It's a question that is raised from time to time, particularly by sales managers and internet managers. Should employees, in particular the sales team, be allowed to connect with their customers through Facebook and other social media sites? It's not a question of whether or not they should encourage their customers to like the dealership's Facebook page or follow the dealership's Twitter account. It's about a personal relationship. Should employees become social media "friends" with customers?

For some, the answer is a clear "no". There is simply too much turnover in the automotive industry and allowing connections with customers can be akin to allowing a book of business to walk out the door. This is silly for many reasons but it's not the type of opinion that can be easily changed, so we'll leave it as an opinion with which I disagree.

The other big reason is time and distraction. Some dealerships and businesses in general do not allow their employees to use social media on company time. It's a time waster, after all, and one that cannot be easily monitored or controlled.

The argument against that thought is that unless you're willing to take everyone's smart phone away during business hours, you aren't really taking them off social media. They're still checking. They're still updating. They're still "LOLing" the viral cat picture that's circulating on any given day.

If we can assume that the negatives associated with allowing social media to be used as a business tool by individual employees can be outweighed by the positives, then you can continue reading. If you are unwilling to accept it, then there's no reason to read on.

Here, we get into actual strategies...

How Employees Connect with Customers

The toughest question asked about connecting through social media also has the easiest answer. "How can my salespeople connect with their customers on Facebook?"

The answer: "They ask."

The action is easy. As long as they give them a reason and use their sales skills to make it happen, they'll be surprised at how well it works. Here's a sample talk track:

"Mr Customer, I follow up with those who buy a vehicle from me from time to time, usually just a few times a year. What's your preferred method of contact? For me it's Facebook."

"I won't bug you on Facebook - I know it's a personal thing and I treat it as such. You won't see much of me other than an occasional follow up message and some pictures of my kids. Can I add you as a friend?"

You'll be shocked at how often they say, "Sure."

We're Friends. Now What?

This is where the real magic can happen. First and foremost, the employee must follow through with what they promised. If they said they're going to follow up with them from time to time, they need to do just that. Don't send a message the first day of the new friendship. Wait a week. Wait two weeks if you're organized.

Just send a quick message, "Hi Mr Customer. I just wanted to check in and make sure that the Mustang was still cruising along nicely. Did you get your free oil change certificate in the mail yet?"

From there, it's a matter of acting normal and NEVER overposting. Two or three updates a day. All natural content. Thoughts, pictures, etc. - keep the business components away from your Facebook profile the vast majority of the time.

Once, maybe twice a month, put out a call for referrals. "It's been a slow month so far which is weird because we're loaded with inventory. Anyone in Cincinnati know someone who needs a car. We're dealing right now and I have some referral money to give you if you send anyone my way!"

That's it. Rinse. Repeat. Be a good social media user most of the time. Be a salesperson some of the time. Be a networker all of the time. Don't forget birthdays - Facebook tells you everyone who has a birthday today. Send them all messages. Post interesting content. Be real.

But, My Facebook Profile is MY Facebook Profile

Some people hold the sanctity of their social media profiles in high regard. If they love their Facebook and do not want it polluted with customers and promotions, so be it. Never force it. For decades, there are sales people who sell cars from 9 to 5 and there are sales people who sell cars anywhere and everywhere at any time.

You can't force one to become the other. It's inherent.

This stuff works. It's no different than keeping a rolodex of customers with pictures, birthdays, and the names of their kids on an index card. Facebook and social media in general can be your rolodex, but you have to be willing to make it happen.

The difference between cheating and playing smart is often a very thin line. In social media, the line gets a little thicker.

This is an exercise that I wish I had time to perform more often. There’s probably a proper name for it somewhere in the social media blogosphere, but I simply call it “Profile Peeking”. When you work in a niche the way that 90% of my time is spent in the automotive industry, you have to connect with the right people. Networking at events, referrals, LinkedIn – all of these are valid methods of expanding your network. However, they can be slow and I don’t like to wait, so I often peek in on my competitors social media profiles to find more people with whom to connect.

This is very effective on the three majors right now – Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ – but it can be applied to almost all other social networks. I’ve used it on Pinterest a few times. The bottom line is this – check other people in your industry. Look at who they are following. Find people that you should be following and that you hope will follow you back. Interact with them when possible (if their privacy settings are conducive to it). Then, check out who they are following.

It’s a path that can engulf you for a time, but it’s well worth it. In the game of network expansion, it’s often easier to find than it is to be found. Until you get to the point that you’re a known entity in your industry, being aggressive and reaching out to influencers is the fastest path to an improved network. With a bigger network comes more reach. With more reach comes more business. It’s pretty simple.

People often ask me how I'm able to stay up on the millions of things that are happening in the world of automotive internet marketing on a daily basis. There are tons of blogs, social networks, and industry websites with enough posts to fill a full day if you plugged them all into an RSS reader. How does an automotive professional with limited time during the day stay ahead and not miss out on the important things?

#AutoMarketing

It's one of the keys to success.

There are content producers galore in the industry. Everyone has an opinion on what to do with search, social, websites, analytics, CRM, classifieds, PPC, banner ads, and every other aspect of internet sales. Throw in the best practices and tips on how to actually work with customers and you have a huge mess. It's not that it's bad. It's that it needs to be curated.

The Twitter hashtag #automarketing is the easiest way to do it. Sure, there's going to be poor content that makes its way into the hashtag. That's inevitable. Many use it as a marketing tool to get their message out regardless of quality. However, the majority of what gets into the hashtag and stays at the top is high-quality.

Here's how it works. People read the blogs, social networks, and industry websites. They find content they like. They share this content on social networks like Twitter. Those who are very active on the internet side of the industry realize that certain hashtags like #AutoMarketing and #CarDealers get fed into Twitter chatter monitor widgets everywhere on the web. Thus, they put in the hashtag whenever they find something of interest.

The more that people curate and share the best content, the more powerful the hashtag becomes. It's not just the industry sites that get posted. Marketing sites that have content pertinent to car dealers often find their content shared with the hashtag as well.

If you want to stay ahead of the curve, this is one of the easiest ways to do it. Just do a search in Twitter for "#AutoMarketing" and you'll find content that curators have enjoyed. You can become a curator yourself by adding it to tweets of important industry posts. The more people that do it, the better the hashtag can become.

We need curation. You can save time by taking advantage of it. You can help by participating.

Next to computers, tablets, and smartphones, our cars are often the most technologically-challenging item that we deal with on a daily basis. Every model year brings out new gadgets and gizmos that are designed to enhance, adapt, and often-times engage with other technologies that we carry with us. Tablets are used as owners' manuals. MP3 players have become our stereos. Speakers and mics interact with our phones for hands-free driving. These are the common examples. Today's cars can do so much more.

The advertising on the OEM level often focuses on technology. Why do so few dealers do the same? It's not that they need to advertise the latest advancements to SYNC or show off the technology in any way. That's the manufacturers' job. They can, however, demonstrate that they have both an expertise in making these technologies work for their customers as well as an eager willingness to make it happen.

Many dealers do this. Few market it properly. Many of the car ads we see on television or the internet still focus on sales, price-beating, and gimmicks. What if (and think about it for more than a second) instead of promoting their dealership the same way every other dealership does, they took the path of focusing on their expertise and customer service. What if they weren't just there to sell you a vehicle. What if they were there to help you make it fit in with your technological existence?

It's an idea that was sparked by a friend, Jeff Cryder at Lebanon Ford, about a year ago but that didn't manifest itself in its current form until tonight. I was debating with a friend about his iPhone 5 versus my Galaxy SIII. His "winning" argument that obliterated any chance of convincing him that my phone was better than his: the Genius Bar.

Price is a losing battle in the automotive industry. Most dealers will be within dollars of each other when negotiated down to the bottom line on identical cars. The focus on "we treat you right" is still a powerful message but doesn't quite have the zing that it once did; the number of scandalous car dealers with poor practices has diminished dramatically in recent years and the majority do what they can to treat their customers with respect.

