DriveTribe, the automotive social media startup, has appointed Jim Murray Jones as chief marketing officer, as it targets new growth with manufacturers and dealers.

He has held a number of automotive marketing roles with Auto Trader, SunMotors, Sunday Times Driving and Exchange and Mart.

Jonathan Morris, CEO of DriveTribe, said:  “Jim’s arrival enables us to take our data generation and social media influencing skills to the automotive sector at large.

“Our combination of social influencers, with Clarkson, Hammond and May, alongside an unrivalled range of industry commentators and celebrities, provides unique reach and engagement opportunities for automotive brands.”

In its first year DriveTribe focused on building a network of more than thirty thousand ‘tribes’, debating, commenting and contributing on varied motoring subjects.

Having consolidated its data and tracked the rise of individual social influencers, the business now has the ability to surface a unique blend of content, video, chat, interactive features and live events.

“It provides a powerful way to create and deploy high production content assets and interactive features, generating multi-channel insights on audience research and opinion,” added Morris.

DriveTribe tops three million unique users each months with an extended social reach of 230 million content impressions every month.