Dealers can learn a LOT from this video!
Great job Grant-
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Someone once told me that most aeronautical engineers will tell you that there is no possible way the bumblebee can fly. His wingspan isn’t broad enough, he is too heavy and his body build makes it impossible for him to fly. Fortunately, the bumblebee doesn’t understand aeronautics, so he just goes along and flies anyway!
Decide to have a “bumblebee attitude” and just fly anyway! All of the good this world has to offer is on your side. Fight to be the best you, you can be! Fight to reach success! Fight to make it big in every area of life! Despise second best! Despise the fear of failure and rejection and live your life to the max! Don’t listen to the naysayer’s and critics. Don’t listen to the media, the economy and the news. Have a bumblebee attitude and fly anyway!
“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.”
- Zig Ziglar
Do Your Best Today!
When we do the best we can, where we are, with what we have now, we will live in success! So many people hold back and save their best for later. They wait for a reunion, an occasion, an event, a specific job, an important person with a special title or even a stranger before they show off everything they know and can do. The difference between “The Average Joes” and “The Pros” in sports, business and in every area of life is the discipline to do your best in your field every day.
Think like a champion!
Champions are people with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them. They are a bit unrealistic in how they see life, as they don’t reason with reality. They make the impossible happen and never considered it impossible.”
- Grant Cardone
So many times we can get hung up on focusing on the things we don’t have, rather than on the things we do have. We think we need more equipment, more programs, more incentives, more people, more training and more money to be our best. Now, don’t misunderstand me; more equipment, more programs, more incentives, more training and more money is good and will add value to our lives, helping us become and release our best. However, if we are not maximizing what we have in our ability, in the areas of the influence and equipment we have now, we won’t when we get more, either. Use what you have now. Sharpen your skills you have now. Master your craft! Practice doing your best and when it comes time for “Game Day,” you’ll perform your best.
“Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are hard jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the bigger ones tend to take care of themselves.”
- Dale Carnegie
Give your best in every matter, both small and large, and you will experience the best each matter has to offer. Give your best now! Don’t wait until later or tomorrow. Start where you are now. Don’t let circumstances, people or excuses hold you back from giving your best. If it’s in your power to do it now, don’t wait until tomorrow.
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”
- Matthew 6:34 (New Living Translation Bible)
Don’t Wait Till Tomorrow!
Tomorrow has enough worries, problems and situations of it’s own. Why add more on top of it to make things even more difficult to deal with. Deal with it today! I once heard someone say that today is a gift, and that’s why it’s called “the present.” We need to open up our today with the same excitement, attitude and efforts as if it really is a present. We are alive today. Today, we can make a change. Today is always the best time to deal with ourselves. Today!
One of the biggest problems that face our today is our worry about tomorrow. Worry is one of the greatest issues that paralyze people, keeping them from moving into the greatness for which they have been created. I once heard someone say, “I don’t worry about the things I can change, because I can change them. I don’t worry about the things I can’t change, because I can’t change them. Therefore, I just don’t worry.” This is probably the most liberating statement I have ever heard! Stop and think about the truth of that statement! How many times have you changed the situations you were going through by worrying about them day and night? And if they did change from you worrying about them, they probably changed for the worse! Someone once said, “Worry is like a rocking chair — it gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”
Share your best with the world today, have a bumblebee attitude, don’t worry about tomorrow and, no matter what happens, you will be an Ultimate Success!
The last 3 years, infographics have grown as one of the most effective marketing tools available. They're easily sharable on social media, can offer tremendous SEO benefits, and can help your dealership offer content that people enjoy seeing.
Still, it's also the most underutilized tool by the automotive industry. A lot of it is our fault; vendors in the automotive space have seen infographics as too challenging and too expensive to bring to market. We've had a handful of forward-thinking dealers take advantage of it, but there hasn't been nearly the adoption that has occurred in other industries.
Even at the OEM level, Ford is the only company that has dipped their toes into infographics and found success.