Technology. Expertise. A willingness to help customers get "plugged in" to their cars and take advantage of the tremendous technologies available to us - these are the things that might just work from a marketing perspective. It would be a welcome change from a television advertising perspective. It would be a differentiator at the website level. On social media, it could shine. Now, apply this to both the sales and service departments and I think you might have something.

Would it work? Is it worth trying?

* * *

"Car Technology" image courtesy of Shutterstock.

This is Part 5 in a 5 part series. Please read the previous posts first or none of this will really make any sense.

• Part I: The Key to Search and Social in 2013 and Beyond
• Part II: Picking the Power Accounts at Your Dealership
• Part III: Building Your Dealership Power Accounts
• Part IV: Wielding Your Power Accounts Properly

Fast forward to today and many of the promises are still on hold. Facebook has emerged as the primary network, something that most who were watching believed would happen, just not to the degree that it has. Despite the broken promises of social media curing all challenges, it is finally, in 2013, ready to become the hub through which the real world and the online word can meet and grow as a result. Some people knew from the start the lesson that is becoming crystal clear today - social media can connect people to businesses, but it's much more effective at connecting people with other people.

That's the key to success in 2013. The sooner that businesses realize that they can and must let their humanity shine on social media, the better their social media strategy will be. Done right, social media can become the venue through which nearly every aspect of business can flow.

It can become the hub. I'll go over how in a bit, but first let's talk about why.

Where's the Value in Focusing on Social?

When I asked a dealership if they would be willing to offer a $5 discount on service to anyone who mentioned on Facebook that they were getting their oil changed or brakes done or whatever at the dealership and were pleased with the experience, she said she would not. When worded differently, it made more sense to her.

"Would you pay a happy service customer $5 to tell five of their friends that they had a good experience getting their service done there and you could verify that they did just that, would you?"

That's the minimum that can happen when people talk about your business on social media. The average Facebook user has 140 friends. Over 70% of these friends are within driving distance. Of those, 47% check their Facebook at least once a day and a post by an active Facebook user will reach 42% of those people. That means 19 local friends saw that Jimbob enjoyed his service and received a $5 discount for telling everyone about it.

Let's take a step further while staying in automotive. If Supreme Honda's Facebook page tells people that they have great deals, nobody will believe it. If Jimbob bought a car at Supreme Honda, felt he received a great deal, and was treated with respect, his friends and family will believe it when he posts that on Facebook. It will register with them. The brand. The name. The fact that Jimbob had a great experience. All of these things leave an imprint on the minds of his friends and family. If they're in the market to buy a Honda or a used car today, they'll likely check out Supreme Honda immediately. If they enter the market in six months, they will be more inclined to check out Supreme Honda whether they remember what made them check it out or not. It's basic psychology, but it works.

All of this is easy to understand once you're seeing it from the right perspective. The challenge is having the willingness to commit with such a murky arena. Social media has not proven itself to a good chunk of businesses and dealers in particular. This is our fault. It's the fault of the vendors out there selling products that didn't work or never achieved the goals. This is changing. In 2013, it must change. There's too much being left on the table. One of my goals in writing this fifth installment was to find real-world examples of car dealers that were truly successful at using social media the right way. I assumed that I would surely find a few. After looking at 229 dealership Facebook pages (yes, I counted them up in my history), I realized that I was mistaken. Nobody is doing it right as far as I'm concerned.

This will change.

How to Make Social the Hub

This isn't a tip. It's not a collection of techniques, tricks, or best practices that a dealership can plug into their current social media strategy and expect success. It's a commitment. It's a paradigm shift. It's about understanding that when you center the online portion of your business around social media and enhance it with offline activities, that you can build a self-perpetuating marketing, branding, and communication system.

This cannot be stressed enough - if you want to be truly successful with social media, you will latch onto an individual at the dealership, preferably the owner or general manager, who can act as the representative of the dealership in all online activities. That doesn't mean that this person has to do all of the work. It means that they have to represent the communication centerpiece for social media, reputation management, and engagement activities such as charitable efforts. The majority of the most successful dealerships around the country have already done this with their advertising. Many do this at the dealership itself, having the "power personality" touch many of the deals and talk to a lot of the customers. This needs to translate over to social media as well.

You're building a local celebrity. You're branding the way that people crave in today's uber-social world, with real people and actual communication back and forth. It's where social media's power is derived. It's where the dealership's next level of success can be achieved.

Once this commitment is made and the power personality is selected, it's time to get them out to the social world. They should (through a representative managing the accounts) touch as many people as possible. They should be on videos, at events, participating in discussions, replying to reviews, and expressing opinions that align with the dealership but that add humanity to the way the dealership is perceived. People want to talk to other people. They want to interact with people who have power. They want to be heard, to be made to feel special, and to know that their actions are reaching the highest levels.

At this point, it's time for discussion. I have ideas about how this can best be accomplished, but upon learning that finding real life examples was a challenge, I decided to hold my specific recommendations for now and let the conversation center around the concept itself. What can dealerships do to truly become successful on social media through these power accounts? How can someone be truly elevated to the point that they are online and offline celebrities in the local area? What are some ways that this can be leveraged?

Let's talk.

There are two truly valid ways to post on social media. It depends on the personality, goals, and bandwidth available within your business. Both have pros and cons. Both have chances of success and failure.

This is Part III of the series on timing. Please read Part I and Part II first.

The Business-Only Personality

It's a little surprising that more businesses haven't adopted this style. It's likely that a "guru" or two has spread the word that you can't only focus on business if you want to be successful on social media. This simply isn't true.

The business-only personality type will do just as the name says: stick to business. They should post infrequently, perhaps 2-4 times a week, and support their posts with ads on Facebook. Twitter, Google+, and the other social networks cannot benefit from ad support and are likely only seen occasionally in feeds and mostly as a destination, i.e. when someone visits the business website and then follows links to Twitter, Pinterest, G+, etc.

This is effective in one scenario and safe in another scenario. In the scenario where a business has established a strong fan base of customers, prospects, and industry people, the business-only personality can be extremely effective. It doesn't flood people's news feeds with daily posts that can often encourage them to unlike, remove from the news feed, or report as spam. Because there is a reduced chance of getting an EdgeRank boost (though a case could be made that it can actually improve the chances, but that's for a different debate), it is basically a requirement to support the posts through Facebook ads. As long as the content is useful, not spammy, and relevant to fans, a sustained Sponsored Stories strategy can work very nicely.

Fan growth is often slowed as a result of this type of strategy, but there's an upside. If a business is using their page for a particular business-related focus such as a car dealership that posts social-media-only service specials weekly, the quality of the fans can be stronger.

The other scenario where this strategy works well is for the "safe" social media business type. Those who are either not bought into social media as a marketing tool or who do not have the time or resources to manage it properly can use this personality type to keep a strong presence without putting much effort into it. It's not a growth strategy. It's a "checkbox" strategy. The good part is that it's safe. As long as the page doesn't go dormant, those who are somehow able to stumble upon the accounts will not be turned off by what they find.

The Engaging Personality

This is much more common by businesses that are trying to use social media for branding, marketing, and communication. It's also the more botched approach. If there's only one piece of advice that businesses get from this article, it's that you don't have to rely on internet memes and cat pictures to be engaging. If you're a car dealership, you should be posting about cars. Period. Pictures of cars, stories about cars, useful information about cars... stay within the industry. There are plenty of engaging pictures, interesting pieces of information, and personal business anecdotal stories that can be told to stay focused on your industry without being "all business".

For local businesses, there's another realm that help them to stay on topic without diving into memes to stay interesting: the local area itself. A Seattle business can occasionally post images of the Space Needle, for example. Nothing wrong with that to "mix it up" but don't rely on these types of posts. Stay relevant as much as possible.

The engaging personality type on social media strives to be a part of the conversations within their market. They post daily, often more than once a day, and do so in order to get more people to like and interact with their content. This style relies on the interesting aspects of their business to feed content to their social profiles in order to set up the "money posts" that they put up from time to time. The money posts are those ones with practical business applications whether it's to directly promote and event or to highlight a benefit of their business.

