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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Aspen Photo / Shutterstock.com

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

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

Tags for Wordpress

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

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

Tags for Ning

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

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

Tags for Tumblr

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

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

Tags for Humans

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

Again, it takes second. Why not?

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.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

Accountability:

First and foremost and good, functional BDC center should be able to provide your dealership with accountability. Being able to accurately track numbers and statistics though not the primary role, is an essential and vital role of your BDC. Your BDC department should be able to tell you which advertising source brings you the most sales and with this data allow the dealer formulate where they should budget their advertising spend. The BDC should always be tracking the total number of phone calls, total internet leads, how many leads each BDC Rep talked too, how many appointments set, how many of the appointments showed, and how many total ups where on the lot for that particular day, week, month. A good quality CRM tool can help to provide most of this data, but the BDC Center has the ball in their court. It is the job of the BDC Center to make sure all the data collected is completely accurate, so the dealer has a complete picture of what is going on in their dealership.

Provide Customer Feedback:

Your BDC Center should always be collecting feedback from sold and unsold leads. This information is extremely valuable and crucial, in which it can help your dealership identify specific pain points and problems which can be alleviated with this vital information.

Create and provide a valuable and consistent message, have an extensive and proven follow-up procedure, and make sure all data collected is accurate:

Your BDC Reps should have a consistent message across the board and the way they do this is by having an approved pitch that always builds value for your dealership. These reps do not and should not sound like robots from another planet. When talking to the customer they should always have vibrant tone and always be listening to the customers needs. When you first enter the car business the first is taught to you is to first sell yourself, sell your dealership, then sell the car. The same rule applies to your BDC Center, in which they should always be actively listening to the customer and building rapport with them. The only difference is that instead of selling the vehicle, they are selling the appointment.

You should have a proven and tested follow-up process in place, which includes multiple points of contact with the customer. These points of contact can be by phone, e-mail, text messages, social media, and chat. The follow-up process can be one that your dealership has used in the past or one that has been implemented by a BDC trainer, but make sure it works and make sure the process keeps building value in your dealership.

Last but certainly not least, make sure the data that is collected from each lead is accurate and as detailed as possible. Your BDC Center should be collecting at least two numbers, their address, their e-mail and social media connections like Facebook and Twitter. Facebook and Twitter are valuable assets to your BDC Center, because after the sale you can implement a Social Media referral program that allows your BDC Center to capture even more leads for your dealership.

Take Advantage of Every Opportunity:

Your BDC department should always take advantage of the business that your dealership has already developed. What I mean by this is that the BDC Center should always be in contact with the customers who have vehicles that are already paid off or customers whom vehicles have accumulated positive equity, they should always be using past customers for referral campaigns through social media, they should be revisiting the leads that somehow got cold and never showed, and last but not least calling those customers that came in that never bought to continue to build value in your dealership and possible get them back in and save a deal.

Continue to Develop New Business:

This is a very important aspect of a BDC Center that sometimes falls to the wayside. A good BDC Center should never just sit around and hoping for the phone to ring or for an e-mail to come in. A good BDC Center should always be coming up with new and insightful ideas to draw in customers from all of your media outlets. The scope of the Automotive Industry is always changing, that is a given, so you should make sure you have a BDC Director and or Manager that is coming to you on a regular basis with new and inventive ideas. If for some reason they are not, simply set down and have a quick chat with them. Maybe, for some reason, they have developed great idea and they are afraid or maybe they are not even expecting you to want these new ideas. Make sure you are conveying to them that you are always looking for new ideas to increase business. You may have a valuable resource in that BDC Director that you have yet to un-tap. 

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.

http://www.internetsales20group.com 

25 Ways to Use QR Codes - Automotive Internet Sales - Digital Marketing - Car Dealerships

Social media is about conversations. It's not a broadcasting platform like traditional advertising, search marketing, or other forms of internet marketing. Conversations on social media happen all over the place and are pertinent to your dealership's local area. YOU should be involved in as many of these conversations as possible.

The reason is multi-layered but easy to understand. First, it gives the human component that is so often missing from dealerships' social media marketing strategy. You want your dealership to have a personality on social media. People don't like robots. They don't like automation. They don't like broadcast messages.

What people do like are conversations and businesses willing to take part. When your dealership makes comments on posts from other pages that serve the local area like the one displayed above, people become acutely aware that there are real humans behind the operation of the Facebook page. They will be more willing to check you out. They will be more willing to follow you.

Second, the exposure that you gain through a thoughtful comment that takes 20 seconds to write can be wonderful. In the example above, both students and administrators of the page will see the comment and take note of where it's from. Believe it or not, these simple little interactions are often known or even subconscious factors that help them to consider your dealership now or in the future whether they're aware of the connection or not. The thoughtfulness of this single sentence registers with them. In a split second they're minds understand at a subconscious level that your dealership (1) supports education, (2) is active in the community, and (3) thinks highly of the cause being highlighted by the post.

Again, this post took 20 seconds to write but brings goodwill (even at a subconscious level) to your dealership.