First, let's look at what they do for dealerships:
- - They give content to visitors of both their websites and social media profiles an item will be shared. People share good content on Facebook and Twitter. They don't share new car specials pages. Some have asked what the benefit is. We've seen that when people share content on Facebook, a good percentage of it is localized. Friends, relatives, and coworkers that see a nice piece of content from a friend will visit the link and land on your site. If you're running remarketing campaigns or simply going for social media exposure, landing them on your site is an opportunity to generate a lead. Don't forget, every Facebook user has 8-9 Facebook friends who are in the market to buy a vehicle in the next 30 days.
- - Powerful inbound links are the most important aspect of search engine optimization. Having graphics that can be embedded on other sites is an opportunity to use this "link bait" to generate free links to your site.
- - Infographics that portray useful information such as proper SYNCing on a Ford or localized information such as a crime-rate map of the area positions the dealership website as a resource on top of being a place to look at cars. Whenever you can become a resource for people, they are more likely to want to do business with you.
Once you know what they do for you, let's take a look at the most successful infographic that we built in 2011. This particular one was generated for a non-automotive client but it will be easy to see why it was so successful. Here are the stats:
- - Posted on over 400 websites that linked back to the source, including high-value websites that included the New York Times, Mashable, TheNextWeb, and TheAtlantic.
- - Shared on Facebook over 17,000 times with Mashable having the highest share-rate of nearly 10,000.
- - Tweeted over 25,000 times with Mashable again leading the way with over 6,000 retweets.
- - Estimated 2.3 million views of the infographic.
- - Made the front page of Digg, Reddit, and went viral for 3 different sites on StumbleUpon.
Now, here's the infographic. If you have any questions about why it worked so well or how it translates in the automotive industry, please feel free to email me or ask in the comments.
Source:Sean V. Bradley CEO of Dealer Synergy goes over the RULES for his $2,000 FREE CASH Give-A-Way
Imagine you are blind, it's 9:00 AM and you just walked from the tarmac to witness the training of a brand new Automotive Internet Sales team. You're excited to meet the people and watch them learn as you learn. You've got your note taker all charged up and you get a phone call from the lead trainer saying he missed his flight and won't make it until the end of the day...but that he's done you a big favor and called the dealer and there on their way to pick you up. What do you do?
Quite naturally, you're terrified. Here you are in the airport, with zero agenda, thirty minutes away from the biggest moment in your career and you want your mommy. But of course you represent the number one training/consulting firm in your industry, so you gotta take this shot. You've been through the trainings, you know this stuff and you can teach it. You just have to let them get to know/like/trust and believe you. You make that your only mission...well, that's if you think like me!
I experienced this firsthand and let me tell you; it was exhilarating! Standing there with seven brand new Internet Coordinators, three more experienced ICs and an internet director with over fifteen years in the car business...it was the rock star stage spotlight all over again. We conducted preliminary introductions, then began to synergize!
Throughout the week, my goal was to show them not only how much I knew…but how much I truly cared about their success. We discussed the numbers, we talked about the minds of the prospective customers and even dove into how important their personal success is to the entire automotive industry. I had to show the entire place, that although I don’t have physical sight, I do have an amazing vision…and if they bought into it, they would reap the benefits. Wow, did they ever.
I felt the love and respect from the moment I walked in the door. From the managers, to the frontline employees, even a few customers expressed how they felt the excitement of change…an upgrade in quality. My career was completely altered by these encounters. I now have even more esteem for my company because I was privileged enough to come into contact with a dealer group that was tired of the old and ready to completely embrace the new. We…were able to introduce them to the “new” they were searching for and more. As per their testimony, it also changed the lives of the people with whom I interacted. This is what Dealer Synergy is all about, a new approach to doing business in the automotive industry.