By engaging with the various communities, they are increasing the exposure of their money posts. On Facebook, for example, the goal is to play the EdgeRank game. In other words, be as interesting as possible throughout the week in order to make certain that the important posts get maximum exposure. On Facebook and Google+, a business can increase the exposure of their money posts by posting content ahead of it that their fans like, comment about, and share.

This is viewed by many as the free technique. In other words, if you go with this strategy, the need for Facebook ads is alleviated. That's not true. The Facebook advertising strategy for the engagement personality is different from the strategy for the business-only personality, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to spend any money at all. The way that Facebook pages appear (or don't appear) in fans' news feeds makes advertising a necessity regardless of personality type. The difference is in how much and how often.

Scheduling Based Upon Personality

Now that we have an understanding of the personality types, how does this affect scheduling?

Business-Only:

• Schedule consistently from week to week. If you have a coupon or offer that comes out weekly, it should be scheduled at the exact same time every week.
• Take advantage of the social media sweet spots that we described in Part I.
• Posts about events should be posted well-ahead of the event itself. Without the benefit of engagement, you'll want to maximize exposure by giving everyone a heads up.

• Be sure that there's a 24-hour gap between image posts sent from the same platform on Facebook. For example, if you post images on Buffer, post them at the same time every day. This prevents "batching" of the posts into unlikable albums.
• Take into account the types of posts and which times to post them. Part II of this series really dives into managing from an engagement personality perspective.
• Ramp up event posts the sooner you get to them. If you know you're having a big sale in two weeks, post every other day about it the week before, then daily the week of the event.

For better or for worse, Facebook made it easier for people to report or block page posts in September. Since then, the need to tread carefully with posts has increased dramatically; too many reports or blocks can hurt a page's performance dramatically. This is an important topic that will be covered more in-depth in a future series of articles, but for now it's important to note.

As Facebook's ability to drive traffic and improve branding continues to increase, the need to understand the metrics grows as well. Fans, the way that many businesses in the past (and some still presently) judged their effectiveness has never been as important as total reach, but now it's even more important to note because of increased usage of the network. More people are on it and they're spending more time on a daily basis. Facebook is no longer an option for businesses. It's a must-have.

First, let's get an understanding of what reach really is on Facebook.

How are People "Reached"?

Facebook has always received some jabs from those in the programming world for their terrible site architecture. Those in the know would tell you that the site is held together by coding duct tape and superglue when the curtain is drawn back. However, the way they are able to track people and their eyeballs is unquestionably elegant.

When someone is "reached", it means that a post or advertisement was presented to them on screen. Facebook knows what you see and what you don't see. For example, if you post something on your page, it will be available for your fans to see on their news feed. For them to see it (and thus, be reached), it has to register as appearing to them directly. Let's say someone logs in and they start seeing some of the items in their news feed. If they scroll down far enough to see your post, they were reached. If you post is below where they scroll, they were not reached. The post had the potential to be presented to them but if it doesn't make it to their screen, they don't count.

We'll go into more detail about how to improve reach and sustain it in future articles, but for now, let's take a look at why reach is so much more important than number of fans.

Real versus Artificial Indicators

Social media is loaded with numbers that are relatively meaningless. One of those numbers is Facebook fans. That's not to say that you don't need them. It only means that a low number of high-quality, engaged fans would be much better than a high number of low-quality fans. In fact, having too many fans that aren't engaged can actually hurt your chances of having your message seen by those who are.

The image above is a snapshot of a page's reach statistics for a month. The total number of fans is relatively low - from 360 up to 404 beginning to end in the graph. However, you see a sharp spike in people reached. This was accomplished through Facebook advertising and clearly highlights how the reach was exponentially increased as a result.

Important Note: Do not fall into the trap of jumping straight into Facebook advertising without fully understanding it. Facebook users are extremely particular about what they see on their news feeds. Done improperly, Facebook ads can generate an incredible boost in the beginning, but this can fall very quickly even with an increasing budget if it's not positioned absolutely properly. Running Facebook ads is simple. Running them properly takes experience and understanding.

Getting the right fans, people who are interested in what you are posting, is extremely important. The number of fans is a blip on the overall Facebook marketing strategy. I would contend that a properly-run page with 500 good fans can get a higher and more worthwhile reach than a poorly run page with 50,000 weak fans. In Facebook, it's about how many people see your message, not how many people like your page. One has a loose effect on the other, but it's a misleading concept. The math and algorithms behind it all aren't difficult at all to understand. It simply takes a little research.

When you're gauging the effectiveness of your Facebook marketing efforts, look first towards reach. This is the number that you must manage. It's the number that is hardest to maintain at high levels with or without Facebook advertising, but it's also the one that has the greatest opportunity to improve your overall business performance.

This is Part 3 in a 5 part series. Read Part 2 here.

By now, you should have an understanding of the importance of having an individual - preferably the owner, general manager, or someone else of authority at the dealership - as the "face" and "voice" of the dealership on social media. People like to talk to people, not brands, and when you can develop a true personality that is both professional and completely human, you have the opportunity to start making real strides in using social media as a true marketing tool. It isn't just for social; the search engines are putting a lot of faith in social signals, so whether you believe in social media as a tool for your dealership or not, you have to admit that search engines clearly drive traffic that can turn into leads and sales. For this reason alone, social media is extremely important for moving well beyond your competitors in 2013.

Once the right person has been established to be the brand's identity, it's time to get turn that person into a powerful account on social media. There are several strategies that work - the tips below are the ones that we've used. In many cases, the majority of our strategy has been developed from what we've seen successful dealers do. This particular part of the series is the most challenging for me to describe because I am part of the subject as well as the observer. It's a little uncomfortable describing the techniques that I use, but for better or for worse, I am part of our own brand's identity and the techniques that we've employed to promote it can be applied easily by dealers.

Attach the Person to the Brand

The power account's face and name should be displayed often and attached to the brand. Forgive the quality of the image we used above - I didn't have access to the design team when I was posting this tip so I winged it. The end result is still easy to understand. We were posting a tip for dealers to our Facebook page and used an image that I built that will be used whenever we're posting SEO tips.

At the dealership level, this could be quick tips on SYNC, winter preparedness, getting their trade-in ready for inspection, or anything else that can fit into a paragraph or two. Make sure that in the attached image or in the text itself that the name of the power account is included. It should be a tip from the owner, not just a tip from ABC Motors.

Develop the Right Personality

One of the biggest mistakes that dealers make when using social media is that they don't want to be frivolous or get off topic. This is debatable. Some would say that there's no reason to talk about anything other than dealership business or cars in general. Even if you subscribe to this way of thinking, that doesn't mean that you can't insert personality into the posts.

Whether you're willing to let your dealership power account go off topic from time to time or not, you must make sure that there is a real personality portrayed in some (perhaps all) of the posts. Let their opinions be known. Personally, I'm a Christian and I often assert this in my posts. That doesn't mean that my company is strictly Christian and people know this. Religion and politics are often dangerous bedfellows with professional social media accounts. You must make sure your dealership is 100% on board with it before heading down that road.

Regardless, having an opinion (even if you avoid politics and religion) is an essential piece to the puzzle. If you want to avoid the potential controversies, you can post things that are still opinionated without being risky:

In this example, my personality is expressed through an opinion without risking controversy. It's extremely humanizing to talk about things that the individual behind the power account truly feels. If it's the owner, for example, you will hear them say things from time to time that strike you. If it strikes you in real life, it has a chance to come across well on social media. Let them know, "That's great - I'm tweeting that for you." I know of one dealership in particular where the owner is such a great personality in real life that the internet manager who's running his account often follows him around just to get social media ideas. The owner loves it and the internet manager has said that her job is easier as a result.

Clever is Better than Smart

It's easy to sound smart on social media. Unfortunately, it often doesn't translate into a lot of likes or shares. Clever, on the other hand, has the opportunity to go viral.