Finally, and there are other factors to consider but these three are the most important ones, you get more branding for your dealership while the potential customers' brains are in their most receptive state. Science has proven that one of the reasons that television commercials are so effective for some is because the messages are being placed in the mind during "TV time", an experience that many people have every day when they are more relaxed and enjoying the day rather than doing something strenuous, tedious, or unpleasant (such as work).

Facebook falls under the same category. Our brains or more active while on social media than while watching television but we're still in a "good place" and the branding that happens during this time will make a deeper impact than normal branding. It's one of the reasons that some are shying away from billboard and radio advertising. That's not to say that you should take down your billboards or stop your radio spots but unfortunately the brand is often exposed during a bad time - while sitting in traffic. You want your brand exposed during happy times.

Find local businesses and organizations. "Like" them on Facebook while logged in under the dealership's account. Follow them on Twitter. Interact with them. Unfortunately it's not the most easily trackable ROI activity but if you understand the importance as well as the ease in which it's done, you can find a way to squeeze in the 10-15 minutes a day it takes to make an impact.

http://www.internetsales20group.com

Ralph Paglia Reviews The Automotive Internet Sales 20 Group & Says Its AWESOME & Powerful

This is the third in a series of blogs I’ve been writing on metrics: in my last blog we discussed the average percentage of sales in dealerships that can be attributed to Internet leads. This week, I’d like to talk about average front-end gross per vehicle.

In a recent survey we conducted, we asked dealerships representing all types of makes and models:

These were the two questions related to front-end gross in the survey:

1) What is the average front-end gross per vehicle sold in the showroom (floor sales) in your store?

2) What is the average front-end gross per vehicle sold in the Internet department in your store?

We wanted to first quantify the difference between gross from showroom sales and Internet sales, and we wanted to compare the averages of stores in different “performance brands.”

Here are the survey results:

• 29% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the showroom is > $1,300

• 15% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the Internet department is > $1,300

At the same time:

• 9% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the showroom is < $800

• 21% of respondents said the average front-end gross per vehicle in the Internet department is < $800

It’s clear there’s quite a disparity between averages in the showroom and the Internet department. We consulted David Kain of Kain Automotive on this question, because he believes (and the survey results reflect this), that most Internet salespeople tend to discount too soon. This tendency leads to lower front-end gross averages in the Internet department.

Regardless of what your dealership’s average gross per vehicle (PVR) is, the goal is for the showroom and Internet department averages to be the same. Why is this important? The higher the gross per vehicle, the higher your ROI and profits are.

We compared answers from dealerships making seven times or more ROI on their Internet spend, to those making three times or less ROI on their Internet spend, regardless of make or model. The results were compelling:

So how can you increase your average front-end gross per vehicle, as well as get the Internet department gross in line with the showroom gross? Here are a few tips:

1)    Always provide the customer with choices and carefully review leads for model selection and trim levels. If you’re quoting your customer the loss leader or base model and they want the luxury model, then you’re setting them up for a price expectation way lower than is reasonable.

2)    Just like when you’re face-to-face with a customer, focus on building value in the vehicles. Customers want to know what they’re buying is worth the money, and you have the opportunity to explain why the price is what the price is

3)    Don’t be tempted to immediately give a discount, and be wary of programs that send inventory selections to customers with quotes designed to beat your competition or that are loss leaders. Big discount quotes make the customer believe all vehicles can be significantly discounted.

4)    Mystery shop your competition from time to time on key vehicles to ensure you’re pricing your vehicles to market.

5)    Consider location. If a customer is close to you, then price in the convenience of shopping with you. If the customer lives 20 miles away and has to drive past multiple competitors in order to get to your store, you may be more aggressive in your pricing.

6)    Set the rules in the Internet department based on what vehicles are selling for in the showroom. If they know the ‘floor’ price, you’re less likely to have a significant discrepancy between the showroom and the Internet gross.

What other tips do you have to raise the average front-end gross per vehicle, and more importantly, to increase the averages in the Internet departments to be more in line with showroom averages?

Fort Lauderdale, FL – September 24th, 2012— AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions (www.autousadealers.com) announced today the availability of a free white paper for auto dealers, titled Pre-Qualified Payment Marketing: Converting Online Car Shoppers to Customers. The white paper gives an overview of the current payment marketing options offered by dealers to their online customers, outlining the benefits and drawbacks of each. The paper then compares these options to Payment Pro powered by DriveItNow®, a new product that offers online customers instant, real payment quotes and delivers pre-qualified leads to auto dealers. In addition, the white paper shares proven results in a case study featuring Grubbs Nissan in Dallas, Texas.

“Since we launched Payment Pro in early August, we have received many inquiries from dealers about how this revolutionary payment marketing option impacts the bottom line,” said Mike Shawd, Vice President, Sales of AutoUSA. “This white paper demonstrates exactly how Payment Pro works, how it differs from other available tools and how it converts more online shoppers into pre-qualified leads from the dealer’s own website that close at an average of 20%.”