More importantly, this experience inflated my self-confidence balloon. I already knew there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish, but the ability to transcend that belief into others was what I questioned. Honestly, I thought I lacked it. Well…I was proven absolutely positively wrong! If you're thinking there’s something you can’t do, you’re more than likely in the wrong column as well. Here’s the Bottom line…If I can jump on an airplane to a far away/strange land by myself and make out alright, then don’t tell me you can’t succeed at selling some cars over the internet!
http://www.facebook.com/dealersynergy
Sean V. Bradley, CEO of Dealer Synergy is giving away $2,000 CASH FREE (NO B.S.) to the Lucky Winner(s) - Automotive Internet Sales
In their "Automotive Mobile Site Study", J.D. Power & Associates found that the use of smartphones for vehicle shoppers has increased exponentially. For example, they found that compared to 2010, those who used their smartphones to access automotive information increased by a staggering 40 percent.
Additionally, J.D. Power and Associates also found that 30% of male car shoppers use their smartphone when browsing for a new car. On the other hand, however, only 18% of women revert to their smartphone when looking to purchase their next car. Not surprisingly, the study also concluded that collectively shoppers 40 years of age and younger use their smartphone 26% of the time, while those 40 years of age and older only use their smartphones 21% of the time. It doesn't stop at smartphones, however.
Thanks to the emergence of tablet devices such as Apple's iPad and Blackberry's Playbook, vehicle shoppers aren't limited to just using their smartphones. During their study, J.D. Power discovered that many vehicle shoppers used a tablet device (iPad, Playbook) to access automotive websites. Men used a tablet device 22% of the time, while women only used a tablet device 16%.
Arianne Walker, director of Automotive research at J.D. Power & Associates had this to say following the study: "While the proportion of vehicle shoppers who use smartphones to visit the Internet during the shopping process is still relatively small, it is expected to continue to grow during the next several years, which will shape the way automotive marketers will need to design their mobile sites and apps."
If you're still not convinced that smartphones are changing the vehicle buying process, take this into consideration: the 40 percent increase in automotive website visitation on smartphones is greater than the use of gaming (27%) and social media (17%).
As more and more car dealerships move their attention towards smartphone shoppers and invest in their own mobile app, the number of smartphone vehicle shoppers is only going to increase.
What do you make of this study?
Popular sharing platform AddThis just celebrated their fifth birthday and to mark the occasion they’ve released an infographic that takes a look at social sharing trends based on their five years of experience.
The AddThis infographic covers everything from the peak hours and days that people share so when people click, the top sites in terms of social growth, and more. The stats are based on AddThis’ experience with 1.2 billion users, 10 million domains and 70 languages. Some of the highlights include the following statistics:
•9:30am EST is the peak hour for sharing
•Wednesdays are the peak days for sharing
•The most users click on content two minutes after it’s shared
•Twitter as seen the top growth of all time, in terms of sharing
I am in the hotel at 6:30 am getting ready for my day of training at a dealership in Ohio and I was going through my emails and google alerts and came across this press release from Market Watch. I thought it had some valuable information for you all on AIS, so I decided to repost it here but I wanted to add some commentary before you get to the great information...
I am a simple person, math is math. Numbers are numbers, they do not lie. I hope when you read this post you will absorb the magnitude of opportunity right in front of you. This press release speaks of Female Shoppers and Blogs. Granted I think that is awesome but it goes far deeper than just blogs. If you look at the numbers that are in this study you will see how important the "Female Shopper / Buyer" strategy is. If you are a dealership that does NOT have a proactive strategy to maximize this demographic you are seriously missing the boat.
The Key to being successful is NOT just working hard... Its working hard, working smart, being consistent and thinking outside the box.
Sean V. Bradley-
Women Car-Buyers Who Get Advice From Blogs and Social Media Show Double-Digit Increases in Excitement, More Confidence, and Say Blogs Influence Decision to Buy, Reports BlogHer, Inc.
