I had thought the days were behind us. Call it a hope, but I believed that the majority of businesses who were active on social media had pushed beyond the plague that once filled our feeds - the worthless post. I was wrong.

It was while auditing an account that followed numerous car dealers on both Twitter and Facebook that I came across the reality of the situation. There are still plenty - over half from the sampling of several hundred that I examined - that were posting the type of "content" on social media that drives people to unfollow, block, or simply ignore them. Recently I've been posting some advanced business social media tips, but it's time to take a step back and go over one of the basics...

If you're going to ask people to do anything at all on social media, whether it's to click on a link, share a post, or engage in any way at all, give them a valid reason to do so.

Don't get me wrong. I realize that social media is still new to many. I realize that not everyone is learning the best practices that it takes to make it successful. I was simply taken aback by the numbers of businesses that were making this profile-killing mistake. In the example above (not the worst example, mind you, but after seeing so many this was the one that was closest to the top for a quick screen capture), the dealership is asking people to do something. They want their fans to browse the inventory of a particular new vehicle. The chances of anyone clicking on this link are miniscule compared to the chances that they'll see this post and unfollow the dealership.

The same thing is happening on Facebook. In many ways, it's worse because people are much more stingy with clicks that take them away from Facebook than they are with clicks that take them away from Twitter.

This needs to stop...

Give them a reason

There are much better ways for a dealership to use social media than to try to get clicks to the inventory, but if you must do it from time to time, make sure there's something enticing to make it happen. For example, a Tweet might say...

• The 1st batch of next generation #Mazda6 just rolled off the truck. [link] #SmokinHot even in December!
• Our biggest sale of 2012 starts next week. Get a head start by browsing the #special inventory [link]
• New incentives just hit for the #Nissan #Sentra. Claim dibs on yours, #Atlanta! [link]

Of course, posting links to inventory is not a best practice. It's something that should be done sparingly (if at all) and only when there's a valid reason to do so. Your goals with social media are many, but two of the basics are (1) improve your branding for future considerations, and (2) catch people in market with something compelling.

Compelling. Give them a reason. Otherwise, the seconds it took to post a meaningless update could have been better spent reciting a limerick.

When Instagram decided to block Twitter from being able to post the images directly onto the platform, we all knew it was a matter of time that Twitter would have its own variation. We didn't realize that it would only take a few days. We also didn't expect it to be such a useful portion of the app.

As it turned out, the app is very strong, possibly even better than Instagram in UI. Granted, it's not a true replacement for Instagram, but with a little manual effort it can actually be used to generate interesting content directly from the lot onto all of your social media pages and profiles.

Here's how:

Understanding the Twitter Photo Filtering Tool

If I have one complaint about what Twitter has done with their photo filtering tool, it's that it's only available through their mobile apps. It would have been nice and a great differentiator between the app and Instagram, but it will suffice.

When you take a picture of something at the dealership with your smartphone, you can then bring it into Twitter. There is a cropping tool, an auto-fix button, and the filters that many are familiar with if they've used Instagram. Adjust the image appropriately and it's ready to post.

Now, just come up with a clever Tweet to go with it and you're ready to go. If you're using a picture that you've already taken with your smartphone, no problem. Twitter allows you to either take an image at that point or insert an image already in a gallery on your phone.

Depending on your smartphone, you may face challenges if you're trying to import an image from your computer. You can always use syncing software, connect your phone directly to your computer, or just upload the picture to an image sharing site like Imgur and then download it to your phone.

Get it Posted to Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, and (yes) Instagram

Now that you have it on Twitter, it's time to upload the image to Facebook, Google+, and anywhere else you might have a strong social account such as Pinterest, Tumblr, and even Instagram itself.

When posting to Facebook and Google+, you'll want to add the image, THEN add the link to the Tweet itself. When you add an image, it prevents the link from expanding. This is important because links do not do as well on Facebook or Google+ as images. Still, you want the link to the original Twitter post for a couple of reasons, most importantly to get some exposure to your Twitter account for some cross-channel promotions.

Why Go Through the Trouble?

There are easier ways to post to the various social media sites. This is a very manual effort and may discourage dealers from doing it like this. Everything listed above is done so for a reason.

Twitter is one of the most under-utilized tools for dealers. Utilizing the filters and linking to the Tweets from your other social networks allows you to highlight your Twitter account and draw in other followers. Used right, Twitter can be a tremendous marketing and communication tool, but that's for another blog post.

The other reason to do it like rather than posting directly to Facebook from Instagram is because of exposure. As cool as Instagram can be, it presents challenges in your Facebook timeline. If you're posting more than one image in a 24-hour period, Instagram photos get "batched" into an album. Neither this album nor the individual images can be liked, commented on, or shared directly from your news feed. People will have to click through to the image to be able to interact with it, and most won't. They'll just pass it right by.

Also, Instagram doesn't post directly to Google+ or Pinterest anyway, so you'll be adding them manually either way. Posting it like I detailed above to all of your social profiles takes about 2 minutes and expands the potential reach greatly.

Lastly, people recognize the filters from Instagram. It makes images look more real. It makes them look authentic. These are your images and people appreciate images that you took more than images you found on the internet. While the Twitter filters aren't exactly like the Instagram filters, they're still pretty darn cool.

* * *

Social media is about authenticity. If you're making the effort to take images at your dealership, you should be taking the time to separate yourself from the competition by positioning the photos in the best possible light. This process, long (2 minutes) as it is, will give you an edge over your competitors and will let your customers know that there are real people behind the profiles.

It was one of the most used made-up words of 2012 (and in many cases, one of the most annoying). Just about every marketer in and out of the automotive industry used some variation of "SoLoMo" (Social/Local/Mobile) in a blog post, video, presentation, or declaration of things to come. The underlying concept - that many people and the sites they visit are becoming more social, more localized, and more mobile based - is likely here to stay for a while, but is it something that dealers should embrace in 2013 or something that they should wait on until it either explodes or fades into the same obscurity that QR codes and SMS marketing seem to be heading?

Before anyone jumps on that last statement, I'm not downplaying the effectiveness of either QR codes or SMS marketing. Used right, they can be very effective. They simply didn't materialize into the "next big thing" that many thought they would back in 2011.

I have three questions which I'll answer briefly just to spark the conversation, but I really want to hear from the ADM community.

Q1: Should they really be grouped together or should they be treated as independent marketing and communication forms?

