For the past several years, content has been a component of search engine and social media marketing that fell far below the tricks and techniques that helped achieve business goals. It was possible to be successful with limited or low-quality content. In fact, there are those who were able to succeed with no content at all, fooling the search engines and social media sites with methods that proved to be more fruitful than actually creating content that the audience wanted.

Those days are finally behind us. It has been a long time coming, but now that search engines, social media sites, and people themselves have seen through the tricks, it's a whole new world in marketing. Today, content rests at the top of the marketing funnel with search engine optimization and social media marketing reduced to components of an overall content marketing strategy. Here's what it all means:

Why Content is Finally King

Despite the proclamations of many marketers over the years, content has not been "king" until very recently. It was always useful, but great content without supporting inbound links would not rank and great content without strong social media promotions would not go viral. Things have changed.

Amazing content that is useful, entertaining, or both now has a better opportunity to be seen through both search and social. Google is finding the content more easily, making it possible for it to be found without having to artificially inflate the inbound link count. Today, link-building is still an extremely important component of a proper search strategy, but it must center around quality content rather than boost up poor content.

Good links are still powerful and high-quality content can help to generate these links. With a little seeding, the links can come in more easily than in the past when most of the links that marketers created were bulk rather than quality.

From a social perspective, there's still a distinct need for some promotions. Unlike Google, Facebook and the other social media sites will not actively find your content. However, by getting it a little promotional exposure by sharing it and focusing on it from the website homepage or landing pages, the content can be found. From there, it's a matter of allowing the content to be easily shared.

Rising social sites like Pinterest and Tumblr are ideal for seeding the promotions of content. It can be shared on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ as well, of course, but the tighter communities on Pinterest and Tumblr actually create an easier path to take content viral on social media than the larger sites. There's a need for a strong account or two to promote them, but it's not as involved as building power accounts on Facebook or Twitter. One can be exceptional at Tumblr and Pinterest very quickly.

Content is at the top of the marketing food chain. It's the spark that generates search marketing links and social signals. It's also the source of social media sharing. Rather than use content for SEO or social media marketing, smart marketers will switch it up and use the content as the central point through which search and social marketing can flow.

There will be complaints. I can already smell the onslaught of, "what about Blogger" and "Typepad is much more powerful". There will be others that say, "but Tumblr's not really a blogging platform". Let's put all of that to rest quickly...

For business blogs, Wordpress and Tumblr are the best options out there. I'd add "in my humble opinion" but that would detract from the absolute force of my opinion.

Google's Blogger has made some amazing changes recently and I would not argue against it as a decent platform, but it lacks the plugin compatibility of Wordpress and isn't quite as easy to use as Tumblr, so it doesn't fit into this particular argument. We're going to focus on the two extremes - those who want the most powerful and those who want the easiest. Keep in mind, today's blogging platforms are all easy to some extent as well as powerful. The most important criteria is access and comfort. In other words, if you're doing well and posting consistently with Typepad, for example, don't go changing because some guy says Wordpress is more powerful or Tumblr is easier. If it works with you, keep at it.

Wordpress is Powerful

For those who want the most gadgets, plugins, and flexibility, Wordpress is the hands down winner for business blogging. It can act as a full-blown content management system for those who know how to use it, or it can stay true to its original calling and act as the premier blogging platform. There are so many themes available and dozens more being created every week. Perhaps most importantly, its PHP base allows it to works seamlessly with modern concepts such as adaptive website design and HTML5.

If your goal is to be a "power blogger" and post regularly, Wordpress is ideal. It isn't hard but there is definitely a learning curve associated with it. One does not simply start blogging out of the gate with Wordpress. Here are some of the benefits of using it, particularly as a self-hosted installation rather than by adding a free blog on Wordpress.com:

• It has massive collection of plugins. The only bad part is that one must be careful not to install too many as it can slow down the site and bloat the code.
  
• With caching, Wordpress is practically indestructible. You could hit the front page of Yahoo with a story and still stay online with a decent host and the stories cached.
  
• Google and Bing love the code. Between the instant pings once a post is published to the clean way that the code presents itself to the search engines, those who want to rank with their blog posts must use Wordpress. It ranks better than Blogger, a Google property.
  
• Decent access to social media through the right tools makes it one notch below Tumblr when it comes to true social media integration.

Tumblr is Easy

Don't get me wrong. Tumblr does have some robust features that allows it to be a strong platform for even the most active power bloggers, but that's not the reason that you use it. It's possible to post as quickly as you can type (or copy and paste in the case of image or video posts). The platform makes it super-easy to instantly format. For example, Wordpress out-of-the-box requires the embed code plugged into the HTML to present a video. You have to know the dimensions of your blog and use the old embed code from YouTube. Tumblr, on the other hand, only needs the URL. It auto-formats it to the right size - no embed code needed.

If you are more concerned about the ability to get content posted easily and quickly and less concerned about whether it's perfectly formatted, Tumblr is the right platform for your business. Here are some of the benefits:

• A strong built-in community allows for instant visitors to your site through proper tagging.
  
• Reblogging makes posting content easier than even posting the unique content. Unlike Wordpress, Tumblr actually encourages reblogging and tracks it for the source.
  
• Direct integration with Facebook and Twitter is native to Tumblr; there are Wordpress plugins available, but native is always better for integration.
  
• There is nothing wrong with using a subdomain on Tumblr.com. It's just as robust as putting it on your own domain, whereas Wordpress.com is a symbol of weakness.

As the convergence of search and social continues to become a reality, it's important for dealers to understand that they need content on their websites that can be shared. People will not share inventory on Facebook. They won't tweet specials out to their followers. They won't click the Google +1 buttons on your pages unless you specifically ask them to, and there simply isn't enough people to ask to really have an impact.

For the social signals component of SEO to work properly on a car dealer website, there has to be content that people are willing to share. This is a challenge because it goes against everything we've learned over the years about staying focused and posting only what is relevant to selling more cars, getting more people into the service bay, or increasing parts and accessory sales.

First, let's get an understanding of how social signals work for your websites.

What Are Social Signals?

There are certain tiers of social signals that may or may not affect search rankings. At the top level, we know based upon testing and SEO industry insights that Google+, Facebook, and Twitter all have an influence on Google rankings while Facebook and Twitter have an affect on Bing rankings. Anyone who contests this isn't paying attention to what is happening in the outside SEO world or they don't have a solution to account for it so they're sticking their heads (and the heads of their clients) in the sand in hopes that it will go away.

The next tiers of social signals are debatable and it's best (for now) if dealers only use them if they have the time and manpower to dabble. If you are pressed for time and need to focus on what definitely works, the big three listed above are plenty. If you can mess around with Pinterest, Tumblr, Foursquare, Instagram, or any of the other emerging social sites, go for it. They do not have tested and proven affects on search rankings but many believe they do.

Why Are They Important

Google and Bing are both heading in a relatively new direction with their algorithm. For a couple of years now they have been more focused on the idea that social signals give their insight the human-curated they have always craved, but this year the dabbling into social signals has emerged into something tangible.