"Put Her in the Driver's Seat" Survey on Women's Attitudes, Emotions and Favorite Information Sources on Car Purchasing Presented at JD Power & Associates Annual Symposium
BELMONT, CA, Oct 17, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- BlogHer, Inc., the premium cross-platform media network and publisher for women, today announced the results of "Put Her in the Driver's Seat," at the JD Power & Associates 2011 Automotive Internet Roundtable in Las Vegas. The survey, designed to explore how women feel and where they turn for advice when shopping for cars, revealed a significant positive impact on female buyers who used blogs and social media -- and a preference for blogs and official product information sources versus traditional media and social networks.
The Emotional Impact of Car-Buying
The survey revealed that, as a gender, women car-buyers were both more excited (74%) and more nervous (53%) about car-buying than were men buying cars (71% and 42% respectively). Of this group, women who sought advice from blogs and social networks during the car buying process demonstrated higher excitement levels: Women who consulted blogs about buying a new car were +13 points more excited than women who did not, and women who consulted social networks were up +12 points. Confidence levels also increased through social media use: Confidence among women who used Blogs for Auto advice was +8 points over women who did not, and +5 among women used social networks.
Blogs and social networks have different impacts on the stress levels of women car-buyers, the survey showed: The stress levels of women who used blogs for advice were -4 points lower than the total sample. However, stress levels remained the same for women who used social networks. Blog users also reported being slightly less nervous at -2 points lower than the total sample, while social network users showed an increase in levels of nervousness at +4 points higher than the total sample.
Information vs. Influence
Women's top five information sources for researching a car purchase were car dealership visits (65%), word of mouth (56%), car review websites (53%), auto manufacturer websites (43%), and blogs (31%). Other sources, such as auto magazines (21%), Facebook (17%), and TV advertising (16%), lagged significantly behind.
Of the top five information sources named above, the following four were also ranked the most influential on a woman's car-buying decision: Dealership visits, word of mouth, car review sites and blogs. However, one information source that women ranked as a top five information source -- auto manufacturer websites -- ranked dead last in influence on their ultimate decision.
"Women clearly articulated the features they need to see and the voices they want to hear when considering a car purchase," said Elisa Camahort Page, Co-founder and COO of BlogHer, Inc. "We see a huge opportunity for auto manufacturers to indeed 'Put her in the driver's seat' and let her buying preferences re-shape how the automotive community reaches the powerful women's market."
About the Survey With auto sales in the U.S. alone expected to top 13 million units in 2011 (A.T. Kearney, May 2011) and women making or influencing 85% of those purchases (JD Power & Associates) BlogHer's study specifically addresses the growing role played by social media and blogs in the automotive purchasing decision-making process, and the influence of such sources vs. traditional media and industry information sources. "Put Her in the Driver's Seat" survey was conducted using the following samples:
-- BlogHer, Inc. fielded a survey across two populations: U.S. online
general population in 7 markets and 26 million BlogHer network users.
The total sample size was 1,467 with a total of 1,090 women and 377
men across the United States.
-- The margin of error is +/- 2.46% with a confidence level of 99%.
-- All portions of the study were conducted in August 2011.
-- BlogHer was one of eight companies chosen to present research at this
annual automotive Internet industry event.
The survey presentation can be found here: http://www.blogher.com/put-her-drivers-seat-social-tools-empower-womens-car-buying-process
About BlogHer Reaching more than 27 million women each month (Nielsen Site Census, September 2011), BlogHer ( http://www.blogher.com ) is the leading cross-platform media network created by, for and with women social media leaders. BlogHer developed and leads the marketplace with the most robust economic and networking opportunities for women in social media and brands seeking to engage in authentic and persuasive dialog with them. Founded in February 2005 by Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone, BlogHer publishes and syndicates news, information, advice and recommendations to and from 2,500 premium blogs, delivers uniquely insightful research on women in social media across interest areas, hosts the world's largest conferences for women in social media and curates a daily news service, BlogHer.com. BlogHer's investors are Venrock, Comcast Interactive Capital, and Azure Capital Partners.
SOURCE: BlogHer, Inc.
After 12+ years in Automotive Internet Sales...