Whether you're finding content on the internet to post or if you're out there generating and capturing content yourself in the real world, look for opportunities to entertain. When you're making people laugh or smile with your social media profiles, they are much more likely to help you spread the word (and as a result, your brand). Look for "cleverness opportunities" and get them posted through your power accounts often.

Be Timely Whenever Possible

Talking about the events that either recently happened or that are happening in the future is challenging. On the days leading up to the election, it was hard to get traction for posts surrounding it because there were simply so many other posts out there on the same subject. Finding the balance between timely and still-interesting is hard. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to find content that isn't saturated yet but that's interesting enough to share.

The image above struck me when I first saw it. The storms the night before in Dallas were absolutely mean and the subsequent images were incredible. I found one that I thought was most impressive and posted it to Google+. Despite the "ghost town" mentality that so many still hold onto when it comes to Google+, this particular image ended up with over 1000 +1s. It was timely and incredible. People love timely and incredible and they're willing to share it.

Link as a Thought Leader

Some say that you should never post links to social media. This is an insane thought to me, but I'm sure there will be naysayers.

For me, it's important to post links that are truly important. In my niche, I must find the best content that circles around automotive social media and automotive SEO. For a dealership, you must find content that circles around your manufacturers, the local area, and your important dealership news. Your power accounts must be the thought leaders when it comes to your topics. Every link that you post should be important and interesting to your target audience, namely potential buyers of your vehicles or fixed ops customers.

* * *

In the next part of this series, we'll go over ways to take advantage of your power accounts once they're built. After all, it's not just about being interesting. You want to get some real demonstrable ROI out of the efforts. We'll discuss how to attach the accounts appropriately to promotions, how to get your customers to be outrageous for the sake of the dealership (I call this "getting them into the social media trunk"), and how to turn liking into sharing for the sake of your marketing. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, you can check my accounts out for Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.

Every few months, marketers around the blogosphere start the next batch of chants that search engine optimization is dying or dead. It's like clockwork; Google makes a change, their pages rank poorly, they declare that the party's over. I think I've written about the topic at least once a year since 2008.

The chants are starting again and I'm here to tell you that, as usual, they are premature. I'm not so naive as to make a statement like "SEO will never die," but the thought that the death is here is silly. It's not dead. It has changed. It changes frequently - perhaps more frequently in recent months - but it's not dead yet. In fact, those who are doing the right things are finding that their rankings are actually improving.

Why They Always Pronounce it Dead

Since the dawn of SEO, there have been tricks that work for a short period of time. We've always taken the stance that anything that smells like a "trick" will not last and should be dismissed. This concept has helped us to stay on top of our searches and the keywords of our clients.

For example, 2007 saw a major increase in the effectiveness of social news and social bookmarking links. It was almost too easy - if you submitted a piece of content to Digg, it would rank for easy keywords within a few hours and for tougher keywords in a few days. Smart marketers refused to play this game knowing that Google would catch on and instead learned to use sites like Digg and Reddit to drive real SEO juice by posting powerful content and exposing it to the social news world. This still applies today for many sites, though they are fading quickly from relevance (except Reddit, which is growing).

Any time one of these tricks stops working, the SEOpocalypse is declared.

The most recent change that has everyone up in arms is the devaluing of automated links. Footer links, sidebar links, link farms - Google and Bing both have found ways to not only discredit these links but to make them harmful when done too much. SEO is dead... for those who couldn't keep up with these changes.

Why SEO isn't Dead

Thankfully, smart marketers did not participate in the automated link-building programs. Personally, I'm shocked it took as long as it did for Google and Bing to figure it out. There was a time in late 2011 that I was starting to doubt my choice of not having our SEO team get in on the link-automation trend. I was getting questioned by some within the company because the path we chose, one of unique content and contextual link generation, was much more expensive to operate than the automated ways.

The corner was finally turned with the Penguin update and subsequent tweaks and my choices were vindicated.

Today, content is no longer a tool for SEO. It is an overarching concept that includes SEO as part of its mandate. In other words, the tool is now the goal and the goals of SEO, reputation, branding, and social media marketing all revolve around quality content.

When you're out there reading about the marketing trends of 2013, take note of those who are pulling away from social media or SEO and those who are pushing forward. This is easy for me to say since it's the direction that my company is heading, but it happens to be the truth. Quality content that people can enjoy, proper link-building and social signal practices that revolve around this content, and social media marketing that doesn't rely on funny cat pictures - these are the real trends that will drive proper marketing in 2013.

It was the 2011 Driving Sales Executive Summit when I was asked by Joe Webb to participate in a debate about Twitter followers. I had around 100,000 followers at the time and he wanted me to argue for the side of quantity being more important than quality. This made perfect sense except for one fact: I don't believe in quantity being a more important factor than quality. I did back in 2008 when Twitter was bright and shiny and "churning" for Twitter followers was a common technique, but those days are way behind us.

Today, size still matters. It's not the total size that counts but the size of your engaged audience. Under most circumstances, I hate using buzzwords like "engagement" but it fits perfectly here. Your engaged audience is all that matters from a business perspective.

Let's look at a handful of social networks for examples of how quantity and quality fit into the models for marketing in each. We'll focus on three areas: fan base (likes and followers), posting frequency, and interactions with others.

On Facebook

This is the big daddy in social media and deserves to be up top.

• Fan Base - This is the most important component when discussing quality versus quantity, particularly for localized businesses. National and worldwide brands do not have to worry about it as much, but when you're promoting a local car dealership, you actually want fewer fans that are outside of your area. An ideal Facebook page fan base would be comprised entirely of locals, of people who would be willing to drive to the store. I'll take 500 local fans over 10,000 fans spread out any day, even if 500 of those spread out fans are local. Why? It's all about demographic and advertising. Facebook ads are extremely powerful and pages that are loaded with irrelevant fans actually hurts your ability to market to the locals. It drives up expenses and can make you look like a cheater to those who see your page and wonder why so many people outside of your area seem to like your page.
  
• Posting Frequency - There are two different strategies here. On one side of the spectrum, you have the business-only Facebook strategy that puts up 2 or 3 posts a week all related to business and advances these through Facebook ads. EdgeRank will not be favorable to this strategy, but EdgeRank goes out the window with proper advertising in place. The other side of the coin is to go after 1-3 posts a day (or more) with the hope of being a part of the conversation on a daily basis. This works fine as well. The pages that fail are the ones that are posting constantly. This becomes noise and forces people to hide you from their news feeds. They aren't here to see a bunch of posts from businesses. They came to Facebook to see little Timmy sliding into third base. Don't overpost.
  
• Interactions - Again, quality is better than quantity here, but it's less of an issue on Facebook. If you're posting comments, liking, and sharing the posts of other pages regularly but not too much, you'll be fine. The biggest challenge I've seen is in having people log in as their Facebook pages and actually interact. Most are willing to comment on their own posts when people respond to them, but it goes deeper, or at least it should.
  

On Twitter

The biggest problem that most businesses face with Twitter is automation.

• Fan Base - I've seen accounts with 1000 avid and engaged followers that have more power and get more interactions than accounts with 250k followers. This is a big problem, the ease in which people can buy fake followers to bump up their numbers. It's a joke, really. Focusing on getting real people who are active on Twitter to follow your account is gold.
  
• Posting Frequency - It's not really possible to overpost on Twitter. Posting too many at once is a challenge because flooding followers' feeds will make them unfollow you, but it's possible to get a ton of posts out there every day without making people too upset. However, automated posting tools such as RSS posters or Facebook post integration is a mistake. On some of the accounts I manage, I post over 20 times a day, but every single post is done manually. I schedule them - I'm not on Twitter 24/7 - but everything I schedule is manually vetted. More importantly, they're all hand-crafted. You can get more out of a properly written Tweet than five RSS-fed Tweets any day.
  
• Interactions - I'm rude. I don't reply to every single person who Tweets at me or retweets me. It's not because I don't appreciate the interactions. It's because I don't want to flood my followers' feeds with a bunch of "Thanks for the Retweet" posts. As a general rule, interact with those who put in the effort. In other words, you don't have to talk to everyone who pushed the retweet button, but if they typed something specifically at you or added their two cents to a conversation, it's best to interact right back at them. Keep it fresh and don't talk to spammers.
  