For Google in particular, the results have been dramatic. We've been able to move extremely challenging keywords up in the rankings quickly using just social signals and proper internal linking structures. With some attributing up to 1/3rd of the tangible algorithm influencing factors to social signals (with inbound links and onsite content accounting for the other 2/3rds), not having a social signal strategy means you can get, at best, 67% of the optimization potential if you do everything else perfectly.

It happens on two levels: the page and the domain. Each page that gets social signals has an opportunity to rank better, period. That goes without challenge. The second component that some would debate but that testing has proven to be correct is that social signals affect the overall optimization of a domain. In other words, posting great pictures of an individual car and getting a good amount of Google +1s, Facebook likes, and Tweets can help other pages on your website rank better as well.

The Examples

Now that you hopefully understand what social signals are and why they're important, let's take a look at the four things you can post on your website today that can bring additional social signals. First, here's a portion of a webinar we did on the topic. It's not the entire webinar, but it covers the four examples we talk about here:

1. Great Cars

You are a car dealer. You have great cars. Post them on your website! I'm not talking about pictures of your Ford Focus inventory. I'm talking about the cool, sharable cars that you have. Most dealerships have cars whether hot new vehicles or cool trades that grace their lot. If you run out of those, find images. A Chevrolet dealership could find a handful of cool pictures of the 1973 Chevy Camaro, for example.

2. Local Images

Every dealership in America is surrounded by interesting places. If you're close to a major metro, there are probably landmarks or skyline images that people in the area would love to share on their social media. In the example in the video, a Seattle-area dealer had a page dedicated to the Space Needle.

If you're not in a metro area, you likely have wonderful natural settings that can make for a great image page. These images can be loosely relevant to your website because it focuses on the local area that you are targeting, but the most important thing to remember is that these images, once shared on social media, help your website increase its overall social signals for the domain.

3. Local Organizations, Events, and Charities

This is where videos can really make a difference. Your dealership is likely associated with some local events, charities, or other activities that are relevant to the local audience. Getting the locals to share these activities as they're posted on your website is much easier than getting them to share your inventory or specials.

4. Infographics

Social media is a visual realm. With thousands of infographics easily available to post on your website, you have an untapped source of content that people will be willing to share. The key is finding the right ones and writing up some quick but thoughtful text about it.

A Tree Falls in an Empty Forest

It's not enough to post the content. You have to be able to get it shared. For many, you'll have to rely on your employees, friends, and even family to get the signals rolling. The more it's shared, the better. Unfortunately, this is a "fake it until you make it" strategy, but it works.

Over time, you'll be able to either build up your own clout in social media to get it out there or you may want to consider promotional teams to get the word out. Either way, it starts with the content. Once you have the content that is worth sharing, getting it shared is possible. It's not easy, but you've done harder things than getting something popular on social media.

Purists will say that using apps and dashboards like Hootsuite or Buffer take away the fundamental interpersonal relationships that are built through social media. By scheduling posts or sending them through these tools, users won't be able to see the person behind the message, they say.

Marketers find other reasons to avoid dashboards, particularly with Facebook. The posts often do not carry as much weight as ones posted directly through Facebook, making it convenient but less effective to use tools. Both purists and marketers may be correct, but there's one major advantage that dashboards give us: statistics.

In this infographic by Hootsuite, we explore the usage trends of one of the biggest dashboard companies out there. The focus is on Twitter, but expansion into other apps and services allow these companies to start consolidating the overall posting process, particularly for businesses. Click to enlarge.

Related articles

• Conversations have been added to Hootsuite
• Why I Use Buffer More Than Hootsuite
• HootSuite expands App Directory with reddit, StumbleUpon and other social media apps
• HootSuite Partners with Webtrends to Track Social Media ROI
• Social Dashboard HootSuite Hits 4 Million-User Mark [Infographic]

There was a time not too long ago when it was hard to get dealers to post enough. The mythical beast known as EdgeRank (which Facebook technically hasn't used in a long time, but that's not important now) compels people to want to maximize the exposure of their posts by keeping a constant flow of positive engagement going towards their Facebook page. More on that in a moment.

Before we get into the numbers surrounding posting, let's look at this from a human perspective. Facebook is the venue through which people are able to communicate in their own way with their friends and family. By "in their own way," I mean that not everyone makes it a two-way conversation, but they're still receiving information through Facebook. Those of us who are avid users couldn't imagine not liking, commenting, or sharing, but there is a large chunk of active Facebook users who rarely interact on it but who still log in and check it on a regular basis. These people are important, but again, more on them in a moment.

From a human perspective, most people are not interested in what a dealership has to say outside of ways that it can benefit them directly. Coupons, specials, events, etc - they don't mind seeing these for the most part. That's what they were likely expecting when they liked the dealer's page. It's not like Skittles; some brands are able to gather a following based upon simply being utterly entertaining. With car dealers, it's possible to be like that but extremely difficult. It takes time, effort, money, and often a willingness to drive away from the direct business needs into a realm of branding that is risky.

Now, let's get an understanding of the math, as promised.

The Algorithm: Why Posting Often is Good

We won't get into a lengthy discussion on the intricacies of the Facebook news feed algorithm - I'm not sure that a single blog post dedicated to the subject would be enough to do it justice and it's changing so rapidly (a big change just yesterday) that it would be outdated in weeks at best. There are, however, a few basic underlying premises that are important to understand today and that will likely stay in effect in one form or another for a long time to come.

Every time you post something to Facebook, it will be exposed to certain people in different ways. This exposure does not necessarily mean that they will see your post. It just means that they have an opportunity to see it in their news feed. The age of the post is one criteria that determines how high on the news feed they'll see it. If you post something and someone starts looking at their news feed right afterwards, that person has a better chance of seeing it than someone who checks their news feed 5 hours later. Where your posts stand from an engagement perspective with each individual person plays an important role as well. If someone has liked, shared, or commented on some of your posts in the past, Facebook will push your posts higher in their news feed. Yours might show up higher than posts by other businesses whose posts the individual has not liked.

Finally, there is the "friends who liked it" factor. If Bob likes a picture of himself that a dealership took and posted on their page, Bob's friends will be more likely to see it in their news feed as well.

This is just a basic overview and there's a lot more that goes into it, but it's enough to discuss why frequency and timing of posts is important.

The Humanity: Why Posting Often is Bad

Little Timmy sliding into third base. It's for pictures like these that the majority of pure Facebook users visit the site in the first place. They want to see what their ex-boyfriend from high school is doing. They want to see videos of their cousin at her recital 1400 miles away. They want to see if the guy in the accounting department is finally single again.

For the most part, they don't want to see what new trade in a local dealer just got on the lot. That's not to say that they won't interact with it if they do see it. Heck, there's a chance (a very good one if done properly) that this might spark them to want to see what else the dealer has since their car started making a weird noise on the way home from work today, which is why we continue to believe in the promise of social media. However, it's not the intent. They didn't check their Facebook feed in hopes of seeing a car. They wanted little Timmy.