I have learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. I have seen firsthand how powerful automotive Internet sales can be for a dealership. I have also seen how it can wreak havoc in a dealership that doesn’t execute properly. After speaking with and training more than 2,000 dealer principals and GMs personally, I have identified a lot of similarities that are consistent all over the country and do not discriminate.
First, dealers see the value, need and urgency to maximize the Internet not only to increase market share, volume and gross, but actually to retain current market share and profits.
The problem is that there is a lot of disinformation everywhere. Everyone has an idea and a strategy, but finding the right information that fits a particular dealership’s scenario and goals is hard to find. There really isn’t a lot of continuity out there. Sometimes “experts” contradict the ideas and strategies of other “experts.” The other issue is that there are a lot of these “experts” out there, but mostly these people have an “expertise” in only one or two fields — not enough.
Maximizing an Internet department is more than knowing how to build the “ultimate” dealership Website. It is more than having 5,000 followers on Twitter for your dealership. It is more than having a state-of-the-art BDC. The issue I see is that dealers are told if they do or buy something, it will be a “silver bullet.” There are no “silver bullets.” There never have been and I doubt there ever will be any. An Internet department (or any department, for that matter) is made or broken, maximized or underutilized in four key areas: Products, People, Process and Promotions. That means that all “4-Ps” need to be working “synergistically” to ensure maximum success. You cannot have all or most of your attention in one or two areas. You need to make sure that all four “cylinders” are firing.
Here are the questions that dealers should ask:
• What are you looking to accomplish with your Internet department? Increasing only Internet sales, or maximizing all profit centers online (parts, service, finance, body shop, etc.)?
• Do you want to sell volume, gross or both? Are you looking to increase new vehicle sales, used vehicle sales or both? Each possibility has a different strategy.
• Do you want to be proactive, reactive or not at all for special finance?
• Do you have all of the right tools (technology, resources, programs, etc.) for a viable department?
• Do you have the right people and the right amount of people in place?
• Have you developed a “mission statement”? Have you created a standard operating procedure for everything in that department?
• How are you planning to drive traffic? How are you going to handle your conventional advertising strategy? What is the proper formula between conventional and digital?
• How are you going to perpetuate success after initial launch?
After you answer all of these questions thoroughly and start to create a plan, you will need to prioritize. This is another sand trap for dealers. They have problems “putting first things, first,” and the result is that they do not focus on the most important items. The dealers who work hard but not smart are rarely successful.
Lack of consistency and acceptance of mediocrity are the biggest reasons for failure or limited success for a dealership’s Internet or business development department. That might sting, but that is the truth. We have found all over the country, no matter what the franchise or geographic region there are dealers who fall into this category. Sometimes it is the dealer principal, sometimes it’s the GM and other times it’s the Internet/BDC director, but it is the same story. Someone at the dealership heard of a successful Internet/BDC department or they read an article or they went to some workshop or 20 Group and were inspired and excited. So, they create a plan (with or without an outside consultant or trainer), and for a short while things are good (sometimes). Then, after a bit of time — or sometimes right after implementation — reality kicks in and they start to deviate from the plan.
Here is what I see on a regular basis from dealerships that succumb to mediocrity:
• They start to compromise their process based on outside influences, such as their competition doing business a certain way, and they feel they must conform.
• They are not consistent. They might do different parts of the strategy at different time. No continuity = No success.
• They do not track details of the department properly, if at all.
• They are not consistent with training, or don’t even bother to train at all.
• They are disorganized. There is no prioritizing of tasks, so the department is working and grinding all day but they are not being effective at their overall mission.
And, as important as all this is, people are the “wild cards” of the “4-Ps.” With money, you can buy everything else. But you have to find and cultivate and keep people. There are a lot of variables to think about in this area, including:
• Do you have the right person for the job? Do they have the right skill set and fit the profile for success? This is a common problem.
• Do you have the right amount of people? I have seen two Internet reps working 600 fresh leads per month. Not the best strategy.
