I want to be known as the Scott Monty of Maui, Hawaii.

What Scott Monty did for Ford Motors, I want to do for Hawaii's Premiere Mortgage Company and Aloha Luxury Properties. 

“Who the heck is Scott Monty?”  some of you who are not familiar with social media may ask. 

Scott Monty is the head of social media at Ford Motors. He is currently on the staff of corporate communications in Ford Motor Company and holds the title Global Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager.  Simply put, Scott’s innovative use of social media brought Ford Motors back to its feet.  

Scott has been called "an unstoppable force of nature," and "the best corporate social media lead on the planet".   Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Company, called him "a visionary."  He is the strategic advisor on all social media activities across the company, from blogger relations to marketing support, customer service to internal communications and more, as social media is being integrated into many facets of Ford business.

Four months ago I was hired by Tricia Morris to be the Social Media Director for her companies – the Hawaii’s Premiere Mortgage Company (a.k.a. Premiere Mortgage) and Aloha Luxury Properties.  They hired me to help them manage this new “social media craze” going on such as Facebook and Twitter. They hired me to keep them up to date with social media marketing.  Fortunately for them, I knew that success in promoting a brand/services using social media goes far more than just participating in Facebook, Twitter and E-mail blasts.  And so as soon as I was hired, I started doing some evaluating, assessing, then strategic planning on using this new media to promote our biz. There's a lot to do.

There are many challenges ahead. The good news is my bosses are very supportive of what I am doing. The not so good news is that we have a tight budget. I have to prioritize our spending. So many ideas but we cannot finance them all right away.  Another good news is Premiere Mortgage and Trica Morris already have a great reputation in the mortgage industry on Maui – that makes my job easier. Tricia and her staff are excellent mortgage broker/originators - they are great at what they do.  The not so good news is that even though Premiere Mortgage has a great reputation, the fact is the real estate and mortgage industry is struggling right now.  So many foreclosures – only a few are buying. The challenge is to find the few, connect with them, and let them know what we can do for them, in the hope that they will chose us over others when they make a decision to apply for a mortgage loan. 

Then there's the challenge is not giving in to the pressure of amassing a lot of “followers” and “fans” for the sake of amassing them.  It is so tempting to just succumb to that thinking that the more fans and followers we have, the more successful we are.  We know it’s not true, but it’s still a pressure.  However, even though I believe it’s not the quantity but the quality – I also know that the quantity is important and not to be ignored.  It’s hard to strike a balance, but we must.

Do you believe in the power of social media? Can it really help a company in an industry that we know is struggling right now? Or is social media just another snake oil, another fad that soon will fade? If Scott Monty was able to do it (help the company he was hired by), I'd like to say I can too (help Premiere Mortgage and Aloha Luxury).

I would appreciate hearing from you – please share your thoughts on the comment section. Did you have success in any of your social media campaign? Please share.  Did you try participating in social media and and it failed? Tell us about it.   I think this would be interesting discussion.