This is especially true for the people I mentioned earlier, the ones who do not interact often but who check Facebook regularly. For these people, cat pictures will not be effective.

It's the human factor that makes it the most challenging for businesses to get a foothold in social media. Some have tried to "blend in" by posting funny cat pictures to their feed. They believe (in many cases, rightfully so) that they can get into the mix of their fans Facebook feeds by entertaining them. While this strategy can be effective, it's also very challenging, especially over time as fatigue sets in.

There's only so many funny cat pictures you can post before you start annoying people. They might like it. They might appreciate your funny cat for a time, but in the end they came for little Timmy and if you can't deliver him, you're not going to stay high on their list forever.

To Overpost or Not to Overpost

That is the question. Hopefully you're not totally confused at this point, as I've basically said there are advantages and disadvantages to posting often. The reality of the answer comes down to your dealership and which social media personality you want to hold. There are two primary extremes: the business-only infrequent poster and the community-engaged frequent poster. In between, there are more complex strategies that I'm not going to go into directly, but here's a breakdown of the two ends of the spectrum:

The Infrequent Poster

• Posts 1-4 times a week
• Posts only relevant business posts such as offers and customer testimonials
• Takes a big risk of never being seen without paid Facebook promotions
• Stays on point and has a lower chance of being unliked or removed from the news feed

The Frequent Poster

• Posts 1-4 times a day or more
• Mixes in relevant posts with engagement-driven posts
• Takes a big risk of being unliked or removed from the feed for fatigue
• Has the opportunity to play the EdgeRank game and get their brands exposed to the broader community

My advice: if you are not absolutely sure your strategy of frequent posting is going to work OR if you are not keeping up to date (3 major changes in the last two weeks) with the Facebook algorithm OR if you're not investing money into Facebook ads, than you're better off toning down the posts. This goes contrary to what I have said as recently as three months ago, but that's the nature of this game. It changes so rapidly that someone like me who isn't knee deep in trying to run a dealership, who spends several hours a day exploring, practicing, and staying on top of social media, still must make adjustments to recommended strategies on a regular basis.

Be the best or play it safe. Don't overpost unless you're positive you know what you're doing. If you think you're on top of it enough, take a look at the related posts below. These all discuss a few major changes that Facebook has made in the last week.

Related articles

• Facebook News Feed Placement Is All About Relevancy (allfacebook.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: Facebook: Yes, We Changed Your News Feed (FB) (businessinsider.com)
• Facebook Clears The Air On News Feed, Promoted Posts (forbes.com)
• There Are Now 4 Ways Facebook Determines What To Show You In Your News Feeds (businessinsider.com)
• This Facebook "All" Link Lets You See An Unfiltered News Feed, But It Might Get Shut Down (techcrunch.com)
• New Facebook Option Can Help Brands Regain Fan Engagement (news.terra.com)
• Facebook reveals the 4 factors that determine News Feed content (prdaily.com)
• Why Facebook Won't Give You a Straight-Up News Feed (mashable.com)
• Getting "Liked" Was Tough Enough, Getting Notified... Is a Whole New Ballgame (business2community.com)
• Facebook Adds a News Feed Option: 'Pages Only' (mashable.com)

There is a rise in niche-level outsourced social media that is refreshing on one hand and discouraging on the other. It's encouraging because when agencies take the stance of focusing on a single niche such as automotive or entertainment, they are able to build up several resources to make their jobs easier and the clients' social media presence more robust. On the other hand, it allows many to create an assembly-line, one-size-fits-all mentality of automation that can actually hurt the clients.

It's one of my biggest annoyances. When I sift through the hundreds of Facebook and other social media feeds that are attached to the car dealers I follow, I often see repetition. To some extent there's nothing wrong with this; a Ford dealer in Tuscaloosa sharing the same epic image of a 1967 Mustang that a Ford dealer in Boston shared is likely a safe practice, especially if they're not posted at the exact same time. However, when I start seeing feeds that are over half-duplicated with other similar dealers, I cringe.

Where's the personality? Where's the individuality that allows Facebook and other social media sites to pump up the good and dismiss the bad? Certainly the Ford dealer in Tuscaloosa has completely different goals with social media than the Boston dealer and a diverse personality through which their dealership's humanity can shine?

Unfortunately, this simply isn't the case. Many niche social media companies have adopted as much of an assembly-line mentality as possible. Knowing what I know about social media, if I were on the other side of the discussion looking for the right type of social media I would look for certain things out of my social media partner. This is easy for me to say since we do not currently offer a product that matches these criteria; I have the luxury of speaking without bias. This is exactlywhat I would want if I were a dealer...

Seven Criteria for a Social Media Partner

I understand the concepts of scalability, profitability, and building a product that can deliver on the goods without being too cost-prohibitive. I have eliminated those thoughts from this discussion for the sake of describing an ideal situation. No vendor today offers this level of advanced social media marketing in the automotive industry (including us) today. That's a shame because it would help reshape the industry and align goals with results.

1. Constant Consultation for Both Parties' Sake - Running the various social media profiles that I do, I could not imagine being effective with them if I didn't have intimate knowledge of what was going on at the companies. This isn't something that can be accomplished by a monthly call. It doesn't necessarily require a daily call, either, as that would get annoying, but a weekly touch and an open phone line are absolutely required to make sure that we were taking full advantage of the best component of social media: real time.
   
2. Diversity of Personalities - There is no "master plan" in social media that works universally. A Chevy store in Fond du Lac may have a personality that is deeply rooted in the community. They might be one of the centerpieces of the city that plays an important role in cultural growth, education, and bringing the community together. A Honda store in Shreveport might have a completely different approach with different goals for their social media. They might be best served posting 3 times a week instead of twice a day, posting only what is relevant to their fan base that has grown used to seeing service specials advertised to them regularly.
   
3. A Budget for Facebook Advertising - Whether through Offers, Sponsored Stories, Events, or straight up Facebook ads, the idea that a page can be maximized without an advertising budget is like saying that a car can drive really fast without gas. I don't care if it's a Lotus - without fuel the only hope to go fast is to drop it out of plane. Facebook offers by far the most cost-effective form of advertising on the internet right now. The majority of vendors who deny this are either uninformed or simply don't want Facebook taking from their chunk of the pie.
   
4. Understanding and Focus on the Right Networks - Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are non-negotiable and should never be automated. Dealers and vendors who plug their Twitter into Facebook and call it a day are missing out. Dealers and vendors who use Hootsuite or other tools to keep their Google+ updated have missed the point (this one topic could be a blog post of its own). Tumblr, Foursquare, Pinterest, and Instagram are important and may fall in line with a strong social media presence. YouTube, Slideshare, and Flickr work well for dealers who are positioned properly with the right content. Scoop.it and a handful of other startups that we're watching are moving up on the list. Pretty much every other social network is fluff at this point. Vendors that say, "Get your dealership on dozens of social networks" are either ignorant or they believe that their clients are ignorant. The concepts of "more is better" and "it can't hurt to try" are absolutely false in social media. I'd debate anyone on this point.
   