There's a certain beauty in SoLoMo. With the rise of smartphones and tablets, the improvements by Google and Bing in serving consumers localized results, and continued expansion of social media into our daily lives, it all seems to tie together nicely. Social is accessed most often from mobile devices. Mobile devices and their operating systems are generating search results, apps, and other tools that tie in perfectly with localized engagement. Local interactions are becoming more prevalent in social media and through review sites.

It would seem that grouping them together is easy enough and presents the ability to save time and resources by consolidating strategies. However, each of the three components also have their own nuances and attributes that may require an active automotive marketing professional (both at the dealership and vendor level) to split the strategies into more focused campaigns and separate styles.

Should they stay grouped or not?

Q2: Is the time and effort required to make them "hum" worth it from an ROI perspective?

Let's get local out of this question immediately. Few would argue with the clear trends and data that shows the value of localized focus. Reviews, search traffic, retargeting - all have shown benefits that make the question silly in regards to local.

Mobile and social are different. Mobile is a tough beast to tame. It requires the right software, platforms, and strategy to get the desired effect, but is the effect worth the effort? Is there a large enough difference between good and great to make it worth the wholesale changes necessary to get to the highest level? Social is always a question from an ROI perspective - enough has been written for and against it so there's no need to rehash here.

Is there enough ROI to justify going to the next level?

Q3: Will SoLoMo grow in relevance or decline in 2013

I'm going to leave that question open. I have very firm beliefs about the direction of SoLoMo in 2013, but I'll hold my opinions until others are posted so as not to spoil the conversation prematurely.

* * *

What say you, ADM?

There is a very distinguishable difference between SEO content and content that brings SEO value.

The easiest way to look at it is that SEO content is what you put on each page of your website to let both visitors and the search engines understand what the page is about, while content that brings SEO value isn't necessarily there to help the page rank but to help other pages on the site rank better. The easiest way to create content that has the ability to bring SEO value is to make sure that the content is engaging and that people will be willing to both link to and share the content itself.

This is Part III in the series about “Killing Birds With Content Stones”. Read Part I and Part II first.

It has to be real.

When most internet marketers think of using content for SEO, they think along the lines of using the appropriate keywords in the html content on the page to demonstrate the keywords for which they want the page to rank. This is, in many ways, harder than writing engaging content. There's a lot less science and practically no risk in writing engaging content. It's what Google and Bing want. As a result, giving it to them gives you little chance of triggering anything negative as a result, at least not from the search engines themselves.

With modern SEO, content has gone from being a tool to being the hub. If you use content marketing properly, you can enhance your SEO while still bringing value to the website and social media sites at the same time. Here's how:

How Engaging Content Works for SEO

If you are trained in search engine optimization, get one thing out of your head for the rest of this article. Keywords don't matter in engaging content. Our goals with writing engaging content have nothing to do with getting that page ranked for any particular keywords. It will rank because it's valuable and the keywords that it ranks for do not really matter. The goal is to get traffic, links, and social signals. These types of pages do not have to rank for the keywords that you want and they don't have to convert visitors.

It's hard to understand for many marketers. It's almost unnatural, to want to put out a piece of content that has no direct value from a search or conversion perspective, but it's the indirect value that can be so much more powerful when done right.

These engagement pages are designed to stay loosely on topic with the goals of the company or website, but only so much as to have a reason to exist. Using a car dealer as an example, the vast majority of the site might be geared towards selling cars, servicing cars, or highlighting the dealership, but the engagement content will only touch on the appropriate topics. It could be an article about the local area or even the state itself. At that point, it becomes an opportunity to highlight landing pages that are area specific.

When you create the page, it will be about a topic that allows you to work in links (or in many cases, a single link) to the target landing page. In the example below, the page is about iconic images in Wisconsin while the landing page it links to is specifically geared to rank for the term "Milwaukee Ford Dealers". Do what you can to make sure the link is naturally situated within the content.

The goal is to build a page that is engaging enough to be shared on social media to generate social signals for the domain as well as have the potential to be linked to by other websites that find the content interesting or useful.

Write What Your Visitors Would Want to Read

I've always thought it was easier to take a writer and train them on SEO than to take an SEO and train them to write well. Don't get me wrong - a strong SEO content writer is still valuable, just not as much as they have been in the past. Natural writing is prevailing in the search engines, so as long as someone knows how to properly describe what's going on with a particular page or the website/company as a whole, they should be able to piece together good SEO content.

Writing engaging content is harder and potentially more valuable from an SEO perspective. The example above was designed to appeal to people around the state itself. The subject should always tie in with the target landing page in some way. Since our landing page is targeting Milwaukee but the dealership isn't in Milwaukee, we posted about the entire state and worked in references to the bigger cities in the state - Milwaukee and Madison. Let's say our goal was not to target the brand and a city but rather a model and the local area. We might have posted something like "Most Used and Abused F-150's in Fond du Lac". A piece like that would require much more research and help from either the service department, locals in the community prompted by social media, or both. In that case, the landing page that we would create would likely be an inventory search page for F-150s or even a landing page highlighting the vehicle.

You know your area. You know your brand. You know your products. There's plenty of valuable content available to post about. It doesn't have to be an article or a list of images like the one above. It could be a video, an infographic, a review (written, not scraped or syndicated), or any of a dozen different types of content.

Always think about it from a sharing perspective. Would YOU be interested in sharing the content on social media sites if you didn't work there? Would you be willing to link to the page as a resource or piece of interest if you had a website about the subject? In the example above, the page could be sent to local newspaper websites (particularly if the images were unique to the business), a tourism site, or any website that had an interest in the state of Wisconsin. Schools, government agencies, travel sites - all make for a good potential link. They don't have to link to your target. Your page takes care of that for you. Your goal is to get links and social signals to the engaging content that links to your landing page. It's not as good as getting a direct link or social signals to the target itself, but the vast majority of landing pages do not have enough general interest to make them sharable. This is an alternative to direct links and if done right, it's the most effective way to move the needle in your search rankings.

In the next part, we will describe in detail how to get the most social media benefit from the same piece of content. Stay tuned.

There's really no way around it. The only technique to truly maximize the effectiveness of your content to be engaging on your website, relevant for SEO, and useful for social media is to think three-dimensionally.

This is Part II in the series about "Killing Birds With Content Stones". Read Part I first.

It's hard. It's not impossible. Here's how.

Asking the Right Questions Before Producing the Content

Before you can produce the content, you have to make sure that the proposed piece is going to fulfill the goals appropriately. For this portion, we're going to use the example of a car dealership who is diving into content marketing. They want to produce content for their website that is engaging to their visitors, that assists in improving their search engine optimization, and that can effectively be used as content to spread through social media.