• Do you have a schedule that make sense and maximizes business potential? Statistically, you will connect with more people between the hours of 6 and 8 p.m. So, it might not be a good idea if you have everyone leaving at 5 p.m.
Bottom line, you need to embrace Internet sales. You cannot wait until tomorrow to get it together. If you don’t create a plan for today, there might not be tomorrow.
If you have any questions about this article or if you would like examples (for free) Please call or e-mail me.
Sean V. Bradley is the founder and CEO of Dealer Synergy, a nationally recognized training and consulting company in the automotive industry. He can be contacted at 866.648.7400, or by e-mail at sbradley@autosuccessonline
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Special Finance Online
Special finance is back — I am seeing all over the country that sub-prime sales are up. More and more banks are approving people with bad credit and no credit. Special finance is not just for used car dealerships and buy-here pay-here dealerships. Special finance is for every dealership, even highline stores can benefit from sub-prime deals. More than 50 percent of the United States has less-than-perfect credit. So, if you are not actively and proactively taking advantage of special finance, you are missing the boat. Dealerships that are successful with special finance boast grosses averaging of more than $3,000 per copy.
Now that I have your attention, let’s focus on something very special — “special finance online,” where special finance meets the Internet. We know that more than 89 percent of Americans go online before they ever step into the dealership for some type of research. That goes for people looking for a bad credit/no credit car loan. Most dealerships in 2011 are doing unsatisfactory in their Internet departments; most dealerships’ Internet sales departments or BDCs are non-functioning or unprofitable. The bottom line is that most dealers are still struggling with automotive Internet sales, so it would seem absurd for most dealerships to worry about any other form of Internet sales. That fact, however, is in your best interest. There is a huge opportunity with “special finance online.” It is like the Wild Wild West. Since no one really has dominated special finance online, which means the door is wide open for you and your dealership.
Here is what you need to do to dominate special finance online:
- First, create a “special finance” Website like www.autocreditapprove.com – Make sure it is NOT www.abcmotors.com / we do bad credit / no credit. You want to make it a complete separate entity, as if you have your own special finance lead source provider site.
- Make sure that you have the proper “onsite” SEO done to your site. Title tags, descriptions, anchor text, alt tags, key words, site map, and so on.
- Make sure you set up a separate Google Places page for your new special finance company, fully set up with unique content.
- Set up Google Alerts.
- Create an online reputation strategy for your sub-prime site. Google Reviews, Dealer Review Boost, Dealer Rater, Car Folks, Edmund Reviews, Yelp, etc.
- Create a campaign of “focus” (microsites) — one site for each relevant category.
- Create a Video Search Engine Optimization (VSEO) campaign.
- Set up a full special finance social media campaign/strategy (along with social media SEO)
- Tumblr
- Flickr
- YouTube
- MySpace
- WordPress Blog
- Create a powerful search engine marketing campaign (Pay Per Click)
Basically, you are going to build a special finance site and think of it as a brand new dealership. In the same way that you are going to dominate automotive Internet sales, you are going to dominate special finance online. The idea is to make sure that when anyone searches for anything at all related to bad credit/no credit auto loan in your area (and surrounding areas) they will find your sub-prime site. You are going to be the “Autotrader” or the “Cars.com” for special finance online in your area.
You might be asking how is this possible? It’s simple: Everyone is asleep at the wheel. Again, most dealerships are struggling on how to simply survive with automotive Internet sales, special finance online is not even on their radar.
If you have any questions about this article or you would like me to assist you for free in starting your special finance online campaign, please call or e-mail me.
Sean V. Bradley is the founder and CEO of Dealer Synergy, a nationally recognized training and consulting company in the automotive industry.
Google has finally unveiled Google+, the company’s top secret social layer that turns all of the search engine into one giant social network.
Google+, which begins rolling out a very limited field test on Tuesday, is the culmination of a year-long project led by Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president of social. The project, which has been delayedseveral times, constitutes Google’s answer to Facebook.