5. Content that Starts at the Dealership - There is plenty of generic content out there that works pretty well. In the car business, there is no shortage of content. However, the only way to get real success out of posts is to localize them. A picture of a Hyundai concept car from the Geneva Auto Show is good, but a picture of a customer's tricked-out Hyundai that drives on the local streets is much better. Vendors who are not doing point #1 will never be able to accomplish this point.
   
6. Search Integration - This is a huge one that nobody is doing properly right now. Nobody. Social signals are quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. There are those who claim to be helping a dealership's search rankings through social media by getting additional inbound links, but this is a completely different strategy than social signal implementation. Again, this is another blog post waiting to happen, but if there is nothing in the strategy that includes getting high-quality organic social interaction on your website, you don't have a true social signals for search strategy in place.
   
7. Reputation Reinforcement through Social Media - This is one that is a "must have" for dealers. Reputation is everything. There are a few vendors who do a great job at reputation management - getting reviews, monitoring them to get the dealership's responses, and redirecting potential negative reviews directly to the dealership to allow for one-on-one conversations. Kudos to them. However, a component that I've seen done well on only the occasional social media presence is reputation reinforcement. It's not just about putting a tab on your Facebook page with a reviews feed. It's about taking the extraordinary reviews and getting them exposed to potential customers proactively.

* * *

Nataliya Hora / Shutterstock.com

There is a combination of hope and fear in the automotive industry. On one hand, many dealers and vendors are really starting to "get it" when it comes to automotive internet marketing. Dealers are finally embracing the internet as the primary arena through which to market their dealerships and vendors are starting to listen to their dealers as well as watch the trends in internet marketing more closely.

It's still scary. The direction of the economy may or may not be heading towards the same type of situation we had a few years ago when people were holding off on buying cars. The industry suffered as a result and many dealers felt the pain. It may not be the case. Things may end up being much better than anyone expects. Still, it's better to be prepared.

As internet marketing rapidly changes, dealers are coming face to face with decisions that must be made sooner rather than later. Now that the fall conference season is behind us, it's time to reflect on what we learned and make decisions about how to maximize ROI at the dealership level on our internet marketing spends.

Since I work for a vendor, I'll recuse myself from offering opinions. The goal of this article is to get you thinking along the right lines. I have my opinions and other vendors have theirs, but as long as you are going into this with your eyes open, I'll leave the pitches to the sales teams. Here are the components that you should look at and some of the questions that you'll want to ask as we head into the new year:

Mobile

This used to be a checkbox item. In other words, it was something that most dealers would ask about from their website vendor in the form of a yes or no question. Do you offer them or not? Now, as mobile devices begin to account for 1/5th or more of a dealership's traffic, it's important to look more closely to make certain that the experience is the right one.

First and foremost, it's important to understand the two biggest target instances that you'll want your mobile presence to enhance. The on-lot experience means that people are away from their computers. They rely on their mobile devices to search inventory and contact dealers. In many cases, they may try to contact you while they're at a competitor. We've all heard stories of people doing comparison shopping while on a test drive or in the middle of negotiations.

The second instance that is important to your dealership is the "second screen" moment. As your television ads run, people who are in the market for a car might try to visit your site. Instead of getting up and going to the computer, they may just grab their iPad or smartphone and see what you have going on. Will they find what they need very quickly? Will the presentation be swift and responsive? Will it be easy for them to contact you from your mobile site or app?

Examine your mobile presence. Is it as strong as it could be? Look at the options and make a smart decision.

Social

Most have tried. Many have failed. The majority of social media products currently being offered to car dealers are awful at best (just being frank). The best practices that many are offering are antiquated. Some are downright damaging.

Your social presence must be one of two things: strong or safe. It's better to have a safe social presence that does no damage than to have one that is using spammy or questionable techniques.

To get a strong social presence takes more work than most dealers (and even vendors) are willing to put into it. The ROI is the biggest question; if we make it amazing, will it help sell cars.

I always remind dealers that social media is not like search or other forms of internet advertising. The value is almost intangible, but not completely. Just like when you run a television ad and you sell more cars as a result without being able to directly track it, so too does a strong social media presence operate in the same manner. This is one where I take exception - please feel free to contact me if you have questions about your strategy. Again, I'm not in sales and I don't pitch our products. I simply want dealers to do better than they are today. Almost everyone has a great deal of room for improvement in this arena.

Classified Advertising

Things are changing in the Autotrader, Cars.com, and Craigslist front. The consumers are using them differently. It's not that they've stopped using them, but rather the trends point to their use as much more of a research tool than a way to contact the dealership.

Look at your statistics and talk to an unbiased expert about them. They are still effective - that much is certain - but the way that the costs are structured should be re-evaluated in many of the cases I've seen over the last few months.

Paid Online Advertising

Video Pre-roll. Retargeting. Display advertising. Sponsored social posts. It seems that this arena has expanded so far beyond the good ol' days of "plug it into PPC and forget about it".

The challenges here are many and I have one word that every dealer must remember when delving into this world: TEST. There are so many options. Few would question the potential. Many have seen a tremendous benefit. Still, it falls into the same realm as social in that the ROI is more challenging to understand than other digital marketing spends.

Test out the different options and see what works for you. The vast majority of dealerships in the country are in a position to benefit from advertising, but the formula for each is often completely different than for others. Talk to your peers. Check with your 20 groups. Take a long, hard look at advertising and test to find out what works for your dealership.

SEO

This is arguably the most changed form of internet marketing compared to where we were a year ago. Penguin made many services obsolete. Some have exited the game. Others have emerged. As someone who has lived in this house for a while, I can tell you that SEO is much more challenging than it was at the beginning of 2012.

Thankfully, it's challenging in a good way. It allows those who know what they're doing to rise to the top. It's hard to know what to trust and who to believe when it comes to SEO because Google (and Bing) threw so many wrenches into the machines. See where you rank. Check your analytics to see if your getting more keywords and better rankings in those keywords. Technique is important and probably deserves an entire blog post, but keep one thing in mind: if someone tells you that SEO is dead, it's probably because they don't know what they're doing. SEO is alive and well and can still be the easiest way to dramatically improve your traffic, leads, and sales.

Modern Websites

This is not a technology issue. It's a mentality issue. Car dealer websites must be fluid and able to change with the trends of how consumers use them.

First of all, a website must highlight the inventory above all else. This has technically always been the case but recent studies show that people are deciding much more quickly whether or not they want to consider buying from a dealership. The primary deciding factor is the inventory. It's not just about what you have on your lot but also how easily it can be found.

You might have the perfect vehicle for someone but if they miss it on your website, they may never come to see you.

Second, your website must allow for easy content creation. Whether it's you building the content, your website vendor, or someone that you hire, adding original, high-quality content is going to be the differentiator for success in search, social, and content marketing. If you can't put up a solid page in a few minutes, ask yourself if the benefits of your vendor are worth the lack of flexibility that 2013 will demand.