Some content is born from brainstorming or simply pops in one's head as a good piece of content to post. Other times, inspiration comes in the form of an event. For example, a Ford dealer in Seattle might have a purple Ford Focus drive into the service bay that inspires a marketing manager. They decide that they want to do a picture post about the different colors of Fords. Before coming up with the plan surrounding the content, they have to ask themselves a few questions.

• Will this be a piece of content that's interesting to people who visit my site? In this case, the fact that the topic is Ford vehicles makes it interesting enough, but they can add an additional touch to it if they can keep it localized. Rather than just different colors of Fords, they may decide to make it different colors of Fords around Seattle.
  
• Can this help with SEO? This is the easy question to answer. For this particular piece of content, since the topic surrounds vehicles themselves, they will be able to link to pages on the website that sell those vehicles. Under the image for the Ford Focus, they'll be able to link to an inventory search for a Focus and anchor it, "Ford Focus for Sale in Seattle".
  
• Is it interesting enough to be shared on social media? It might be, particularly if the images are strong enough. Getting it shared on Facebook will be pretty easy if at least one of the images is strong. Getting it retweeted will require some clever titling. Since social media in general and Twitter in particular love trending topics, the marketing manager may decide to latch onto a semi-current topic and title the piece, "15 Shades of Ford Across Seattle", playing on the 50 Shades of Gray phenomenon. It's a little risky considering the subject matter of the book, but it's also been played with enough to allow certain discretion.

Force it Now or let it Simmer?

There are two options for a piece of content like this. Since it's only time-sensitive based upon the popularity of the title, it's possible to let the piece simmer and grow over time. More on that later.

The first and most common option is to go for it now. We have the concept. Now, let's put the piece together. We should have the image of the first purple Focus (with permission from the customer, of course). Now, we need more. There should be at least a couple more vehicles on the lot that have interesting colors that make the vehicles look great. This is important - by mixing in some in-house images, it makes the overall story more compelling as it pertains to the business itself. Let's say we have 4 images total. Now, we need more.

Most will go to the internet for this, and they may get lucky and find some good images by searching for "Ford Seattle" in image searches. Even better, they may search for "Ford Mustang Club Seattle" and find images there. Wherever you find the images, always attribute the actual source. If you didn't take the picture, give credit to those who did.

There may be a desire to cheat a little and include images of Fords outside of Seattle, but that would be too risky. If there simply aren't enough available to make a valid piece, they may want to append the title to say, "15 Shades of Ford Across Seattle and Beyond". It's a cheat and not ideal, but efficiency is more important than perfection. If you don't have enough content, don't force it.

In this hypothetical instance, the marketing manager has 9 images - four from the dealership and five local cars they found online. Nine is good but doesn't have the oomph of 15, so if they absolutely must get the piece out now and they don't want to settle for non-local images, it's time to find them in the real world. It could be as simple as sitting at the corner and shooting pictures of a couple of cars at stop lights. This seems cheesy, but there's nothing wrong with it as long as you don't have license plates visible. The marketing manager may drive around searching. This is not ideal, but again, this is assuming you want the piece to go out immediately.

What would be ideal is to go with option two: patience. The content will come. Tell the service writers what you're doing and ask them to keep their eyes out. You may even want to be specific - "I need green, maroon, and light blue to fill out the spectrum."

The other technique is to reach out through social media itself. If your Facebook page is vibrant and has a lot of local fans, ask them for help. Tell them what you're doing and ask them to send in pictures of their own Ford vehicles if they have something that matches your needs. Over time, between what happens at the store and what happens on social media, your patience will pay off and you'll have a much more impressive piece of content than if you force it. This is the difference between good 3D and bad 3D. Both deliver the desired effect but one is more memorable than the other.

Make it Three Dimensional

You've asked the right questions. You have the right content. Now, it's time to make sure that it fulfills all of the goals.

• Engaging Website Content - If you have a "fun" section on your website such as a blog, this is where you'll want to place the content. The worst thing that can happen is to take someone who wants to do business and distract them with frivolous content, so by placing it on the blog or in an area designed for "fun" topics, you'll keep the serious visitors serious while still engaging with those who are visiting for other reasons. Keep the spin of the content localized - people love seeing what's close to them on the great big internet. It helps to highlight their surroundings, gives them pride in their city, and offers a way for them to get involved with comments such as, "I saw that F-150 at Target the other day."
  
• SEO Content - There's nothing wrong with linking to internal pages that are about business. People expect it. While they might not click directly to a search for Ford Fusion inventory, the search engines will definitely follow the link and attribute additional weight to the page as a result.
  
• Social Media Content - With a proper three dimensional piece of content, there will be an inherent desire to share it. The content must be interesting enough to share and then must be exposed to locals so they can share it as well. This is most effective on Facebook, of course, where the degrees of separation between people makes an image much more likely to be seen by the owner of the vehicle. Have your employees share the page. They can highlight individual images in their Facebook feed. If you reached out to a local car club, contact them or simply post it on their wall with credit going to them as deserved. The art of exposing the content properly on social media is another blog post entirely, but I think you get the picture.

In an ideal world, we would have the time and resources to create four types of content: converting website content, engaging website content, SEO content, and social media content.

Throw in public relations content, supporting content, and consumer resources and now you have a ton of content needs without a ton of time to create it.

This is where the bird-hunting content producers of the world can shine. Thankfully, just about anyone at a business can kill multiple birds with each content stone if they know how to do it right.

Understanding the Importance of Each Type of Content

Content that is placed on your website, blog, supporting sites, and social media is normally done so for a reason. Sure, there are people who love to write, take pictures, or shoot videos as a hobby, but in the business world we normally want to get a benefit from our efforts. One of the biggest speed bumps that businesses often make is that they don't know how to properly define the goals of their content. With a proper definition, the content has less of a chance of being successful.

For now, we're not going to look at conversion content, PR, support, or consumer resources. They are much more focused types of content and while it's possible to hit them with content that achieves multiple goals, it's best to attack them individually. For example, you can say that a press release is something that can help with SEO as well as get shared on social media, but it doesn't replace the real SEO content or content that is designed for social media engagement. It's an addition and therefore is normally not crafted to accomplish the other goals as well.

Let's focus on engaging website content, SEO content, and social media content. Done properly, the vast majority of the pieces of content you create for one can apply to all three.