The search giant’s new social project will be omnipresent on its products, thanks to a complete redesign of the navigation bar. The familiar gray strip at the top of every Google page will turn black, and come with several new options for accessing your Google+ profile, viewing notifications and instantly sharing content. The notification system is similar to how Facebook handles notifications, complete with a red number that increases with each additional notice.
At its core, Google+ is a social network. The first thing users are introduced to is the Stream. It’s much like the Facebook News Feed, allowing users to share photos, videos, links or their location with friends.
Screenshots: What Google+ Looks Like
Circles+
That’s where Google+ begins to diverge from Facebook, though. The focus of this social project is not on sharing with a mass group of friends, but on targeted sharing with your various social groups. To do this, Google uses a system called Circles.
Gundotra explained that most social media services (read: Facebook, Twitter) haven’t been successful with friend lists because they’ve been designed as a “tack-on” product rather than being integrated at every level. Gundotra also believes that current friend list products are awkward and not rewarding to use.
Google+ Circles is an attempt to address that challenge. The HTML5 system allows users to drag-and-drop their friends into different social circles for friends, family, classmates, co-workers and other custom groups. Users can drag groups of friends in and out of these circles.
One of the nice things about the product is its whimsical nature — a puff of smoke and a -1 animation appears when you remove a friend, and when you remove a social circle, it rolls away off the screen.
Photos & Group Video Chat
It’s clear from the extended demo that Gundotra and his team have thought about every aspect and detail of Google+ thoroughly. The photo, video and mobile experiences are no exception.
Google has created a section specifically for viewing, managing and editing multimedia. The photo tab takes a user to all of the photos he or she has shared, as well as the ones he or she is tagged in. It’s not just photo tagging, though: Google+ includes an image editor (complete with Instagram-like photo effects), privacy options and sharing features.
The video chat feature might be one of the most interesting aspects of Google+. Gundotra and his team thought about why group chat hasn’t become a mainstream phenomenon. He compared it to knocking on a neighbor’s door at 8 p.m. — most people don’t do it because it isn’t a social norm. However, if a group of friends are sitting on a porch and you just happen to walk by, it’s almost rude not to say hi.
That’s the concept behind “Hangouts,” Google’s new group chat feature. Instead of directly asking a friend to join a group chat, users instead click “start a hangout” and they’re instantly in a video chatroom alone. At the same time, a message goes out to their social circles, letting them know that their friend is “hanging out.” The result, Google has found in internal testing, is that friends quickly join.
One cool feature of Hangouts is that it doesn’t place a chat window on the screen for each participant. Instead, Google changes the chat screen to whoever is currently talking. It quickly switches from video feed to video feed, moving faster in bigger groups. The maximum members in any video Hangout is 10, though users can get on a waitlist and wait for someone to leave.
Content Discovery Through Sparks
To spur sharing, Google has added a recommendation engine for finding interesting content. The feature, Google+ Sparks, is a collection of articles, videos, photos and other content grouped by interest. For example, the “Movies” spark will have a listing of recent and relevant content for that topic.
The system is algorithmic — it relies on information from other Google products (e.g. Google Search) as well as what is being shared via Google+ and through +1 buttons.
The goal, according to Gundotra, is to make it dead-simple for users to explore their interests and share what they find with their friends. Google+ is attempting to become the one-stop shop not only for sharing content, but for finding it as well. In some ways, it reminds us of Twitter and its mission to become an information network, and “instantly connect people everywhere to what’s most important to them.”
Mobile
Google will also be launching mobile apps for Google+, starting with Android. The Android app includes access to the Stream, Circles, Sparks and multimedia.
The addition of these features in a mobile app isn’t a surprise. What is a surprise, though, is the app’s auto-upload feature. Any photo or video you take on your phone through Google+ will automatically be uploaded to your computer, ready to share. These uploads aren’t public, but the next time you log onto your desktop, the photos button in the status bar will have a number, indicating how many new uploads are available for sharing. It keeps these photos and videos available for sharing for eight hours after upload.