On Pinterest

The newest big hotness in social media is making a splash on the business side. As a result, there is a need to understand the quality versus quantity aspect as it stands now. This can change as the site continues to grow, but for now here are some best practices.

• Fan Base - For businesses, this is the only social network where size really does make a big difference. You can still be effective without a ton of followers, but they definitely help. Just like with Twitter, there are buying services available that let you bump up your numbers. Just like with Twitter, this is a terrible idea. You can grow your following by posting regularly, tagging appropriately, and interacting with the accounts that are also posting content that you like.
  
• Posting Frequency - The first thing I do when I see my Pinterest page flooded with someone else's posts is to unfollow them. The elegant way in which Pinterest displays their feed makes it easy to spot the overposters. To me, the magic number is 10 a day if you can spread it out and no more than five at a time, but some would say you can post more in a day but should post less at a time. Make your choice based upon your schedule; if you can log in and post three or four times a day, post 1-3 at a time. If you're logging in once a day, get 3-5 out there during your Pinterest session.
  
• Interactions - Pinterest and Tumblr are the social networks where it's okay to operate strictly from an interaction perspective. Twitter is as well when used strictly as a communication tool, but unless a business is truly dialed in and has integrated their Twitter into their standard operating procedures, they'll get more benefit by proactively engaging. Pinterest and Tumblr are sharing machines, so even if you never post your own original content, you can still be successful by simply being a strong curator. The benefit here is that it's easier to get engagement when you're working with other people's content.
  

Over at Automotive Digital Marketing, there's been a long discussion started by Jim Zieglerabout Carfax and its place in the automotive community. I haven't chimed in because, quite frankly, I'm not needed there. The discussion is self-perpetuating and there's no shortage of opinions.

It did, however, catch my attention strictly from an advertising perspective as they have an ad out that misses on more cylinders than I thought was even possible. This physics-bending ad is intended to position Carfax as some sort of secret weapon to be used against car dealers. It isn't, but that's not the main reason why the ad fails so miserably.

First, the video itself:

Did you see the biggest problem with it?

Car salespeople are still stuck in the 80s, according to this video. The CarFax advertising team had a big opportunity to introduce the reality of today's car buying experience, and that reality is that dealers look at Carfax very closely themselves. They do not want to put out a vehicle that won't pass with flying colors. Most use it as a selling tool, a vote of confidence that they stand by their product. To position dealers as the enemy is foolish, mostly because there are plenty of people who feel that if something is considered a potential conflict point, they'll avoid it. Why would you want to make your product appear to be a point of contention during a transaction?

There are many challenges with the way Carfax is marketing, but this is the biggest. Be a conduit between dealers and customers. Don't be adversarial to one side or the other.

Last month I had a conversation with a potential client who was describing their content marketing strategy. They had a strong understanding of the theories of posting content that people will share and mixing in promotional content from time to time. It's a basic and effective way to build a community and a following while still getting the benefits of exposure for their business-focused messages. Post what they like, then post what you want them to see.

Fast forward to earlier this week and I finally had a chance to examine their content. What I found disappointed me. The way they were handling "content that people will share" was to post two types of content - entertaining content and content that could be a valuable resource. The challenge I found was that they drew an extremely clear line between entertaining posts and resource posts. The line was so clear that their entertaining posts brought zero value to the reader while the resource posts were as enjoyable as eating chalk.

Content marketing is quickly becoming the cornerstone to both search and social strategies. It is a best practice to try to make sure that what your posting has both entertainment and resource value. Each post can definitely lean in one direction or another, but your entertaining posts should be interesting as well while your resource posts shouldn't put the reader to sleep.

Here's an example of an entertaining post that is also mildly useful. It's a list of the top 5 most searched Dodge Chargers on Google. The entertainment value is clear - classic Dodge Chargers are loved by many drivers and high-resolution images of mint condition Chargers can appeal the target audience (in this case, a Dodge dealer's visitors). However, rather than just making a picture gallery of some cool cars and calling it "5 Epic Pictures of Classic Dodge Chargers", they inserted some resource value. First, the title itself shows that it has resource value: "The 5 Most Searched Dodge Chargers in History". There's not a ton of resource value floating through the page - it's mostly just trivia. However, a resource doesn't have to be a case study or a thesis. The two or three bits of trivial information that the reader can learn from this page are enough to give it value. Remember, this page is primary for entertaining.

Now, let's take a look at a resource page. This one is a historical look at the once-famous Willys Jeep. It has a graphic and information that is informative as well as a couple of images of the iconic vehicle. However, it's not presented in a way that makes it sound like it came out of a history textbook or even Wikipedia. The graphic is fun. The images are high-resolution and interesting. The text focuses on some little-known facts about the vehicle that help it to fall into both the resource and entertainment categories. It may be a resource piece, but there's nothing boring about it.

Posts that are exclusively resources or exclusively entertaining bring value to the table, but not nearly as much as doing both at the same time. People go to the internet for many reasons, but the three primary ones are communication, education, and entertainment. If you want them to do the first thing - communicate - then you have to master the second and third things first. When you can consolidate and kill two birds with one stone, the other bird will fall nicely into your trap.

They say timing is everything. In social media, quality of content is almost everything. The rest of it does come down to timing.

****This is Part II of the series on timing. Please read Part I first.****

There are two primary components to timing that should be considered when planning out what content to post. You must remember the type of content to post at the different times as well as the goals of the content itself. To do this, you have to keep a strong MAP (marketing action plan) in place to guide you in order to have the right posts going out at the right times.

Type of Content

The personality, fan base, and availability to monitor the social channels all make a huge difference in the specifics surrounding your posting, but here are some general rules to keep in mind:

• Inspire in the morning. If your personality type is the kind that has you posting motivational quotes, positive affirmations, or even Bible verses, this should be the first thing that comes out of your social media mouth in the mornig. If you're not quite so "deep" in your business social media personality, starting off with something fun and entertaining works just fine.
  
• Business in the middle. If you're posting 3 or more updates a day, the middle of the day is when these come to play. That doesn't mean lunch time - as stated in Part I, your best times for business posts actually avoid lunch. Post prior to 11am or after 3pm for your best results.
  
• Be thankful in the evening. This is when you should be posting about others. It could be a charity you support, a customer testimonial, or even something from outside of your business such as industry news. If you have nothing like that top post in a day, resort back to entertaining or inspiring text or image posts. Remember the mentality of your fans at different points in the day. In the evening, they are hopefully home from work and enjoying their evening casually scanning their social media. They don't want business-oriented posts popping up at them.

Keeping Goals in Mind

As a proper MAP will dictate, you should be thinking ahead and planting seeds at the appropriate moments. For example, if you know you have a big sale coming up in a couple of weeks, you may want to post teasers about it every other day for a week, then every day leading up to it. This isn't the time to get boring; make them fun and increasingly informative whenever possible.

One of your goals may be to prompt your happy customers to write reviews on the various sites out there. This is hard to accomplish with social media, but there's a silver lining that has become more important lately. With Google, Yelp, and other review sites pulling down reviews left and right, it should be noted that the people who are able to be influenced to write reviews when prompted by social media channels are the highest quality. That's not to say that they'll write good reviews. It means that the personality type associated with these people is such that they are probably already active on the review sites and have a much better chance of having their reviews stick.

If, like many businesses, your goals with social media are strictly surrounding branding and name recognition, you have the luxury of posting at an extremely regular level. You could even schedule the majority of your posts well ahead of time. You also have the luxury of being able to post more often than businesses with goals that surround driving traffic to their website or landing pages.

This might sound odd, but if you are doing this strictly for the branding, you'll want to schedule your posts at the exact same time every day. Facebook batches images that are posted within 24 hours of the last one within an album. Unfortunately, they create albums for you based upon the source of the post. This includes scheduling with the native scheduling tool itself. So, if you are wanting to schedule 3 images a day, you'll get maximum exposure by scheduling them with three separate tools, including the native tool.