• Engaging Website Content - This is the content that is designed to bring people in who are not necessarily looking for your product at that particular moment. They were a nice-to-have type of content prior to the Google Penguin update of April, 2012, but now they are absolutely essential thanks to Google's adoration for content that can be enjoyed, that brings value to the visitor, and that can be shared through social media as well as being the target of inbound links. Engaging website content does not sell a product or service. It supports the sale of those products in some way. It might be as direct as showing clever integration methods between an iPhone and a car, showing how the new Ford Fusion has systems that SYNC nicely with your smartphone. It might be as indirect as a gallery of images from different angles of the Seattle Space Needle. For a Seattle Ford Dealer, both of these examples would work nicely to accomplish the goal of making their website engaging to their potential customers.
  
  
• SEO Content - The days of writing content on or off of your site or blog for the sheer sake of manipulating your search rankings are far behind us. 2011's Google Panda update and the several tweaks and improvements since then have forced businesses to take a longer look at quality over quantity. It's about manual and unique versus automated and duplicated. Today's SEO content brings value to the table. This ties in nicely to the other two types of content listed here.
  
  
• Social Media Content - It's hard for many businesses to understand the levels of quality that are required on social media because of the camouflage created by all of the bad content that's shared every day by others. It cannot be understated that well-crafted content posted on social media can bring more value than dozens of low value posts. In fact, these low value posts can actually do harm. Crafting the right content for social media is the only way to tie it in directly with SEO and website engagement.

In the next post, we will go into details about "Thinking Three Dimensionally" to help you select the right topics and take the appropriate steps to post. Stay tuned.

14 Experts Predict 2013 Social Media Marketing Trends for Car Dealers and Local Business Owners

First of all, I want to thank Mr. Bryan Armstrong for posting a link and article snippet on the Google+ Community titled "Automotive Social Media Marketing" which led me to an article... which referenced and led me one step further to the AT&T Networking Exchange Blog that I am re-posting for the benefit of ADM Professional Community members below.

My goal is to get our community of automotive marketing practitioners to think about where the car business is heading with our use of social media marketing strategies and tactics, in the hope of stimulating some valuable discussion and commentary.

For example, take a look at Jeff Bulas' (#3) prediction (more of a projection?) where he describes what sounds like car dealers connecting the dots between search engine marketing strategies and how they will begin to understand the correlation between sound content creation and publishing programs as part of their overall marketing strategy. There are few areas within the very large world of automotive digital marketing that has more effectively captured the attention of car dealers than taking action to ensure having their websites and published information show up in the Google Search Engine results which appear for their customers making automotive related inquiries... To Jeff's point, as more and more dealers grasp the connection between publishing "User Generated Content" as part of a daily Content Marketing and Earned Media strategy, their perspective on Social Media Marketing and how it delivers a Return On Investment (ROI) will evolve and become a lot more sophisticated.

All 14 of these predictions are well worth carefully reviewing and considering in your dealership's 2013 marketing strategy, but take a close look at Margie Clayman's (#4) predictions. Her words make a lot of sense and sound very likely to occur, at least to my admittedly biased ears... Here's a quote from Margie predictions:

"I predict that in 2013 small businesses will start seeing social media more as a tool and less as an entity unto itself. Instead of asking what social media is, they will ask how they should be using it and why."

What Margie says under the guise of a prediction makes a lot of sense, and is just plain good guidance, whether or not labeled with the "Predictions for 2013" moniker or not. As you read through these 14 so-called predictions, you will find that most of them should be considered good advice, and brimming with opportunity for competitive advantage.

All of the renowned and highly respected writers, speakers and practitioners whose "predictions" are listed in the article below are knowledgeable and obviously put serious thought into their answers to Cheryl Burgess's questions. I found that reading the predictions caused me to think and consider many of my own strategies and tactics, so as to be positioned for a competitive advantage in 2013... When it really comes down to why any of us would bother with social media and the marketing, engagement and communications capabilities it offers to car dealers; if there were no opportunity for competitive advantage, then why would we bother with it?

After you check these predictions out, please post a comment about which ones you found credible and ringing of truth, and which ones you considered to be more fantasy than fact... Finally, the question that Cheryl closed her article with, which I have boldened and highlighted in red font. I will echo to our professional network... What are YOUR predictions regarding social media and the way car dealers will use it in 2013?

When Cheryl started this post, she wanted to share 13 Social Media Predictions for Small Business (including car dealerships) in 2013. However, for those of her readers who might be superstitious, Cheryl didn't want to jinx the New Year before it even began. So, she decided to go with 14 predictions instead. Cheryl suggests that there is no need to worry about doomsday prophecies from the Mayans or Nostradamus. As shown by their predictions for 2013, the experts Ms. Burgess consulted see only a bright future ahead for small businesses, car dealers and their ability to receive business benefits from social media marketing practices. ADM Professional Community members are encouraged to visit Cheryl's article on the AT&T Networking Blog for Small Business at NetworkingExchangeBlog.ATT.com/Small-Business.

1. Meghan M. Biro @MeghanMBiro – Founder and CEO of TalentCulture Consulting Group and the TalentCulture World of Work Community. “In 2013, for businesses small & large, I predict that the quality of online relationships and content will rise to the occasion in the vast sea of social media. Also, crowdsourcing will become a more active player in the mainstream social enterprise.”

2. David Brier @DavidBrier – Chief Gravity Defyer at DBD International, Ltd. – “In 2013, small businesses will need to strengthen their ties to their customers as the world keeps getting smaller. So much more is available than ever before. Thus, the competitive edge will be built on those relationships and bonds. In addition, small businesses can become the official ambassadors of excellent customer service in a world that’s going increasingly automated. As more and more “touch points” become “streamlined” at the expense of personal human contact, the companies with excellent personnel and live customer service representatives will outshine and outperform their competition.”

3. Jeff Bullas @jeffbullas – Account Director- Infinity Technologies, Social Media Marketing Blogger, Speaker and Strategist – Author -”Blogging the Smart Way – How to create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” “Google has realized that people voting for content they like with Retweets, Facebook likes, plus +1′s and comments is important and increasingly relevant in what they serve up in Google search results. Google+ was launched just over 12 months ago to capture those social signals, and today the Google +1 button is used over five billion times every day. In 2013 you will see small companies starting to realize that social media is also important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Companies will begin to understand that social, content, and SEO are linked and more integrated than ever.”

4. Margie Clayman @MargieClayman- Vice President of Client Services, Clayman Marketing Communications, Inc. “I predict that in 2013 small businesses will start seeing social media more as a tool and less as an entity unto itself. Instead of asking what social media is, they will ask how they should be using it and why. In the end, this will increase the effectiveness of their social media marketing efforts.”

