Abstract:

Car meets are a form of community that is encouraged more within the engagement and use of social media. It assists in providing community building by encouraging Distortion members to come together to show a collection of cars. They encourage car enthusiasts to meet up and explore one another’s car build. It is an attractive way for car driven individuals to meet up in a trendy, safe and exciting environment. This usually consists of organised promotional posts that give the insight into what the event includes. In this essay, the purpose is to investigate how the car community Distortion allows users to network through social media on common interests as well as being encouraged to drive together. It is found that the car community Distortion has a big role in providing a space for individuals with car enthusiasm through the use of social media promotion and engagement. The significance that Distrotion has is by the key findings that they help engagement and provide reason for car enthusiasts to come and show off their vehicle.

Introduction:

Within this essay I will explore how the car community “Distortion” uses social media to build community, engagement and revenue, to argue that the use of Facebook and Instagram by “Distortion” are effective platforms to promote and discuss cars within this community. To do this, I will investigate how the car community Distortion uses Facebook and Instagram to organise meets and encourage engagement within participation expectation. This is done by, creating engaging and enjoyable themed car meets, to create engagement within the community to come together to share builds, cars for sale, excitement for certain events and networking and how the use of social media that run the Distortion pages promote and sell their own merch through building a community around cars as a revenue stream (Distortion, 2023). “Distortion” is a car community that organise car meets through social media platforms (Distortion, 2023). The car group has a variety of cars and motorbikes that are all different and is a place for car lovers to enjoy seeing other people’s creations also known as “builds” and to show off their very own car build themselves whether it be an expensive build or something for comedic purposes (Distortion, 2023). Therefore, Facebook has a unique way to engage and build community as it is an easy platform to use.

Discussion:

1.Distortion encourages community building through creating specific groups within their Facebook page based on vehicles and organization of events through posting event maps to motivate car enthusiasts to attend (Jamil et al., 2022). The Facebook page of Distortion grants a variety of networking options for streetcar enthusiasts to connect through specific groups made through the Distortion page. The groups that are within this Facebook page that people can interact with are “buy and sell”, “distortion location suggestions”, “distortion bikes”, “distortion 4×4” (Distortion, 2023). This allows the car enthusiasts within the distortion community to network further within their preferred car or group of people (Social, 2018). An example of how these users come to network is through the “buy and sell” (Distortion, 2023). The community of car enthusiasts have the ability to ask users within the page whether they have parts for certain cars and to promote listings they may have on Facebook Marketplace (Distortion, 2023). With this, users can network further and build better connections based on leading conversations within the “buy and sell” page (Bhatti, 2022). Another way social media can encourage the bonding of community for Distortion is by motivating car enthusiasts to meet and come together in person to provide a closer and personal relationship with users (Social, 2018). This is done by Distortion encouraging networking in the third space by hosting and promoting car meets on the Distortion Instagram and Facebook page to increase engagement within participation (Distortion, 2023). Distortion does this by creating maps that lead the car enthusiasts to meet-up spots that start from one end to another with stops in between (Distortion, 2023). The result from the maps gives an idea to the audience of places and experiences that are involved within the event and to create a space for the car enthusiasts to network (Farrow, 2024). The map will usually consist between 4 to 5 stops per meet, which are commonly held once every weekend or weekday. Not only does Distortion promote community through online social spaces but it encourages people to attend through organizing themed car meets (Distortion, 2023). For example, Distortion encouraged car enthusiasts turning up to the meet to wear their best early 2000’s outfit to win a prize to build excitement over attending their meets, and to give reason to connect with each other (Meek, 2023). Distortion encourages engagement for individuals to stand out as being a part of the Distortion community from promoting items that would associate them with being part of Distortion (Family Industries, 2024). An example of this is Distortion stickers and clothing that make them a part of the Distortion community and seen as status pieces or unique connection to the brand in some way (Family Industries, 2024). With the use of social media, communities can bond over cars and communicate with the use of Facebook groups made within the Distortion Facebook page.