Posts that go up to Facebook.com itself manually are not constrained to these parameters. Unfortunately, everything else currently is, including mobile uploads, Instagram, and Pinterest (though Pinterest allows 2 posts in 24 hours before batching them).

As with the types of posts, this set of tips on goals is a miniscule idea-sparking teaser rather than a comprehensive guide. Because the goals of different businesses can be as diverse as the businesses themselves, it's important to put your own goals together (or contact us for some advice) based upon your specific business needs.

Days of the Week

If you want to get a leg up on your competitors, this is the easiest way to do it. Understanding when and how people are engaging with businesses on different days of the week yields some facts that surprise many (myself included).

The weekends are the untapped goldmine of social media for business. Fewer people check their social feeds on the weekends, but those who do check are much more active than they are during the week. Likes go up by a lot. People are more thoughtful on the weekends as well, meaning that they will watch longer videos, read longer posts, and check out entire albums rather than scanning through individual pictures as they do during the week.

Wednesdays weren't that bad just six months ago. Now, they're dropped below Thursday and Friday as the least engaging day of the week on social media. Don't even think about asking why - I have no idea. All I have is the data.

* * *

Remember, you're a business. You're not welcome on social media as much as individuals, but that doesn't mean you can't accomplish your goals. You just have to do it right. Think of it like television advertising. We all believe we don't like commercials. That's a common stance. However, there are certain commercials that pop up that are entertaining or informative enough that we'll actually talk about them with friends. We may even look them up on YouTube to see them again. I'll leave you with one such commercial that I still watch every year or so since first seeing it during a Superbowl.

There are times when you're going to post a piece of content that is too good to post in just one place. It could be extremely informative, very timely, majorly entertaining, or perhaps you just really liked it and want to post it in other places. There are times when you can syndicate the content, but when it's your own site, you'll want to "reblog" it.

This is different from syndicating. If you have places where you can post and it makes sense to let the original content stand on its own, then simply copying, pasting, and reformatting is just fine. There are three instances when you won't want to do this:

1. If you're posting on another one of your own sites where you control all of the content, reblogging can give you a reason for your visitors to one site to explore your other site.
   
   
2. If you're posting on one of your domains that is not "aged and weathered" - in other words, it's either a newer domain or does not index very well in the search engines - then reblogging like this will allow you to make sure the content is unique without having to start from scratch on the same topic.
   
   
3. If you have a topic that is extremely important and deserves more than one article to highlight it, reblogging is a fast way to write one long-form piece of content and then support it with other websites.

By reblogging, you'll want to do what is posted in the image above. We took a piece of content about Facebook pictures that we posted on Dealer Bar, then reblogged it onto the KPA Internet Marketing Blog. The original story showed five types of Facebook customer picture posts. The reblog focused on the reasons this is important. We put out three short paragraphs of original content, took an important excerpt from the original, and linked to it.

The easiest way to understand it is to start from the reblog and then follow it to the original post. You'll be able to get more mileage out of your content without having to come up with as many fresh ideas. You'll also be exposing your content to different sets of readers. It's a win-win.

This is Part 4 in a 5 part series. Please read the previous posts first or none of this will really make any sense.

• Part I: The Key to Search and Social in 2013 and Beyond
• Part II: Picking the Power Accounts at Your Dealership
• Part III: Building Your Dealership Power Accounts

As with most proper marketing strategies, it's time to plan. Your accounts should have a strong localized following by now. The names of both the dealership and the individual influencer at your dealership (preferably the owner or general manager) are quickly becoming very well known in the community. Like the Tracy Myers and Jeff Cryders of the world, the person who is representing your dealership should be out and about talking to customers at the dealership, outside of the dealership, and online.

One thing that wasn't unfortunately omitted from the previous articles but that's a very important note is that this person should be there for the good AND the bad. They should be the name used when responding to online reviews whenever possible. This is one of the reasons why a person of authority is best suited for this role.

With that out of the way, let's talk about planning...

Proper Prior Planning...

...prevents poor performance. There are actually many "power accounts" that I've seen in the automotive industry that were either under-utilized or turned into spamming accounts. Your power accounts must think like Goldilocks - not too hot, not too cold, but just right.

Every post should be thought out with precision. Posting at the right timesis extremely important. All of the major social media sites are driven by momentum to some extent; EdgeRank on Facebook, for example, gives prominence to posts by those who have had a lot of likes, comments, and shares on previous posts. The more you're liked, the more you'll be liked. Google+ is the same way. Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and others work from a chronological feed, but the strategy remains the same for different reasons. You want to get retweets, reblogs, repins, etc, so that your posts are more visible to other people who may then choose to follow you. Same concept, different purposes.

Now that we understand that, let's talk about what to post. Just like when driving, you don't want to just look at the road directly in front of you. You drive by pointing your car towards the distant goal while keeping your peripheral vision on potential obstacles that may jump out at you. When you're in traffic, you switch lanes based upon your end goal as well as the flow of traffic in front of you.

Mixing up the proper types of posts isn't a random thing. You should know when to post for conversation and when to post for conversion:

• Conversation posts are those that are designed to appeal to people's interests. These are often images or text posts that are interesting, entertaining, or useful. The goal is to use these to get the interest of your fans and friends of your fans, to increase exposure, and to set up the conversion posts that follow.
• Conversion posts are the marketing posts. These are different from branding posts which we'll describe later. These are posts that have distinct goals in mind. It may be promoting an upcoming sale. It may be an especially intriguing vehicle that just came in on trade. It could be a contest, a charitable event, an interesting video advertisement, or simply a link to a landing page on your website.

This is where the planning comes in. You will need a calendar or scheduling software that allows you to get a bird's eye view of what your coming posts will say. Mix it up properly. Use conversational posts appropriately. For example, if you have a big sale coming up this weekend, you may have two or three really strong conversation posts that lead up to the first conversion post about the sale. This way, more people will see it when it does get posted.

Determining the personality of the posts is another important part of planning. There are too many "randomly interesting accounts" out there on social media. You are not George Takei, and but you can learn from him. He posts mostly geek-oriented humor posts. He stays within his niche and plays on it well. For your dealership and power account personality, you may want to lean towards being the ultimate vehicular genius in the area. You may want to start a mini-meme in the local area by taking pictures of the power account person taking a particularly awesome vehicle around to well-known places and businesses in the area. This part takes creativity and brainstorming, but here's a quick example of one that I truly enjoyed:

An owner would go to every baseball game when the local MLB team was at home. They would drive around and look for cars that were parking that had the dealership's branded license plate bracket. They would approach these people as they parked, ask them if they already had their tickets, and offer them use of the dealer's seats for the game. Season passes aren't that expensive, especially when they can be used for a strong social media marketing campaign. They would, of course, record the conversation with the happy customers and post it throughout their social profiles.

Remember, the goal is to make a plan that will help your dealership personality stand out. This isn't about post scheduling, though that's important as well. It's about putting together a strong action plan for today, next week, next month, and across the future. This is where the power accounts can truly start making an impact and exposing the brand to a wider audience.

I would be more than happy to consult with any dealership that wants to brainstorm some ideas and learn more about planning.

Once you have the plan, it's time to get your customers involved...

Getting Outrageous Support from Your Customers

Having a power account makes things easier, but it doesn't change one ominous fact about social media: "It's not what you're saying about your business on social media that's important. It's what others are saying about you."

Power accounts are the ultimate vessel through which to get the raving fans that can truly enhance your business. It's not about getting fans. It's about getting absolutely delighted customers who are not only willing to tell others about you but are excited about spreading the word. Another article can be written about the importance of making your customers ecstatic and how the owner or general manager are the most powerful people when it comes to making this happen, but that's not for today.

Your power accounts need to be interacting with as many people as possible. They need to be celebrities in heart and mind. They need to participate whenever appropriate with the most amazing customers. For example, a dealership I recently talked to told me about a 4th generation buyer. A great grandma, her daughter, and the grandson brought in the great granddaughter to buy her first car. They all came in together. They told everyone in the showroom about the multiple experiences they'd had at the dealership for 5 decades.