5. Jon Ferrara @Jon_Ferrara – CEO Nimble, Inc. “Nearly every small business is experimenting with or planning on using social media because they understand they need to go where their audience is. Listening and engaging and being discoverable online is critically important today in growing their businesses. 2013 will be the year Social Media moves out of Community Management and Marketing to Social Selling and Customer Engagement.”

6. Sam Fiorella @samfiorella – Partner at Sensei Marketing and Author of Influence Marketing “Small Businesses in 2013 will tire of broadcast social media campaigns and messaging and invest in monitoring tools like Jungoo.com, Shoutlet.com or others to better segment their audience, effectively target influencers and accurately measure the impact of those efforts. Next, employees—the businesses’ biggest brand ambassadors—will become trained and empowered to become actual influencers across social channels.”

7. Mike Johansson @mikefixs – Lecturer in Communication at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and Social Media Strategist for Fixitology LLC – “2013 is the year that small businesses finally acknowledge that social media needs to be part of the daily workload. Depending on whose numbers you believe, somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of small businesses use social media for customer engagement, customer service, community building and selling. In 2013 small businesses will realize they either get on that bus or they’ll be waving goodbye to the opportunity to be in front of people … and some, if not all, of their business.”

8. Wendy Marx @Wendy Marx – President – Marx Communications-“In 2013, for B2B small businesses it will be more use of content marketing, especially content curation, as a way of engaging customers. Small businesses will make greater use of LinkedIn as the platform continues to expand its offerings. Finally, the coming year will see a greater integration of social media into all marketing practices so it becomes a part of a small business’ way of doing business.”

9. Steve Olenski @steveolenski – Sr. Content Strategist at Responsys – “In 2013 I think (and maybe it’s wishful thinking) that more and more small businesses will begin to dive into the visual side of social media, (i.e. Pinterest and Instagram). I have said this a million times, but you have to look at your computer/mobile screen the way you do a TV. People do not read TV, they watch it. Consumers want to see something—not just read it.”

10. Tom Pick @TomPick – Digital Marketing & PR Consultant – Webbiquity- “In 2013, small businesses, and larger ones too, will get more sophisticated about their measurement of social media results. They will view social media marketing tactics within the larger framework of their overall Web presence—how it supports what they are doing in PR, website optimization, search advertising and other areas of marketing. Their measurement will be less about direct, linear ROI and more about how social sharing and engagement fits into and enhances their overall web marketing and lead generation strategies.”

11. Alex Romanovich @AlexRomanovich – Managing Partner - Social2B, Inc, Adviser – The CMO Club – “SMBs will continue to test social media, while more aggressively increasing their budgets allocated to social media in any form. By now, the SMB community is seeing some positive results via social media and will continue to test the channel, conversions, ecommerce or social commerce, etc. For the first time, SMBs will start paying even closer attention to metrics and analytics—they will want to know more about their conversion rates and ROI, although they will continue to be challenged by the complexity and growing pains of the social environment. SMBs will also use more social networks—besides LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, SMBs will continue to discover Google+, Slideshare, etc.”

12. Gary Schirr @ProfessorGary – Assistant Professor – Marketing, Radford University - “In 2013 savvy small businesses around the globe will learn valuable photo and video-editing skills to help drive their social media marketing efforts. Using their own cameras, smartphones and tablets, small businesses will leverage newly found creative skills to create content that impacts their audience. They will also solicit visual content from employees and customers. Small businesses will develop an eye for visual content marketing opportunities while learning editing tools such as iMovie, MovieMaker, Photoshop and PaintShop to help energize their business marketing approach.”

13. Deborah Weinstein @debweinstein – President & Partner, Strategic Objectives “2012 saw a major surge in mobile adoption rates, and 2013 will be all about the apps that lead to social sharing. Mobile is an effective brand building tool for small business given its powerful ability to geo-target consumers and promote local sales. In 2013, we will see a focus on quick, easy and highly visual apps, including Instagram, Viddly, Cinemagram and Keek. These apps are the ‘140 characters’ of visual, social sharing. Small business can use these free, easy-to-use tools to get the message out to their audience on such a short, quick-consumption platform.”

14. Patricia Wilson @brandcottage – President/Founder BrandCottage - “The biggest shift we will see is in content creation. It is relatively easy and inexpensive to create beautiful photos and videos for social media. Small business are beginning to reach their comfort level with social media and will employ more tactics with Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and other social nets.”

What trends in social media do you see taking shape in the coming year?

Check out the original source of this post:

networkingexchangeblog.att.com/14-experts-predict-2013-social-media...

The following Automotive Social Media Infographic gives us some historical perspective on where the car business was with our use of social media back when we were headed into 2012... A lot has changed, so what will 2013 have in store for the ways in which automotive marketers seek to gain a competitive advantage via innovation and more effective use of social media channels?

When the topic of SEO comes up, many people envision HTML code and meta tag adjustments. They think of keyword stuffing. They consider the bounds set by the OEM of what they can and cannot do with their websites and how far they can push the boundaries to extend their market reach.

They don't usually imagine finding cool images and videos of epic cars or amazing places, but that's one activity that dealers and SEOs can do to affect their overall search rankings as well as reach out to their communities with amazing and sharable content.

Today, social has become a tremendous SEO tool. Content is the key to true social interactions. The best content is informative, fun, or both. You should see where I'm heading with this, but just in case...

Step 1: Find Content that YOU Enjoy

There are two connections between our virtual world and the real world that need to be noted. On one hand, you have the "sell sell sell" mentality that often prevents dealers from adding content to their website that isn't totally on point with the goal of the dealership: more sales. On the other hand, we're car people. If you're in this business, you love cars (at least you should). As such, thatconnection should definitely come through to the online presence of the dealership but it's often absent.

Above, you'll see an image of a 1956 Ford F-100. It's one of the coolest trucks (in my humble opinion) that was ever built. Why not pay tribute to it on a Ford website? That would be fun, right?

Perhaps more importantly, it can help your search rankings as well as your social outreach by doing so. Find content you love. Then...

Step 2: Put It On Your Website

The most important part here is attribution. I'm not a fan of stealing content. Whenever possible, use images that you've taken. If you must use the internet, there are sites such as Shutterstock that allow you to pay for content images and they have tons of pictures of both cars and locations. If you're going to rely on Google to get the images, be sure to attribute the source with a link to them. They are supplying you with content that will help your website. The least you can do is help them back by supplying them with a link.

With that out of the way, let's talk content. The reason that you're supposed to find content that YOU enjoy is because you'll be able to write much more easily about it. If it's something that you don't care about, it'll show in your writing. If you adore it (just as I adore the '55 and '56 F-100's I used in this project) then it'll show.