CRM

In working with several CRM companies and talking to dozens of dealers, I'm convinced that the biggest challenge in the CRM industry is appropriate adoption by the dealership. To me (and keep in mind that this is not my expertise, so take this portion with a grain of salt), a CRM's primary responsibility is to elicit buy-in from the dealership's team. If they don't use it properly because it's confusing, clunky, or poorly trained upon, the greatest CRM technology in the world won't make it effective.

Changing CRMs is one of the most challenging transitions that a dealership can make, so make sure that you're not jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Still, it's also arguably the most important contributing factor when it comes to properly managing your leads, so it's something that must be explored this year.

* * *

2013 may prove to be the most important year in recent memory for the automotive industry. We are modernizing. We are going from being behind the times to leading the charge compared to other industries as dealers become savvy to the benefits of the web.

Take charge. Ask the right questions. Differentiate yourself from your competitors by only accepting the absolute best from your team, from your vendors, and from yourself.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends.

Despite the rise of social signals and the continued prominence of content as primary search engine optimization tools, high-quality inbound links remain one of the three big components in improving rankings. The automated processes have been devalued; low-quality posts, footer links, and sidebar links are a thing of the past and in excess can actually hurt a website.

Strong, contextual links are still valid. In fact, some have shown that they're more important than ever.

In this infographic by Digital Net Agency, they examine the two different types of link-acquisition strategies. They talk about the six major bad strategies to avoid and then highlight five techniques that work. One in particular, "contributing", should be fleshed out a bit. The idea is that by creating and sharing content that brings value to others, it's possible to generate high-quality contextual links by the sheer merits of the content and its promotion. In essence, if you're bringing value, you'll get value in return.

Click to enlarge.

"Links" image courtesy of Shutterstock.

There were several takeaways from Nielsen's recent mobile studysurrounding restaurants, travel, and the automotive industry, but the one that surprised me the most was that 43% of automotive searches on mobile devices were done to do price comparisons. The rise of mobile in our daily lives means that many of the activities that once tethered us to our desks at home or at work can now be done on the go, so I knew instinctively that the number of people comparing prices while out on the lot was probably high. I simply had no idea it was THAT high.

What does this mean for dealers? With around 20% of website traffic coming from mobile devices, the need to simplify the experience and increase the engagement is higher than ever. They aren't just using their mobile devices to get directions and a phone number. They're doing live research. It could be while they're watching television and using their mobile device as the second screen of interaction. It could be while they're chit-chatting with their spouse about that weird noise they heard in their engine on the way to the restaurant. Then, of course, it could be while they're at a dealership looking at vehicles, in which case the need for a dealership's mobile presence to offer price and vehicle details on inventory is paramount.

Mobile sites are not just a "checkbox" to be covered anymore. The times are behind us when the questions surrounding mobile being asked to a website vendor was, "do you have mobile sites included?" Today's savvy dealer (and business in general) must explore more deeply in order to make certain that the mobile sites are perfect. They should be responsive, have simple methods of communication with the dealership on every page, and present details about the vehicles including big pictures (that don't slow down the site) and further information.

The second most important statistic from the study:

Overall the study found that half of the mobile automotive search audience were doing longer term research but roughly half (49 percent) were “looking to make a purchase within the day.” However 36 percent of this group converted “within the hour.”

Here's an infographic from the study. The full study is available by registering.

There's a big, fat lie in the automotive industry that has been circulating for years. The idea that many hold onto is that conversion rate is the most important number when trying to determine the quality of a website. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Here's a fact - the worse your search marketing is, both for SEO and PPC, the higher your conversion rate is going to be. This cannot be disputed. If buyers are only able to find your dealership on search if they're typing in your name, that means that the only people visiting your website are already inclined to consider doing business with you. Searches for you by name will always yield the highest conversion rates from the visitors.

As your search marketing expands and you start bringing in people from a more diverse range of searches, the traffic goes up, the total number of leads go up, but the conversion rate drops. Total number of leads, however, go up. It's very simple once you understand the dynamic.

Let's say you're currently getting the majority of your search traffic from a variation of your name. Look at your analytics to see if this is the case. With the majority of your traffic coming from searches for your name, the math may look like this:

• Traffic from Search: 5,000
• Conversion Rate: 10%
• Total Leads: 500

• Traffic from Search: 6,000
• Conversion Rate: 9.2%
• Total Leads: 550

Your goal as a dealer is to sell more cars. It's mathematically inefficient to extend your search reach and as a result your conversion rate goes down. However, the number to focus upon for your website is total conversions. How many leads are you getting? How many sales are you generating from these leads? This is the bottom line that truly affects the success of your website and your business.

Conversion rate is a great indicator that can help you make tweaks and adjustments to your current site, but look at your traffic trends when considering conversion rate fluctuations. Improved conversion rate can be good, but if it's associated with a drop in traffic, you should look at your search rankings and the keywords driving traffic to determine if there's an underlying negative that's making the numbers look good. Conversely, if your rate goes down, see if there's a correlating increase in traffic.

Get more leads that convert to more sales. That's the end goal. Don't get lost in the numbers that some are throwing out at you.

I've learned that coincidences don't really happen. There's always a reason. As I worked on my story today regarding content, I stopped to check Facebook and found exactly what I needed, courtesy of Jeff Glackin.

What you say in all of the media types - television, radio, print, social media, search marketing, billboards, etc. - has an opportunity to reach people. Often I'm asked questions about spends and ROI.

• Will $10,000 spent on social media give the same or better yield than $10,000 spent on television?
  
  
• Should I sink everything into online marketing or keep my offline marketing going strong?
  
  
• Should I minimize my internet spend to just a website and classified ads and move the rest of my budget offline again?

This topic deserves much more research and examples than I can put together today, but it's important to get in the right frame of mind before exploring this topic more fully. To do this, I'll rely on a pretty good video on the topic. It's not a superb video but it evokes emotion and gets the basic point across.

One of the most important components of a successful dealership Facebook page is pictures of happy customers. More dealers are doing it every day and they are seeing the results in improved engagement through likes, shares, and comments.

However, the increasing trend is also making it harder to stand out. With more of these pictures hitting Facebook on a regular basis, it's important to try to make your pictures more interesting than the happy-customer-pictures of the dealership down the block. It's easy once you know some of the types of photos that you should take and avoid the "guy and girl in front of the vehicle they just bought" pictures.

Last month, we covered the 5 Facebook Customer Photo Types That Aren't Totally Boring. In it, we gave examples from one dealership Facebook page that is doing it right. As we mentioned:

The problem is that the pictures of happy customers are often about as boring as a picture can be. There's a customer standing in front of their new car. Sure, they look happy, but is it going to get anyone's attention? Is it going to get comments from local prospects, even the friends of the person who is in the picture?

Check out those 5 image types on Dealer Bar.

One of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding social media is that it's a distant cousin of search engine marketing or that it's goals are similar to other forms of internet marketing. This isn't quite true. There are definitely tie-ins; social media can help improve search rankings, it is a valid follow-up component to email marketing, and it can be used as a direct lead generator for certain products and services. However, real success on social media often comes down to knowing the frame of mind of the people on it and realizing that the messaging style is much more akin to television advertising than any of the traditional online marketing formats.

