The Cautionary Tale of GMnext

General Motors has enough problems that it didn't need another one. But in an effort to do something good -- jump into the social media world with its ambitious GMnext site -- it created some new problems for itself. The story is a cautionary tale for marketers seeking to harness the social media marketing opportunity.

At the beginning of the year, GM launched GMnext, a fully featured social media site including a blog, wiki, chats, photos, videos, podcasts and more. I'm not sure such a site will achieve GM's most obvious objective -- to sell more cars -- but it may play a role in re-branding the giant car company's image.

To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard about GMnext until this week, when the site was embroiled in controversy. Seems the site drew the attention and wrath of environmental activists, who pelted it with anti-GM comments and accused the company of "greenwashing" its image (claiming to be more environmentally friendly than it really is). GM was temporarily stunned and shut down some of the comments sections. That's when the media picked up on the story (and how I heard about it). The site's comments function is now moderated, meaning that a live person reads the comments before allowing them to be posted.

In hindsight, this turn of events is no surprise. One of the cruel realities of the Internet is that it allows anyone with a computer to participate, whether you like it or not. Attempts to use the Internet for "spin" are quickly picked up and smoked out. So it makes sense that environmental activists would pounce on GM's site and use its participatory features to push their own agenda.

I can imagine Chief Marketing Officers and their colleagues in corporate America (and around the globe) cringing at this story and saying "see -- I told you so" to the social media advocates on their teams. But that's not the lesson to take from this story.

Here's what I take from this episode:

• Don't be naive: if you're a big target like GM, expect and anticipate the actions of your opponents.
• Be careful what you wish for: GM decided to make a big splash with its new site, clearly wanting to jump into social media full force. Perhaps an incremental approach would have been a better idea.
• Don't be afraid to control what you can control: I'm truly surprised GM opened its comments sections so freely. I've visited lots of sites with strictly moderated comments sections. The owners do that because the cost of a free flowing conversation may be greater than the potential benefit.