There doesn't have to be a ton of written content. If anything, that can be a detriment to have too much. Let the images or videos speak for themselves. With that said, you musthave some unique content on the page or it won't last. One, two, maybe three paragraphs is plenty.

Make it personal. This doesn't have to be the Wikipedia version. It can come from your heart. At your soul, you like cars, right? Let that shine through in the writing. Speaking of Wikipedia, you have to fight the urge to copy and paste. The content must be unique.

Check out the page itself on Holiday Automotive's 1955 Ford F100 page.

Step 3: Make a Couple of Quick SEO Decisions and Apply Them

It's great to have fun with your content, but you want to be able to get a benefit out of it without risking loss of a customer. The first benefit is to help with your search rankings. While it's possible for the page itself to rank for terms associated with F-100s, unless you're a classic truck dealer you're not going to benefit from this.

Instead, use the page to help your domain rank better in general and to help another page rank better for a specific keyword. In this case, we're going to work on getting the homepage ranked for "Wisconsin Ford Dealers", a keyword that they're currently not hitting with on page one. There are two other SEO benefits that we'll talk about below.

The other decision that you'll want to make is whether or not to include the page in your navigation. In most cases, one-off content like this should not be in your navigation. You want to drive traffic to a page like this through social media. No need to distract your normal website visitors with a "fun" page.

The exception to this rule is if you're going to create a lot of pages with amazing content. In such a case, you may want to consider having a section of the website dedicated to this type of content. It can be "Amazing Ford Vehicles through the Decades" with collections of pages similar to this one. It could be "The Best of the Best in Chicago" with pages dedicated to the amazing things and landmarks within the city. There are many options, but a time commitment is required. If you go with occasional one-off pages, you should probably keep them out of the navigation.

Step 4: The Social Buttons

Most pages on most dealer websites have social buttons. Some even go so far as to have toolbars at the bottom or "Share This" widgets. These are acceptable for most pages because, let's face it, nobody's sharing your site anyway. These toolbars and share widgets are smoke and mirror tactics used by some vendors to sell... nevermind - that's another blog post in the future.

The share buttons you'll want on a content page like this will be the ones supplied by the sites themselves. We recommend Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Pinterest, though some may want to include others such as Tumblr, StumbleUpon, etc.

This is the second (and arguably most important) aspect to helping your SEO. Both Google and Bing have acknowledged that social signals play a role in the search rankings of a domain. For the most part, the content on dealer websites is unsharable... until now. These types of pages can be shared if you have the right content and the right social accounts in place to share them.

This is where the disclaimer must be made. This isn't A Field of Dreams. Just because you build it, that doesn't mean they'll come. At KPA we have accumulated some incredible social media experts that give us the resources to make sure our dealers get the social signals they need for success. Some would say it's the unfair advantage that keeps us at the top in SEO. It's definitely possible to get social signals without the "power accounts" that we have in our arsenal, but that, too, is another blog post altogether. For now, do what you can and even "fake it 'til you make it" by having employees, friends, and even family share the page on social media. After all, it's a content page. It's not like you're asking them to spam their social friends with a car for sale. This is an epic Ford F100. Share away!

Finally, you'll notice the "Embed this Image" code. This is best for infographics but it works for images as well. This is to assist in helping to get links to the page, which brings us to...

Step 5: Get Links to the Page

The concept of "link bait" is still a valid play in the SEO world and this type of page qualifies. However, unless you're able to drive massive traffic to the page, you won't get a ton of links organically. It's time to share it yourself.

Find content sites that would like to see this type of content on their pages. You have blogs (even your own blog), Tumblr, and other content sites that love compilations. In this case, we used Buzzfeed as well as some blogs.

As you can see in the image, we link again to the target keyword and include the images as the content on the page. The text content is unique - no copy and paste here either. It will only take a couple of links to get this particular keyword ranked if you're using the right sites.

Google's Penguin update is looking for link spam, so don't participate in those types of tactics. If you're going to be building a lot of links, make certain that it's natural and organic. Building links that all have the same anchor text is one thing that can trigger the algorithm's filter.

Do it the right way or don't do it at all. To much is at stake. In this case, the handful of links that we built will not hurt the domain and will help to get it ranked for our target keyword. It will also help the overall link authority of the domain. Whenever participating in link-building, always think quality over quality.

Step 6: Social Outreach

Now that you've got the page and supporting pages built, it's time to share it. If your social media pages are strong, it's as simple as sharing it by creating an image gallery. Keep in mind - this will not count as a Facebook like or Google +1. You can share the link from the page itself on your social channels but they will not get as much exposure that way.

Photos rule.

I did, however, link to the page in the comments.

The goal here is to drive some traffic. It won't be much, but if your social media presence is strong you'll get some traffic to it, particularly from Twitter and Pinterest. The goal is to "double dip" with the content so that you're allowing it to help your social pages to flourish. It's great content. Share it!

Step 7: Rinse and Repeat

Set a schedule for yourself. It could be once a week, once a month, or once in a while, but be sure to set aside some time to creating these types of pages. A content-rich website supported by links and social interactions is the key to overall success on both the search and social fronts.

A final note - this is fun and once you get good it can all flow very efficiently, but it does take understanding. If anything at all in this was unclear, please reach out to me. This isn't one of those things in automotive internet marketing that can be done partially well. You either do it right or you do it wrong - there's very little grey area and there's even less room for error.

This is one of those topics in which everyone will have an opinion. Some will agree in part and disagree with other components, but the hope is to stir up some discussion on the topic. We've tested these ideas and continue the constant flow of more testing; social media is always changing.

Before going much further, it's extremely important to understand one aspect of this list that is universal, particularly in the automotive industry. Time is the primary factor. If someone came to me and asked me to devise a comprehensive strategy that a full-time social media marketing employee could implement and manage, it would be different from what I've put below. Blogging, for example, is an afterthought in the list below as it can be extremely time-consuming to do properly, but if there's a full-timer handling social media, blogging would jump from the bottom to the top.

Conversely, those who have no time at all and are squeezing in 5 minutes a day at the most would also need a more streamlined strategy.

These suggestions are for the average dealer who an employee such as the internet manager squeezing in 20 minutes to an hour a day into their social media strategy. Technically, this could fill up more than an hour a day if more attention is paid to vetting content on other pages, sharing, and commenting, but we'll assume those activities, high-value though they are, fall into the category of "if you have time between all of the other things you have to do every day."

Here's the hierarchy as I see it:

1. Facebook

This one is the no-brainer on the list. If you only have time to do one thing in social media, it would be Facebook. They have the traction. They have the attention of your customers. They have the exposure.