Think about it like this: when someone wants to buy a car, they go to the search engines. They might go to AutoTrader or Craigslist. They may just go straight to a dealership website. They don't think, "Let's turn on the television and hope we see an ad."

They also don't think, "Hmm, I need to get a new car. Let's see what Facebook has to say about that."

Just as dealers have learned that television advertising works even if you can't demonstrate a clear ROI, they're learning that social media marketing and advertising work as well. When people are in television or social media mode, they are in an entertainment frame of mind. They are not fearful. They are not worried. They are not concentrating. They are open to what the two different mediums are about to show them. Nobody wants to see commercials, but they watch them anyway if only passively. Nobody wants to see marketing messages on Facebook, but they see them anyway even if they don't like or comment on them.

Television and social media both help to keep the business branding and messaging in mind, even if it only registers at a subconscious level. If they are in the market for a vehicle at the time, they might react. If they aren't, that's okay. The brand is being presented. When it comes time to buy a car, their subconscious has an opportunity to move them towards the familiar. Both television and social media help businesses become part of the "subconscious familiar" brands when the time comes to act.

Here's a video I made several months ago that discusses the concept.

It isn't uncommon for a page to be created on Facebook, only to be abandoned. Many dealers started off with multiple pages and then consolidated to one. Others had an internet manager who has since left the dealership and they didn't even know there was an additional Facebook page out there.

Find them. Destroy them. They can do damage to your reputation.

As you can see in the image above, this is a dealership page created at the same time as the dealer's primary page. They made a page for sales and a page for service, but unfortunately the service page didn't get much attention. They had one post in 2012 and a couple of posts in 2011, and that's it...

...except for the negative comment at the top of the wall.

This isn't even the worse case scenario. It's easy for a page to be "hijacked" by spammers or competitors who post bad things. There was a relatively-infamous instance a couple of years ago where a dormant page was loaded up with porn.

Don't take the chance. Only bite off what you can chew at the dealership. There are definitely multi-page strategies that work, but they require a commitment. If you cannot make the commitment to manage and monitor more than one, don't build it. If there are dormant pages for your dealership out there, find a way to get control of them and either remove them completely, start managing them, or make them hidden from the public (just in case you want to revive them later).

Don't leave them hanging. You can end up with a bad representation of your dealership without ever knowing about it.

A mistake that many make on social media is that they post things in batches. Rather than spread out the posts throughout the day, they load everything up at once. This poses a challenge for both businesses and individuals because doing so will (a) annoy your fans and followers as you "flood" their feeds with posts, (b) limit the potential audience since only a portion of your fans and followers are monitoring social media at any particular time during the day, and (c) reduce the overall exposure as you make EdgeRank and other algorithms "mad" with your batches of posts.

One way to avoid this is to use scheduling tools such as Buffer, Hootsuite, and, of course, KPA Local Engage.

As humans, we often operate in batches. When we surf the web, we usually do so in longer stretches rather than in bits and pieces throughout the day. Unfortunately, that means that our engagement on social media is similarly batched.

Here's how to fix it:

Images

We all come across images that we want to share on social media. For sites like Facebook, you really don't want to post more than one an hour and probably no more than 4 or 5 a day. You have a couple of options to build your library of images to post.

I save the images in folders. Call me old school but I like housing the images locally (as well as through Dropbox) and sifting through them when I'm ready to post.

Another way to do it is to create an images folder in your bookmarks. Just save the link that contains the image and you can go through and post it later. Either way, you'll probably want to purge the images once they're posted - nobody likes seeing the same image twice. I do keep some of the best "timeless" images in an archive folder and include the date that I posted it in the file name. One such image that I posted in the past is the one shown above - Smokey and the Bandit is as timeless as it gets.

Thoughts

I'm a terrible mobile typist. Blame it on the fat fingers. As a result, I hate posting long status updates through mobile devices. If it's not an "in the moment" post, I use the voice recorder on my phone to save thoughts as they come to me. A couple of times a week I go through and transcribe these posts into my scheduling tools and spread them out throughout the day.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I'm not a big fan of post dropping. On all of the networks other than Twitter, I schedule posts during times when I'm going to be online whenever possible. I like to be able to respond to people who comment on the posts, so just because it's scheduled doesn't mean I'm not watching.

Some posts are too timely for this method, of course, in which case I'll go ahead and struggle through my fat-finger syndrome to get them posted immediately.

Links

For the most part, I find my links early in the morning and schedule them throughout the day. Again, the timely rule applies; you don't want to schedule breaking news.

Occasionally, there are links that come along that are important enough to save and post in the future. These are usually resource links. For example, if you find a video that describes several tips and tricks on SYNC, you wouldn't necessarily just want to post it once. With a link like that, I would save it and post it again and again for as long as it was still valid. I've actually scheduled something weeks ahead of time knowing that it's valuable today and will still be relevant in 2 months.

* * *

As I've said in the past, I'm not a fan of using tools to completely automate your social media engagement, but if you use them properly you can maximize your exposure by posting the right content at the right times.

Hat Tip to Adam Ross for inspiring this post.

There are plenty of articles out there telling you when to post. This is designed to point out the times when not to post.

The goals of most businesses on social media normally fall into two categories: marketing and communication. Many use social media strictly as a marketing tool to get their message out and to encourage others to help them do the same. Others use it for outreach, as a way to talk directly to their customers and prospects, and to collaborate on needs. Most do a little of both.

These types of activities are fine the majority of the time, but there are instances when it's best to let the messages fall to the side and focus on what's happening in the world.

The recent elections were a perfect example. Social media was flooded as results started coming in. People were Tweeting their opinions or taking pictures of their "I Voted" stickers. They were debating about who would win what, how the country was heading in this direction or that direction, and even discussing how there was too much being posted about politics on the social media channels.

This was a bad time to try to put out a marketing message or a to communicate with the audience.

The best post that an American company could have made yesterday was something to encourage people to vote. It's neutral; normally I encourage businesses to be opinionated but this was one election to stay out of altogether. It was not the time to launch a product or discuss a coming event.

There are other times like this. When there are national or worldwide crises, some companies try idiotically to latch on to the trend. This works out badly the vast majority of the time. Again, opinions, thoughts, and prayers can be expressed but the moments when Sandy was hitting the northeast was an inappropriate time to push product messages.

Be mindful of what's going on. Participate. The one thing that these events allow a company to do is to express empathy, to be a resource that shows people how they can participate or help, and to add a touch of humanity to the business entity. When you have posts talking about your products or services that are hitting social media when everyone's attention is on something else, it's not only futile. It can be damaging as well.

For years, marketers and search engine optimization gurus have been preaching something. They've been telling the world that "content is king" and that if you put the right content on your website, that it will rank well. After all, who would deny the king, right?

The reality was different. Up until April 24th, 2012, content was not king. It was a queen, maybe even a jack - a face card to be sure. However, it wasn't king. Inbound links were king. Other factors such as exact-match domains, site age, and offsite attribution were aces.