The white paper delves into what is most important to consumers in the car buying process, including:

•  The answer to the question, “What is the monthly payment and how does my credit affect it?” Most customers know their monthly budget, but often don’t know the corresponding vehicle cost to achieve their target monthly payment.

•  Completing most of the car buying process online before talking to a dealer, and progressing themselves down the sales funnel at their own pace.

•  Protecting personal information; most consumers don’t want to share their social security numbers, date of birth etc. and don’t want their credit scores affected with credit checks.

•  A desire for information provided by car dealers to be more complete and more accurate.

In addition, the white paper outlines the benefits of prequalified payment marketing:

• Close more existing website visitors

• Increased leads & closing ratios

• Keeps consumer engaged

• Consumers are less likely to consider alternative financing

• Additional F&I profit per deal

• Builds consumer confidence

• Highly qualified prospects

• No negative impact on consumer’s credit score

• No personal sensitive information required

• Eliminates discriminatory lending

• FCRA Compliant

Pre-Qualified Payment Marketing: Converting Online Car Shoppers to Customers with Payment Pro is available for free download at: http://www.autousadealers.com/DisplayDocList.aspx?DocId=126

About AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions

AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions brings the best-in-class tools to increase Internet sales and lower costs for automotive dealerships. Leading products include Payment Pro, a payment-based pre-qualification tool for dealer websites; ShowPro incentive program, proven to turn more leads into shows; Leads&Listings, providing the highest quality, new and used car email and phone leads from 100+ sites; PowerListings 2.0, helping dealers increase traffic to—and leads from—their social media sites; and AVA Virtual Sales Assistant, helping dealerships manage more leads at a reduced cost. AutoUSA products are currently benefiting thousands of active dealers all across the U.S. For more information, visit AutoUSA’s web site, subscribe to our blog at http://blog.autousadealers.com, follow us on Twitter @AutoUSALeads and “Like” us on Facebook at /AutoUSADealers

About DriveItNow (http://www.DriveItNow.com)

DriveItNow is a patent pending payment marketing technology service of Automobile Consumer Services, Inc. (ACS). ACS leads the industry with innovative proprietary technology, superior customer service, and over twenty years of auto financing and leasing experience.

http://www.dealersynergy.com 

I received an email from this dealership and was very excited when I saw that this dealership was using Digital Marketing Initiatives to try to recruit for their dealership!! 

I think this is AWESOME!! Dealers NEED to use:

* Facebook and other forms of Social Media

* Their website & micro sites

* Pay Per Click 

* Permission Based Email Campaigns as well as newsletters

If a dealership wants to hire or needs to hire additional members to their team... they need to think out of the box. 

I am always looking for ideas to help dealers be successful. If you have any additional ideas for HR / recruiting, please let us know! 

http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/video/video/show?id=1970539%3AVideo%3A414931#.UFUHDx9pzFg.facebook

Discovering Your Value Proposition - "Why Us" - Your "Differentiator" - Automotive Marketing - Tracking optimization ROI...

Landing Page Optimization 

Here I was sitting in a landing page optimization course and the first thing they did was throw a formula at me. C=4m+3v+2(i-f)-2a.Thankfully, it really wasn’t a mathematical formula, just a conversion sequence that helped you visualize conversion. Dr. Flint McGlaughlin the founder of MECLABS, the world's largest independent research institution focused on offer response optimization, was standing in front of the class saying, “You don’t optimize websites; you optimize thought sequences. Say it with me, C=4m+3v+2(i-f)-2a.”

What goes in that landing page optimization formula you say?

Motivation of user, force of the value proposition, incentive, friction, and anxiety.
He went on to say that the sales funnel we all know and love is actually upside down, “The value proposition is the fundamental force powering your prospects up the sales funnel,” he added.

This can be measured by four essential elements of offer:

Appeal- how much do I desire this offer?
Exclusivity- where else can I get this offer?
Credibility- can I trust your claims?
Clarity-what are you actually offering?
In order to express your value proposition on the Web, you must have congruence (having every element of your page state or support your proposition) and continuity (making sure that every step of the buying process states or supports the proposition).

I know I can’t say it as best as Dr. McGlaughlin can, so I found a video where he discusses the value proposition in better detail.

Got it? Good. Next was incentives. The object of incentives is to balance emotional forces from negative to positive. To determine your ideal incentive you must consider: marketing intuition, perceived value differential,and return on incentive. Here is another video in which Dr. McGlaughlin discusses these elements

Next Dr. McGlaughlin spoke about friction and anxiety. Friction, in marketing, is the psychological resistance to a given element in the sales process. Anxiety, in other words, is like concern, but it is just as lethal as friction. To get a better idea of these two elements, click here.

What does this mean for you?
If your Website isn’t optimized properly, you're losing customers. Dr.McGlaughlin showed us case studies where there was a 200% increase in capturing lead information by simply adjusting elements of their website. Take a look at the links presented above to better optimize your website, you won't regret it.

With this information presented to me I had to take a 50 question test to get certified in landing page optimization. I passed, would you?

Source = http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1970539%3ABlogPost%3A411848&xgs=1