You should be posting 1-3 pieces of content at a minimum to your dealership Facebook pages, even on weekends. More is better but don't overdo it. Don't crowd your posts, either. In other words, don't fill the three-a-day requirement by stacking three posts on top of each other. They have to be spread out.

2. Google+

This is probably the most controversial positioning on the hierarchy. There are still plenty of dealership who don't even have a Google+ page. Some think they have a Google+ page because they have a Google Local profile that's tied into Google+, but if you're not posting content socially, you don't really have a valid business page.

Rather than explaining why it's important and so high on the list (that is a complete blog post of its own), let me explain why you should do it even if you're not a believer. It doesn't add much time. If you are posting to Facebook, posting the same exact content to Google+ adds a couple of minutes of work if you're slow.

3. Twitter

For most dealers going into 2013, Twitter seems to be a "check box item". In other words, if they have their Facebook and other social profiles feeding into their Twitter account, then they're Twitter is covered. This isn't exactly true.

Twitter should have the highest frequency of posts. You will want to post things to Twitter much more often than the other networks. Thankfully, you can use the other networks to streamline the tweeting efforts. One thing that very few dealers are doing well is actually engaging with others on Twitter. For the most part, Twitter is a defensive tool. You want your Twitter profile to appear active and engaging to those who visit it from your website. You want people with problems to hit you on Twitter for resolutions. It's the safest network from an exposure perspective to receive complaints, so encouraging interaction by simply engaging with others will make that possible.

4. YouTube

It's not for every dealer. There's no need to have an active YouTube channel just for the sake of having an active YouTube channel. If you aren't making videos, don't force it by simply posting other people's videos. An inactive YouTube account can do more harm than good. Either do it or don't. Nothing in between.

5. Tumblr

This is higher on the list than others for the same reason that Google+ is so high - it's easy. We did a webinar on Tumblr a while back and the reasoning there still applies today. It can help with SEO, reputation management, and exposure and does not require a ton of extra effort to make it effective.

6. Pinterest

Some say that Pinterest is on the decline. They are correct to some measure, but that doesn't make it less valuable (yet). Today, the passions of the users are still strong and having an active Pinterest presence can have an impact. Again, like Google+ and Tumblr, Pinterest is also too easy to skip.

7. ScoopIt

Many people are unfamiliar with Scoop.It now, but they won't be unfamiliar forever. It's the next big thing, similar to Pinterest in some ways but with a more business-oriented demeanor and functionality. Please contact me directly if you have an questions about Scoop.It - early adopters will be thankful that they did it.

8. The Others

Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Instagram can be valuable if they are worked in properly with the dealership's marketing efforts. They are "tweeners" in that they are really better applied by the advanced, time-capable dealership employees who can afford to take a stab at them, but if you're going to keep anything out of your social media strategy for the sake of time, it would be these three.
* * *

Again, there are plenty of perspectives that surround any list like this. I would love to hear your perspective or answer any question you may have about the individual networks or the strategy required to make them work properly for your dealership.

It took listening to my own words in a Twitter conversation for me to realize that I had barely brushed over the most important aspect finding the right times to post on social media for business.

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

That's how the conversation started, but in my head I took it further. How would time zones affect timing? Audience type clearly affects it, especially when considering local businesses versus worldwide businesses. It's easy to simply say, "test it out," but are there best practices that can streamline the process and come up with conclusions faster? These questions led to these ideas...

Establishing a Baseline

Technically speaking, "test" shouldn't be the very first step. You must first analyze what's happening with current posts before trying to improve on them, so analyzing to create a baseline is an essential start. Social media analysis comes in many forms for brands, particularly on Facebook where success can manifest in different ways. Likes, comments, and shares are one measurement. Reach is another, and while it's often affected by the comments, likes, and shares, there are other factors that come into play. Those using Sponsored Posts, for example, may find that their ads perform better at different times than non-sponsored posts.

Facebook allows you to look back at the posts that were most popular. If you're using static posting times, it's possible to look back. You will have to count the posts to determine the exact times; for example, if you know you post at 5:30am, 10:30am, and 7:30pm, then you'll have to isolate the three posts during a particular day to know which was posted at what time since Facebook only shows you the date they were posted once it gets beyond 24 hours.

There's good and bad to the way that the Facebook news feed and advertising algorithms work. Because your past influences your future, it's often hard to go back too far to find success because the influencing factors have changed. You have more or fewer fans, you have been removed or added to news feeds, and the way that you posts become popular is in a constant state of change. Still, you'll need to start somewhere.

Once you have an idea of both the type of content that was most popular as well as the times that they were posted, it's time to make your first adjustments and start...

Testing

This is the easy part, actually. Start posting at different times and see what works best at which times. Keep track of your results, of course, and keep in mind a few factors:

• It's not just about times but also days. Posting times differ from day to day, between weekdays and weekends, etc.
  
• Take note of external factors. For example, if there are large trade shows in your industry at the time, it can affect what people are seeing and talking about on social media.
  
• As long as the external factors are minimal, use a week for each test component. For example, this week you can post at 6:00am and 2:00pm. Next week you can try 5:30am and 2:30pm. Then, the following week you can go back to the initial 6:00am and 2:00pm, but this time you'll flip-flop the post types such as posting images in the morning and links in the afternoon.
  
• Avoid analyzing in real time. There's no need to monitor your stats constantly. Wait for the week to be over before looking back at the data.
  
• Stay consistent with your use of Sponsored Stories. The test won't work if you're promoting the Monday morning post one week and not promoting it the following week.

This isn't very hard. It just takes patience and persistence. It's your business. They're your customers. Focus on your goals and let the data guide you. If it works, stick with it. If it can work better with some adjustments, try them. Analyze your results regularly and you'll have a much better understanding of how to reach the most possible people.

Content marketing is internet marketing. It has been for a while (which I'll discuss below) but in 2013 content management will emerge to become the "must have" component of automotive digital marketing strategy.

It was during a discussion on ADM where the venerable Ralph Paglia brought up a great point. In regards to an article about using your website as the content hub for both search and social, Paglia posted a comment pointing out that not all web platforms, particularly those in the automotive industry, give users the ability to post content as easily as they can on Wordpress, Tumblr, Ning, or any of the other platforms specifically designed as content management systems. Many automotive websites (and business websites in general) trap users with content restrictions. This has been an annoyance for years. Going into 2013, it will be a major drawback.

Content Has Been The Key Forever, But...