Things have changed all the way around. Thanks to the Penguin update, links are now more challenging to come by. Don't misunderstand this - links have not been devalued. If anything, they are more powerful now than they were before the update. Low-quality, automated, spammy links have been completely devalued to the point that they can actually do harm to your domain. For this reason, inbound linking strategies have been forced to clean up their act. Only the highest level of pure links work the magic now. More on that in a moment, but first, let's talk social...

One of the "hidden" changes that happened on or around the same time as the Penguin update was the increased value given to social signals. Google has been considering social signals in the ranking algorithm since December, 2010 (publicly, at least), but they really started pumping up their significance this year. It's very likely that the timing of the change was intended to coincide with Penguin; making two major changes at the same time - one public, one behind the scenes - is the perfect way to keep people like me on my toes.

This brings us to the content. As I mentioned, links of the highest caliber are still powerful, possibly more powerful than ever before. Social signals are equally powerful. The inaccurate but easy math behind it is that links, social, and onsite content account for 30% of the ranking algorithm with the other 10% going to outside or uncontrollable forces such as domain age. If all three major components are equal, how can content now be king?

Today and going forward, there are three types of content for dealer websites. There's the "money content" - the pages that are there to generate leads such as inventory pages. There's the SEO content - the pages designed to target specific keywords and drive traffic to your site from various search terms. Lastly, there's "sharable content" - the pages that are of general interest to visitors that come to your website for reasons other than to do business with the dealership.

Many will avoid the third type as "cool content pages" such as a picture gallery of modified Honda Civics or a video of your dealership's participation in the March of Dimes walkathon do not directly generate leads. This is their biggest mistake and an opportunity for you to shine.

You see, these are the pages that can generate organic links. These are the pages that can be shared on social media to generate the social signals. These are the pages that will allow people to interact with your site even if they're not buying a car. The effects of links and social signals do not just hit the page itself. They help the domain. If you're posting content on your site that is bringing in links and social signals, the other pages (including the "money content" pages) will rank better in search and gain more exposure through social.

It's not an easy process without the appropriate understanding, but once you get the hang of it, there are few things that come more naturally to us. We're all "car people". We got into this business to make money and be around vehicles (at least that's the hope). If you generate the type of content that should come naturally to you and expose that content through the proper channels, you'll have an advantage over your competitors. Despite the ease in which this can be accomplished, few will attempt it. Even fewer will do it right. You have an opportunity to get way ahead of the competition in internet marketing with a little knowledge, a little practice, and a little help.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see that it was only a matter of time. Facebook has been such an amazing marketing tool for businesses for a couple of years now, allowing effort and proper strategy to circumvent spending money on the platform. If a business worked hard and applied the proper techniques, they could perpetuate a formidable marketing strategy that helped with branding, drove traffic, and sparked engagement.

Facebook fixed that last month. Page administrators started noticing their statistics fading. In some reports, the drops were dramatic, chopped down to a third or less exposure of what was happening before. I almost wrote about it then but decided to wait to see one of Facebook’s infamous corrections. Surely, there would be outrage over them forcing businesses to pay in order to get exposure.

There was, to some extent. Many sites took notice. However, the “outrage” was limited as there was no real sympathy from users. It didn’t noticeably affect them. If anything, it helped to clean up their Facebook news feed to allow fewer business posts to appear. More images of nephew Timmy sliding into third base wasn’t such a bad thing, so Facebook is continuing with the current EdgeRank settings. Moreover, there have been suggestions and recommendations on various blogs that say users should start spending more money on it.

I was one of them.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Facebook definitely needs to right-size their pricing; pages with a low number of fans can be promoted inexpensively, but once you start getting into the tens and hundreds of thousands of fans, the promotion costs go up tremendously. If they can make adjustments to their pricing, it’s only fair that they should make money for being a marketing platform.

Still, it’s annoying. It’s a bait and switch, regardless of whether that was the original intention or not. They hooked a lot of businesses into relying on engagement, activity, and quality content. They then pulled the rug out from under then and are holding the eyeballs of fans hostage. If you want to be seen, you have to pay up.

I cannot fault them for doing what they have to do to make their many investors happy. This is a business. They’ve provided a tremendous service that has struggled to make the money to justify both the size and price. Still, it changes the way that those of us in the social media marketing industry must calculate for Facebook. Strategies that are strictly organic have been devalued.

We’ll see how it’s working out during next quarter’s reports, but it’s a safe bet that this is the direction they’re heading. Businesses got snookered a bit, but not too badly. It’s just time to adjust.

The worlds of public relations and marketing have gone through two major changes in the last decade. The first one came with the mass adoption of the internet as our primary source of information about businesses. The second came a few of years ago when social media became a mainstream method of letting your friends, family, and often the rest of the world know how you feel about a business. Today, there is no shortage of ways that people can voice their pleasure and displeasure with the various companies with which they do business.

Let’s start by making the distinction between the two disciplines. Everyone has an understanding about marketing. It’s simple. You do what you can to get your business and brand in front of as many people as possible and you get your message (in the form of products, services, differentiators, etc) out so that people will consider you when they’re ready for what you have to offer. Public relations often gets lumped in as a form of marketing because the basic concepts are the same, but it’s very different. Modern public relations in the social world is now a way to preserve your positive messages and diffuse the negative ones, particularly when they come from consumers.

This distinction is important because many still lump the two together when in reality they need to attack from completely different angles. At times, such as with online reviews, the goals are only loosely related. From a marketing perspective, negative reviews can be a major hindrance (at least in the eyes of the business). From a PR perspective, negative reviews are your opportunity to shine. I learned a lot about this during a discussion at the last Internet Sales 20 Group conference from Ralph Paglia.

People Hunt Down the Negative Reviews

Think about your own actions. When you look up a restaurant, a movie, or a home repair contractor, you may or may not be the type that checks out reviews. More and more people are relying on reviews every day (not in small part due to the way that Google is highlighting them in search). Some read them. Most will scan down on the page until they get to the negative ones. They aren’t checking reviews to see the positive ones. They want dirt. They want to know about the worse-case scenarios they might be walking into if they do business with you.

Some estimate that 40% of online reviews are fake. I know that in the automotive industry, the majority of dealers who have more than 50 likely solicited many of the reviews from happy customers. It’s a best practice. After all, it’s great for marketing. In essence, it’s a defensive marketing posture that shows customers seeing just the stars and number of reviews on Google that you’re respected in the community.

The PR opportunity lies in the negative reviews. Those who are really interested in doing business with you will scroll down until they find the bad reviews. They will read them and then look to see how you responded to the review. Were you defensive? Were you a pushover? Did you fix the problem if it could be fixed? Did you empathize?

How you respond to negative reviews is a tremendous opportunity to tell those interested in doing business with you what kind of company you really are.

Show Your Stuff

The moment a negative review is posted, you should respond quickly. Notice that I did not say “immediately”. Speed is important, but it’s not as important as posting the exact right message.