I asked about the videos. There were none. I wanted to cry.

This is one of those rare opportunities when the owner or general manager should have done everything possible to make these people special. It was a social media story that could have carried weight for months. It was multiple photo opportunities. It was a chance for the ultimate testimonial video. The power account person should have offered to take this family to a nice dinner. So many chances here, all missed.

On the other side of the spectrum, I was visiting a dealership earlier this year. The GM took my team and his internet department to breakfast. A man approached as we were at the cashier and thanked the general manager for helping his son buy a car a month before. The GM didn't think twice. He shook the gentleman's hand, then grabbed the ticket from his other hand and said, "We appreciate your business, my friend. Breakfast is on Holiday Automotive this morning."

Had I had the chance to do it all over, I would have asked them all at the moment if they would mind if I put the experience on Facebook. From a dealership perspective, there's a fine line between bragging and making a random act of gratitude like this resonate on social media. Here's what I would have posted:

"Ran into a loyal customer at Moe's this morning for breakfast. We picked up the tab - it felt good! I'd love to do it again. If you see me at Moe's, come say hi. I really appreciate our customers and would love to buy your breakfast as well."

You don't have to wait around for extraordinary moments. Depending on the personality you've chosen for your power account, you can turn the boring pictures that so many dealerships take of their happy customers and turn it into something sharable. For example, the power account individual can take pictures with the customers holding up a whiteboard while standing in front of their new car. The message depends on the personality and desired message, but here are some examples. Again, imagine the buyer holding a whiteboard with the message and an arrow pointing towards the power account person:

• "This guy just made me a deal I couldn't refuse for my new Altima."
• "Ask for Hank and he'll tell you a joke, then make you a killer deal."
• "The worst negotiator in the world just sold me this car. Ask for Hank!"
• "This guy just treated us with dignity and respect. Not your stereotypical car dealer. Ask for Hank!"

In the past, some dealers would try to get their customers climb into the trunk of a car they were considering. It was a demonstration of control; if you could get your customer to climb into the trunk, you had control of the deal. Today, we want to get people into the "social media trunk". This is no longer about control. It's about creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and harnessing this atmosphere to take advantage of the word of mouth that social media empowers your customers to wield. Getting them to post is much more important than what you're posting. The power account is best positioned to make this happen.

Getting Your Message Shared

The social media power account at your dealership gains a certain power when they reach the top level within the community. They have the opportunity to go from being liked to being shared. This is the hardest part. It takes time, creativity, and cleverness.

This does not mean posting things such as "Share this if you believe that..." Posts that ask for likes or shares are weak. They turn people off. Never ask for a retweet, a like, a share, a +1, or anything else in the post itself. That doesn't mean that you don't ask. It means that you don't ask within the post.

Where the power account can get shares is often with the interaction that they have with others both in real life as well as on social media. Before getting to real life share requests, let's first look at interactions. When your power account likes, shares, comments, retweets, reblogs, or any other interaction with other businesses or individuals in the area, they are more likely inclined to return the favor. Reciprocity on social media is common. The more you like, the more you'll be liked. The more you share, the more you'll be shared.

There's an art and a science to understanding who will reciprocate and who will not. On Twitter and Pinterest, it's really easy, of course. Just find people who respond or retweet. Those who are only broadcasting will likely not reciprocate. On Facebook and Google+, it's more challenging but can be done. Test it out. Dedicate a little bit of time every day to engage with local pages and individuals (especially customers). Don't spam them or stalk them, but engage. If they reply, keep note of who they are and check them out from time to time.

In real life, it's a matter of asking and getting your staff to ask. It starts with them. If they aren't following and engaging with the power account online, they won't be willing to ask others to do the same.

It's not just about asking. Advertise it. Make signs and put them up around the dealership. In service, it could be a sign that says, "Hank gives customers free oil changes on Facebook and Twitter from time to time. Follow him and get something useful from social media instead of just funny cat pictures (even though Hank loves cats, too!)."

It could be much more blatant as well. "Receive a 10% discount on your current service. Just follow Hank and share one of his posts on your Facebook profile and get the discount immediately."

Again, be creative. This is your time to make your power account shine.

* * *

In the final part of this series, we will bring it all together with real world examples of power accounts in action. Your social media reputation can become the hub through which you dealership's entire reputation stems. When this happens, you'll have much more control over what people are saying and hearing about you. More importantly, you'll have an opportunity to gain benefit for your dealership in an arena where your competitors are likely failing miserably. As social media continues to grow, there are only a few who will truly succeed and a vast majority who will not. Which side of the fence will your dealership choose?

I absolutely love the video below. It isn't that it's so useful that people will love it; as used car buying tips go, it's rather light on real zingers or anything outside of common knowledge. It isn't the production quality; this is a well-made video, but nothing outstanding compared to other motion graphics.

The thing that makes this video stand out is that it's a branding and marketing machine that will keep on giving for years to come. First, it's very sharable. It's not quite good enough to be a viral video, but it will do its job and get some views. Second, it's a search engine golden ticket. It will be visible on searches for terms like "buying a used car" and "used car buying tips" and will stay visible for a long time.

Finally, it's a strong branding message that has very little to do with the brand itself. It's loosely related, of course, but the relationship is not a part of the story. The company will reap the benefits of being found by new people for a long time.

Here's the video itself:

I know it's the heart of football season and the beginning of basketball season, but baseball is the sport that truly helps to illustrate this particular post. On social media, not all times are created equal. It's important to know where and when to place your pitches to let your fans and followers hit home runs for you.

There have been much more scientific studies that detail this. I have to disagree with most of these because they ones I've seen have missed an important aspect or two. For the most part, they're basing their research on when people are most active on social media and the volume of posts happening at that time. Unfortunately, this is an incomplete data set. I've based my research strictly on business engagement - when are people willing to interact with the companies they like and follow.

Also, I've taken into consideration the science behind the Facebook feed itself. For example, one of the "sweet spots" that nearly every study I've seen skips the dead zone of 5:00am-5:30am. Fewer people are up and about checking their social media at this time, so it's not on the list. This is a huge mistake. Getting in line to appear on Facebook and Twitter feeds means posting at the moment or right before people pick up their smartphones, flip open their tablets, or switch on their computers to hit social media. Posts in the dead zone performed exceptionally well for businesses as they weren't shoved down on the feeds by the ever-important friend posts.

In other words, people saw and engaged with these posts first thing in the morning, setting up a nice day with quick likes, comments, and shares. This helps with posts throughout the day.

It's important to understand where this data originated. Since May, 2012, I've been researching with actual business pages about times, content, tools, etc. This has been a real-world study based on trial and error as well as result tracking. I've read the studies. I've guided my research around them and improved on them with months of testing. These aren't theories. I've seen it all working in action.

With that out of the way, let's go straight into the sweet spots:

• 7:30pm-8:00pm - While most studies considered 5am as too early to post, most of them also considered 8pm as too late. Data shows differently. This wasn't the case in the beginning of my research; the times when people are engaging with businesses on social media has elongated. On 37 of 42 pages posting at this time, we received the highest number of likes and comments as well as retweets and reblogs for posts that happened between 7:30pm and 8:00pm starting in August. Prior to that, the numbers were better from 7:00pm to 7:30pm. This is contrary to daylight trends and did not see a change after the most recent clock change, so I can say with a near certainty that the change is based upon people either staying on social media longer or starting later in the evening. Either way, this sweet spot is a must-time to post, particularly with messages that are either not time-sensitive or relevant for the following day.
  
• 5:00am-5:30am - Again, this time is contrary to other studies, but as I mentioned above it's shown to be an amazing time for businesses to post. Strangely, this was not the case for my personal posts; things that I personally post on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and my other individual social networks do not perform as well as the business posts.
  
• 5:30pm-6:00pm - Depending on the study, this is either too late or right at the end of the best times to post. Engagement was high for these posts and helped to set up the engagement on the later post.
  