2.Social media assists Distortion by promoting events to increase engagement by posting owned media content, members artwork and work that have been promoted within the chat and through Facebook’s already usable group features (year13, 2019). The engaging content that Distortion post are trendy posts of their maps to feature their car meets (Distortion, 2023). This post time for the car group is quite sufficient as this will keep the group members involved more often and be aware of the group much more rather than posting every month (Meek, 2023). In relation to the car meets, they promote the maps through Facebook to inform people about certain merch drops that will happen within meets and competitions to enter (Distortion, 2023). This creates engagement by informing users within the group to know about a product to produce excitement and fear of missing out over a merch drop in the form of hoodies or stickers (Family Industries, 2024). This provides the opportunity for people to post pictures and content about their own vehicles which sparks engagement within their community as well as the brand itself (Bhatti, 2022; Shrivastava, 2024). Users within the groups will be eager to want to meet up in person and view people’s car builds and will have the assumption that people do turn up to events if they are posting within the Facebook group chats (Social, 2018). As well as people posting about their cars and car builds, people can post content that is engaging in terms of personal artwork and projects (Distortion, 2023). For example, users within the group page have been able to promote their projects that are involving of cars for the car community (Distortion, 2023). Facebook not only has the regular features of the group but intricate features such as “Top contributor” which allows people to see how much you have contributed within the group itself (Facebook, 2022). Not only is it just users, but the admins have their own YouTube channel which creates a space that is meant for cars and only cars (Distortion, 2023). People will engage more if they know that the content they are a part of are cool, trendy and fun to be a part of (Bhatti, 2022). This means that users within the community are more inclined to contribute and engage within the group to gain more points and status within the group to be known as a much more involved individual and feel as if they are high contributors (Bhatti, 2022; Shrivastava, 2024). Considering that the group is public means that all people who want to join and engage with the content to do so (Distortion, 2023). The other group that can increase engagement within the Distortion group page is the “Distortion location suggestions” which encourages members to put in their preferred spots to increase the participation of meets (Distortion, 2023). Another way in which Distortion forms engagement within the group page is by encouraging users to post within the ‘Distortion spotto’ which is a sub-chat that members can use to post about spotting people within the community that have the Distortion sticker on their vehicle (Distortion, 2023). This encourages the members to engage with the group as it allows them to post a particular vehicle in public with the Distortion merch (year13, 2019). Therefore, Facebook has a way to engage members that is easier for Distortion to post and create content that is appealing and to exert puffery over their car meets.

3.The platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be used to promote certain goods that are related to the car community Distortion. Not only can social media be used to promote social and networking ability it can be used to promote merch that is associated within the car group (Family Industries, 2024). An example of this would be Distortion selling their own stickers and clothing items that have the Distortion logo on it to make it unique (Family Industries, 2024). This increases brand awareness through wearing the merch as well as creating a community that may feel exclusive to other people and to show off that they are a person that likes cars (Family Industries, 2024). This is done by creating exclusive content to well targeted demographics that, with that of course being car enthusiasts and this is a natural target audience joining the Distortion community, which places high value that the people joining the distortion group on Facebook are going to be car enthusiasts (Edgar, 2024). With already building a strong connection to people online that is considered close and genuine, people will want to support a community that fuels their passion (Shrivastava, 2024). Social media can help promote their products by having the ability to showcase the product before consumers purchase them and using people within the car community either a person modelling clothing merchandise, or the cars have the very well-known Distortion sticker under it (Family Industries, 2024). The Distortion admins create excitement over their merch drops especially to increase the visitation of the car meet (Family Industries, 2024). Not only do the admins who have made the Facebook group of Distortion, they can also provide opportunities to the members of the group to promote their certain products through the “buy/sell” group so that the community can come together and fulfil needs people may want to buy and to sell cars and other car parts (Shrivastava, 2024). With this, the use of the Facebook groups can assist people’s way of marketing much simpler.

In summary, social media like Facebook is a great way to create communities online with the already existing features and mass communication. The way in which Facebook has created spaces online is within the groups which give the capability for admins to make inner group chats for specific reasons for example, buy/sell, distortion 4×4, distortion bikes and distortion location suggestions (Distortion, 2023). This creates community building for users as they provide dedicated chat rooms to influence conversations about their own vehicles and locations to network with each other (Bhatti, 2022). As well as community building, Facebook is a great way to promote and gain engagement through the natural reach of users being able to join the group at free will (Bhatti, 2022). Facebook gives the admins an opportunity to build engagement by promoting their event maps of car cruises they do regularly. Considering the amount Distortion posts, this will create continuous engagement within the Facebook group. Lastly, social media is a great way to promote to a community of personal projects like short films and items that a user wants to sell. As a result, the admins themselves promote their own products that have the Distortion brand to create community and status whether if it is in or out of the car meets.

References

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