe, our corporate website and now some steps into the brave new world of social media.

Can you give me some background on the GM Europe social media newsroom? How long as this project been in the works and how long did it take to develop?

Not that long actually. The idea was born around the time of the Geneva motor show at the beginning of March. We were creating web videos and not very happy about the channels we had to spread these to a wider audience. We saw how car enthusiasts were grabbing them and putting them on YouTube and on their blogs. I’m sure some felt a little nervous about this- whether the corporate lawyers were going to come after them claiming copyright infringement. Our view was these folk are enthusiastic, passionate and engaged. So it’s something we need to encourage and not put obstacles in their way.

Our first attempt was really beta – as an extension of an existing website using conventional html and while we were excited about it and felt it was a big step forward we really weren’t ready to talk about. So it was there and in the background but we kept a low profile while we planned how we would take it from beta into something we were happy with.

It was obvious we needed software that was blogger friendly and we looked at different packages and finally settled on Serendipity. But there are several others we could have used. Each has pros and cons. All the basics are there- manage comments, plug-ins for spam filters, easy RSS management, tag clouds and so on. From evaluation of software to ready-to-launch was probably six weeks.

Each of the social media news releases in the newsroom allows comments and given the fact that GM has adapted to social media much more than companies of similar size, was this (allowing comments) a challenge to convince managerial staff?

Our communications management didn’t really need convincing. In the US, the FastLane blog has clearly shown that feedback is not something to be worried about. Sometimes the feedback is hard to take, but it’s direct, delivered with passion and management do listen. If people are not commenting here they will comment somewhere else. It’s easier to engage in the conversation in your own space than maybe some other spaces.

What has been the feedback you’ve received so far from the social media newsroom? Do you think it will take time for GM’s customers, enthusiasts and relevant journalists to become used to the concept?

We launched at the end of August. We’ve had some very positive feedback from people in the social media area and some encouraging first reaction from online auto media. The main news for the auto industry is the Frankfurt motorshow, so I expect it will take a while for people to fully check out our social media newsroom.

Did you face any obstacles in building the newsroom from a technical viewpoint?

The short answer is no. If we had tried to run this using our existing systems and software it would be a different answer.

GM’s obviously a huge company with substantial amounts of money to spare so would a project like this be viable for smaller organisations?

From the software and technical side this is one of the most inexpensive web projects I have implemented. I love it. I wish I could find other uses for it. The commercial versions of blogging software are really not expensive. Like a blog, setting one up can be quick and low cost- or even free- but it’s the maintenance that takes time. Content needs to be posted, comments need to reviewed and in some cases answered. You need to check trackbacks to make sure they are not going to a thinly disguised sex site and so on. Yes, all that takes time and there is a cost involved.

In hindsight, is there anything you would change?

We should have done this earlier. (Stephen says: Nice answer)

The newsroom strapline is great Product news and downloads for the online Reporter. How important is engaging with and accommodating bloggers to GM Europe?

The convenient label of ‘blogger’ is becoming more and more blurred. A journalist blogs. Is he a blogger or a journalist? Somebody who does not work for a media organisation reports. Is she a reporter? The online world is becoming a big mash-up where labels and definitions are increasingly irrelevant. What about groups in networks like Facebook who post, comment, link- are they bloggers? Are they social networkers? Whatever label we use, social media is clearly important to us. The lines between news producer and news consumer are blurring. One thing is very clear; our news is republished, commented on, shared, tagged and so on. We need to be a part of that. You can’t just click the send the button and forget about it. For many companies this is still a big mindset change.

I assume this is the first stage of GM Europe’s social media newsroom and, if it is, are there any plans for further development which you’d be able to share with us?

It’s definitely the first stage. We are about to introduce web-video downloads in addition to the page we have on YouTube (if it’s not already live, then you read about it here). Other languages would be the next natural big step. Maybe our press releases will head more in the direction of the social media press release. (Stephen says: You should check out the webitpr SMNR video ) We’ll be listening to feedback from our audience who write about us – the online reporters and that will certainly shape our decisions.

Keith, thanks very much.

technorati tags: gm, gm+europe, social+media+newsroom, social+media+press+release, social+media+news+release