• 10:00am-10:30am - This falls well within the recommended posting times on most studies I've read and performed better than posts done earlier or later in the morning. Videos did better at this time than other times, something that makes one wonder what people are doing a couple of hours after they get to the office.

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This post has been coming for a long time. For the sake of transparency, I should note that I've been "sitting on it" for a while and relishing in the poor data and bad studies that are guiding many others in the industry, but guilt won out and it became time to come clean.

At the end of the day, the best thing to do is to find your sweet spot. Just like in baseball, not every batter likes it right down the middle. Some like it high and inside. Others go yard to the opposite field when they get pitches low and away. Your business, your demographic, your fan base - those are the things that should determine when you post. This is only a guide.

In the next part of this series, we'll discuss ideas surrounding the types of things to post at different times as well as the importance of understanding the days. The weekend can be a flurry of activity for your business profiles, while Wednesday in general is awful - surprising facts when you consider that businesses generally post more on Wednesday than Saturday and Sunday combined. Stay tuned.

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Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

If you're a retailer of items that are often purchased as gifts, holiday advertising makes total sense. You're competing for a portion of the most lucrative sales season and getting the word out about the deals, products, and sales that you have going on at your store is important.

If you are not a retailer with holiday items for sale, don't try to take advantage of it all by getting "in the spirit" of the season. You can do more damage than good.

There's an anti-holiday sentiment that has been growing for a few years. Consumers are getting tired of the mess that Christmas shopping has become. It has always been stressful, but now the increase in communication and marketing styles has put it front and center whenever we're connected to media. Television, internet, mobile - all are being bombarded with holiday messages.

This negative sentiment is a dangerous realm if you aren't bringing anything real to the table. You might be having a holiday special of some sort, but if it's not directly tied to something of immediate interest - gifts, food, or travel - you're just participating in the noise.

Instead, take a different approach this year. There's a difference between being "jolly" and trying to capitalize on the season by offering trumped up specials or events that don't directly influence how people will celebrate. Here are some ideas:

• Give - The one noble aspect of the season that most people don't mind is the need for giving. There are plenty of those who could use the help of your business and by participating in local causes and encouraging others to do the same, you'll be doing good while improving your brand image. Be careful not to latch onto the guilt notion - all too often we're bombarded with messages that are supposed to make us feel guilty for having more than others. This is another type of message that gets overdone around the holidays. Give, support, promote, but do it in a celebratory manner.
• A Message of Relaxation - A couple of years ago I saw a car dealership create a "Holiday Triage Center". They set up their service center waiting area with snacks, drinks, comfortable chairs, and a very prominent "no holiday music allowed" atmosphere. They then advertised it as a place to get away from the holiday hustle and bustle for a while, a pit stop to recharge and relax.
• Focus on 2013 - We might not be done with this year, yet, but it's not too early to start pushing out a message of what's to come.This is particularly effective when reaching those who are beyond their holiday hysteria, who have already done their shopping and preparing.

Just because the holidays are upon us doesn't mean that your message has to center around it. Today, there are plenty of holiday messages that are both relevant and irrelevant. If you aren't selling something that goes under a tree, into an over, or that gets people from here to there, don't get sucked into the abyss. Be different.

Some people have a misunderstanding about what is seen and heard through social media. It's happening on two major fronts: personal communications and business communications. Both are completely separate, but the fact that the same basic premise popped up from both angles made picking out this blog topic a no-brainer.

I was talking to a family member who made a surprising statement. "I wish [redacted] was following me on Twitter so I could tell him how I feel about [redacted]."

Now, those of us who use social media often realize the error in this statement. Twitter allows for communication with anyone. Facebook and Google+ can allow for communication with anyone who has their settings open to receive communication from strangers. Many of us have had conversations on social media with celebrities and businesses that weren't following us, but who were open to receiving and responding to these communications.

They don't have to follow you to be listening. More importantly, just because they are following you doesn't mean that they're listening. It's a minor point but we have to get that out of the way before moving on to the business reason for this post...

Customers See Your Business Social Profiles and Pages without Following You

Wrong.

I had her show me her website analytics. They, like many websites, had links at the bottom of their homepage to their social profiles. The number of clicks from the page to the social profiles wasn't large, but I pointed out that the people doing the clicking were potential customers. Why would they want potential customers to see a lack of efficiency and follow through? Some people hold Facebook and Twitter as important communication tools and when a business demonstrates a lack of interest in social media, it can speak poorly about the company's willingness to listen to and communicate with their customers.

She quickly understood the point and declared that she would have the links removed immediately.

I literally "facepalmed".

We went to Google and looked up the business by name. Facebook was ranked #3. Twitter was #7. She started frowning.

If you're going to have a social media presence, you must either keep it up to date or declare very clearly that you're not active on social media and offer an alternative method of contact. I've never seen it done before (I always push for option 1, of course) but I have heard of businesses leaving their top post as "This is our Facebook page, but we prefer talking to you directly. Please contact us at..."

It's not ideal, but it's better than letting your social presence be an embarrassment.

As social media continues to expand, understanding that your lack of involvement does not mean that your customers aren't looking at you is a must. When you stick your head in the sand, what are you presenting to people looking at you? Your tail end.

Let there be absolutely, positively no mistake here. "Tags" have completely different uses depending on the platform on which they're used. We're going to take a look at three of the most popular platforms and how tags affect them: Wordpress, Ning, and Tumblr.

Before we dive into each, let's get one thing out of the way. Those who say that tags are old and no longer useful are simply being lazy and encouraging the same. It takes less than 30 seconds to come up with a handful of appropriate tags to go along with any blog post and therefore it falls under the category of "why not?" Nobody outside of Mountain View, CA, knows for certain how tags benefit search engine optimization. They do, however, definitely have an opportunity to benefit the reader. It's a best practice that is getting pushed aside by many. Don't fall into the laziness trap. Tag away!

Tags for Wordpress

Depending on how you have your site indexing set up in the back end, tags allow search engines to find similar articles. The two major types of taxonomy, tags and categories, are intended to help people navigate a blog. As a result, Google and Bing will follow tags and categories in order to see what level of understanding a blog has on each individual topic.

The tag pages themselves, once visited, will give the search engines a depth-of-content picture. For example, if you have a blog for a Nissan dealership that often uses the tag "Altima", the search engines will be able to see that you have written a good amount of content on the topic. Many would argue that they know this already and that semantic indexing is designed in part to replace tagging as a method of establishing authority, but again, "why not?" It definitely doesn't hurt to tag. It probably helps on Wordpress, even if only a little. There's not reason to skip the few seconds it takes to add them.

Tags for Ning

On the Ning social platform, tags work in ways similar to Wordpress, but with an added bonus. Blog posts on Ning do not have categories the way that discussions do. As a result, tags become the primary taxonomy that search engines and readers use to navigate a site when they want to see similar articles.

Some have also speculated that there is a direct SEO value to the individual post, that the search engines look at tags very similar to how they look at highlighted content and will give a post a lift in the rankings as a result. This is unconfirmed and I've never tested it myself, but I would speculate that it is true.

Tags for Tumblr

This is an entirely different ballgame. On Tumblr, tags are everything. The community lives off of tags in a way that is similar to hashtags on Twitter, but there are certain ones that are eternally "trending", so to speak.

Tags are Tumblr users' primary method of discovery. Tumblr has devalued them a bit in recent months and focused on "Spotlight" that highlights individually influential tumblogs rather than the community-rich "Explore" page that lets people surf tags, but they're still extremely important and can help a new tumblog get found by the community. Getting found on Tumblr is the key to both social exposure and search; reblogs by other Tumblr users are extremely important and can mean the difference between having an invisible tumblog and having an extremely popular one.

Tags for Humans

At the end of the day, the real benefit of tags should be for the readers. Google and Bing may or may not pay attention to them, but allowing your blog visitors to latch onto a particular topic and follow it all the way through is a way to make your blog stickier.

Again, it takes second. Why not?