Gundotra says that Google intends to launch apps for Google+ on other platforms in the future.
Conclusion
Google freely admitted to me during our conversation that its previous attempt at social, Google Buzz, did not live up to expectations. Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president of product, says that part of the problem was that Buzz was just “tacked on” as a link on millions of Gmail accounts, something that Google won’t be repeating. Horowitz also says that, unlike the Buzz rollout, Google+ is a project that will roll out in stages.
In many ways, it reminds us of Gmail’s rollout. Invites to Google’s email service were so sought after at one point that people were selling them for $50 or more on eBay. While that type of fervor may not hit Google+, we expect the artificial scarcity will drive up interest while giving Google time to work out the kinks.
No matter what Google says, Google+ is the company’s response to the rise of Facebook. The two companies are in heated competition for talent, page views and consumers. While Google controls the search market and has a strong presence on mobile with Android, it hasn’t been able to crack the social nut. Its most successful social product, YouTube, had to be acquired, and it still ranks as one of the most expensive acquisitions in the company’s history.
Has Google finally nailed social with Google+? We’re going to publish more of our thoughts on Google’s new social network in the next few hours, but we will say this: Google no longer gets a free pass in social. It must prove that it can draw users and keep them engaged in a way that doesn’t replicate Facebook or Twitter’s functionality. Only time will tell if Google has finally found its magical arrow.
Readers are invited to follow both Mashable and Ben Parr on Google
As you know or if you’re not already aware, Edmunds.com is going direct to dealers. They’re cutting out the middle man (AutoUSA, Dealix and Autobytel) and coming after our business with a newly hired sales team.
Dealers, WE/YOU have a very important choice to make that WILL help determine change (good or bad) to our industry. Keep in mind, Edmunds.com has never been one to treat the dealer fairly.
I’ve been watching this for a while, and it’s not rocket science, but follow me…
A few years ago, Zag is re-selling leads to dealers per lead basis. Zag changes their subscription model and starts charging dealers on a per sold basis.
“So I don’t pay unless I sell a car?” – nope. That is music to a dealer’s ears!
However, in order to determine what to charge you, Zag needs access to your DMS in order to match-up customer sold data (dare they say “transactional data to the dealer”) with the leads they’ve sent you over the last few months.
Dealers don’t think twice about signing up for the new Zag subscription model. But not thinking twice is the potential issue. You just signed an agreement allowing a 3rd party company to proudly scrub your DMS for YOUR transactional data! Only to use this data to power a CONSUMER facing price analysis tool – TrueCar!
TrueCar Inc. is an automotive solutions provider focused on changing how cars are sold by providing a significantly better customer experience while helping qualified dealer partners to gain incremental market share and reduce costs. TrueCar.com is a transparent, visual publisher of new car transaction data.
How much more transparency does our business need? Perhaps this is nothing more than the evolution of our business.
I’ve spoken to several higher-ups at TrueCar and trust me, this is a determined company. They “want to change the way cars are sold and bought”. Yeah, we’ve heard this before, but this time we dealers need to listen and pay attention.
The challenge; how does TrueCar turn TrueCar to be a household brand?
Let’s review the top visited online automotive research sites …
In order for TrueCar to become a household name, they need a platform to brand themselves. Edmunds.com fits the bill.
Before I go any further, allow me to inform you the following is pure speculation on my part… 
TrueCar’s people speak to Edmunds people about a possible synergy between the two. They consider a deal UNTIL Edmunds.com say “Whoooaa – wait a second, we already have a TrueCar piece and it’s over a decade old”. TMV – True Market Value.
For sure you haven’t forgotten about TMV have you?
Edmunds.com quickly figures out exactly what they need to do. Sell direct to the dealers. And in return suckering dealers into allowing them to pull their transactional data.
Click here for a copy of the Edmunds.com Dealer Agreement For Dealers.
TrueCar already claims to have over 40% of all transactional data In the United States. Dealers allowed this to happen due to our ignorance and oversight.