Investigate the concerns that were voiced in the review. As A.J. Maida posted on ADM, there’s a great chance that whichever employee worked with the cusotmer will remember the experience once they read it. Get your side of the story ready, then be prepared to not tell it. This is the hardest part about responding to negative reviews. We want to tell people that they were at fault as well. We want to make sure the rest of the world knows that the person posting the negative review was unreasonable, on drugs, or absolutely insane. This is, of course, the wrong course of action, but it’s important to know your side of the story so you can craft your response properly.

Once you know what happened, it’s time to empathize. This is challenging as well because we have instantly negative feelings towards anyone bashing us, but take yourself out of business mode and into the shoes of the reviewer. They wouldn’t have written a review unless they felt they were wronged in some way (yes, occasionally there are those who want to try to con something out of you, but these are much more rare than most businesses are willing to admit). Right or wrong, you must empathize with them to help correct the situation. Even if the situation in uncorrectable, it’s important to make a public effort to fix things, apologize, educate (humbly), or otherwise step up and accept responsibility even if you don’t think it was your fault.

Here are some keys to crafting the response:

• This is important. There are times when accepting responsibility is hard. They may have been completely at fault, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t your responsibility to help them not be at fault.
• Try to rectify the situation whenever possible from up top. Get the highest-level person available to talk to the reviewer in person or on the phone and offer to discuss it further. It could be the owner, the general manager, or someone else with a strong title, but make sure it’s someone with a title that demands respect. Even if it’s the owner who says, “I’ve instructed the service manager, Shelly, to take personal care of you when you come in,” that’s better than getting a reply from Shelly (no offense, Shelly).
• Use the opportunity to express something positive about your business. “It isn’t often that we get complaints about recall work. Our technicians carry the highest customer service ratings of any Chevy dealership in the tri-state area.”
• Don’t give stuff away. This is a big, big no-no. Gift Certificates, free oil changes, etc – keep those off of your review responses. You can offer it to them when you talk to them in person or on thephone, but the last thing you want is to make yourself a target by posting it in the response. “Oh, if you complain, Bob’s Deli will give you a free sandwich!”
• Keep on the high ground, even if the reviews are insulting. Stay classy.
• Don’t sound too sophisticated. It comes across as insincere if you use big words to try to seem superior to the reviewer. Speak naturally as if you were talking to them in person.
• Run the response passed a couple of people before posting. Get some input and make sure that what you’re trying to say and how you’re trying to say it is coming across properly.
• Post a follow-up response if you’re able to come to a positive outcome with the customer. Talk is cheap. If you can post something like, “Thank you, Bob, for coming by the dealership today. I’m so glad we were able to sort through the initial misunderstanding – enjoy your new Camry!”
• Read responses from everywhere whenever possible. Check your competitors. Check other industries. Get a feel for what’s working and what’s not working by seeing what others are doing right and what they’re doing wrong. You can learn more from real-life experiences than you’ll ever learn from blog post.

Reiterating the Importance

There aren’t enough words in my fingers to stress how important this is. Responding to negative reviews is an art and a science, but it can have a dramatic impact on your business whether you do it right or do it wrong. What type of impact will your negative review responses have?

As I said before, this is your opportunity to shine. A great response to a negative review will reach more eyeballs than a dozen positive reviews.

Hootsuite has been on a tear over the last year. They’ve picked up a bunch of agreements with the various social media sites. They have a hip interface and a good reputation for quality of service, uptime, and ease of use. I like Hootsuite and use it for many of our accounts, but it’s not my primary social post scheduling tool.

I like Buffer. It’s lighter and has certain things that make it superior to Hootsuite. Yes, there are drawbacks, but the advantages surpass the shortcomings.

The first thing heavy users will notice is the price: yes, the premium plan is $99 a month versus Hootsuite Pro which is $10 a month. Quite a jump. Quite worth it. Whenever you consider an investment into tools, services, or anything, you should ask yourself how much time can it save you and how much is your time worth. Buffer has proven itself to me to be worth the extra dozens of dollars.

Here are the time-savers that make me use Buffer more:

• Instant Link Shortening – Hootsuite adds a step. It’s a very annoying step if you’re posting often. To shorten a link, you have to paste it into their link shortener and then push the button. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but when you’re doing a lot of posts it can become a major hassle. Buffer can be set to automatically shorten the link once it’s pasted in the post box.
• Set Scheduled Times – With Hootsuite, you have two options: autoschedule or manually schedule. This option must be chosen for each individual post. The problem with autoscheduling is that the logic behind it seems a bit wonky and cannot be adjusted. As you can see to the right, some of the posts are scheduled close together (one was scheduled for 5 minutes after the previous posts – I had to manually adjust) while others are spread out more. It’s very random. I don’t like random. With Buffer, you set the times and the days that you want to post. One could make a very complex posting matrix if they wanted to, splitting up the posts at different times on different days.
• Continued Selection of Account – This one might seem like nitpicking, but again if you’re posting often and managing multiple accounts it can be a pain. With every new posts, you must re-select the accounts on which you want to post. This is particularly annoying if you are posting batches.
• Mixing Up The Times Between Accounts – You can select up to 5 accounts on which to post through Hootsuite. Whether you schedule them manually or autoschedule them, they will be set to go at the exact same time. With Buffer, your posts go into the next available slot. If you select 15 accounts on Buffer to post something, they will all go in at different times depending on how you have the scheduling set up.
• Five-Minute Intervals – Some would say that it’s an advantage to have limited choices with posting times on Hootsuite. You can post only in 5-minute intervals. On Buffer, you pick the exact time you want it posted. This gives your posts a little more time in most feeds since several programs work with 5-minute intervals; posting off the interval means fewer posts to compete with during “posting time” on Hootsuite and other services. A minor distinction, but worth noting.
• Images Posted On Twitter Are Actually Posted On Twitter – Buffer uploads images directly to Twitter, while Hootsuite loads them to Ow.ly. People have to click the link on Hootsuite posts to see the image, while on Buffer posts they can see the images inline on Twitter itself. An example of each is below.

A Quick Note About Tools

One of the biggest advantages for Hootsuite is that it’s a great overall management tool. Buffer is just a posting tool. You cannot manage your followers, respond to interactions, or monitor your feeds from Buffer.

As with any tool, I wholeheartedly argue against the automation concept. Buffer is great to make sure that your posts are ever-flowing at an appropriate rate. It allows you to schedule messages that you feel will be better posted at a different time. It allows you to spread out your posts so that you aren’t flooding the feeds during times of exceptional creativity or discovery.

It does notreplace engagement.

You must, whether through Hootsuite, other tools, or through the native sites themselves, check what’s happening and interact. Just because you have a cool posting tool that allows you to be “active” while you’re doing other things does not mean that you don’t have to monitor them. In business, social media is much more of a communication tool than a broadcasting tool. The majority of my time spent on social media is listening. In fact, Buffer simply makes it easier for me to listen so I’m not always worried about whether or not my accounts are staying active.

Engage through social media tools (such as Hootsuite) or on the sites themselves. Schedule through Buffer.