This isn't anything new. Content marketing has been a component of search engine optimization, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, and just about every strategy that relies on driving traffic from one source to another. The difference now is that it's going beyond the status of being a "component" and becoming the heart and soul of these various types of marketing techniques.

SEO for years has been a function of appropriate keyword-rich content, keyword-rich title tags, and powerful inbound links with keyword-rich title tags. There was a time when you could have next to zero content on your website and still rank well for challenging terms. Those days are behind us. With the Penguin update in April and the Panda update last year, Google forced search marketers to shoot for quality, to draw in the links based upon organic prominence. For this reason, content truly has become "king" even though it was really just a queen or a jack in the recent past.

Social media marketing can always relied on content as the driving force, but one could easily center the content on the social sites and still benefit from it. This strategy is still in play, particularly for big brands, but smaller or localized businesses (such as car dealers) should rework their social strategies to include the content that appears on their website.

The reality of the trends is this: content marketing was a part of larger marketing strategies before. Now, those other marketing strategies are easier to manage if you make the content aspect the central activity that bleeds over into search and social. It's a paradigm shift in many ways and is the reason why changes should be coming for many websites in the coming year. Some would argue that they shouldn't even wait for 2013, that now is the time to act. I tend to agree.

Post It or Move Along

There's an episode of Seinfeld where Cosmo Kramer starts receiving phone calls at his home from people wanting to get movie times. He tries to become Movie Phone. Unfortunately, he runs into some roadblocks.

Embedding is disabled, but watch it anyway.

This is sort of what's happening for many business website providers, particularly in automotive. "Why don't you just tell me what content you want on your website?"

They (dealer website providers) don't offer the tools that allow users to log in, post a piece of content, and make it live immediately. For some, you have to send them the HTML itself. Others tell you to email them the words and pictures and they'll post it for you. Some let you build a page, but won't allow it to go live until you call them.

Call them? Really?

To be able to perform the basic marketing techniques required for success in 2013, you must be able to post your content how you want it and when you want it without constraints. You must have the ability to put the right social media buttons on your content; that doesn't mean a blue "F" in a small box that links to your Facebook page. You need true share buttons. Social signals are becoming the most important tool in both search and social marketing. If your website platform breaks the codes, you need to make a change.

If you are unable to post content easily without putting a ticket into tech support, you will fall behind your competitors. If you cannot make your websites socially engaging, you will fall behind your competitors. People are really starting to "get it" when it comes to content marketing. Some of these people want to succeed over you. Will you let that happen?

There are tools. Tools are great if used properly. The biggest challenge with tools is that they can be turned into a crutch that actually takes away from the exposure of the post. In other words, you can "tool yourself out of the message" by overusing them or by using them improperly.

Today's webinar was about tools and we discuss many of them, but I think the big takeaway for dealers is the portion around the middle where I go through the actual posting process. Here's what I do, step by step:

Find the Content

First and foremost, you don't have to post cats. I know that there is a strategy that involves posting funny pictures and trying to be entertaining, but the internet is loaded with many people and businesses more entertaining than you or your social media provider. It was a semi-effective strategy a couple of years ago. Today, it simply isn't necessary.

People want experts. You're probably not an expert on shaved dogs or hipster fashion. You're an expert on cars. Post cars. Lots of them. Old cars. New cars. Concept cars. Take what you know as a car dealer and apply it to your social media.

With that said, finding the right content can be easy. You probably have something really cool on your lot right now. Nissan dealers, for example, have a huge advantage if they have a GT-R on their lot. Social media LOVES the GT-R, particularly Tumblr and Pinterest. This translates nicely on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter as well. Instagram can go crazy over it.

Use what you have, but you don't have to stop there. Services like Shutterstock are excellent for finding images of particular vehicles, skylines of your metro, or interesting events in the local area. Taking pictures is best, but if you are constrained on time (who isn't?) then the good ol' stock photo works just fine, particularly if you have some interesting information to go along with it.

Post to Facebook and Google+

Once you have your content, get it up on Facebook and Google+. Try not to use a posting tool whenever possible - Facebook gives preferential treatment to posts from Facebook.com itself and Google+ tools like Hootsuite post the images as links, not images. If you've already posted or it's not the ideal time and you have to schedule it, that's fine, but avoid whenever possible.

Post it on Tumblr

If you don't have a tumblog yet, you should. It's super easy to post to Tumblr and we've covered it in past automotive webinars.

Get the image up on Tumblr as an image; too often I see businesses posting as links or text and adding the image which doesn't get the same amount of coverage. You have an option to include a click-thru link. If the image is on your website, you can plug that page in. You can also plug in your Google+ post. Neither is required but it's a benefit to do so.

Take it from Tumblr to Pinterest and Twitter

Go to the post itself (not your Tumblr homepage) and Pin it onto your Pinterest board. While pinning, be sure to select the "Post to Twitter" option so that it goes onto Twitter as well.

That's it. Four minutes. Quality post created and shared. Time to get back to other business. Here's the full webinar...

Native advertising is hot right now, even if nobody seems to know exactly what it is. Solve Media, a digital advertising firm, has attempted to solve that problem with this infographic, which takes a stab at a standard definition: "Native advertising refers to a specific mode of monetization that aims to augment user experience by providing value through relevant content delivered in-stream."

Actually, that's pretty good. As the rest of the graphic shows, native advertising is clearly where the money is going in the industry. At the very least, when ad execs are throwing the term around at Christmas parties, they can be on the same page.

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

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

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

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

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

Here, we get into actual strategies...

How Employees Connect with Customers

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

The answer: "They ask."

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

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

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

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

We're Friends. Now What?

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

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

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

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

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

But, My Facebook Profile is MY Facebook Profile

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

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

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

Internet Sales 20 Group Chicago - Automotive Social Media Expert, JD Rucker of KPA Speaking on "Social Signals" from Dealer Synergy on Vimeo.

http://www.internetsales20group.com 

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

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

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

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

The value of video testimonials is a strategy that every automotive dealership needs to have in place as a part of their social media online presence. Photo's are very important too however, the impact that your video will have on the consumer is much stronger with video.

With the average dealership selling 100 units a month imagine the impact that the dealership would have if a strategy was in place to get either a photo or a video of every sold customer, customers in service, customers in the bodyshop and customers in the parts department just to name a few.  We know that most stores nationwide are not taking advantage of this opportunity to dominate the market with these videos which is great for the stores that do to steal market share from stores that are sleep at the wheel.

Now what is awesome about these videos is that one can take these videos and spread them like wildfire all over the Internet. There are multiple video sites that the dealership can use to upload these videos to and then use different titles for each site to dominate other dealerships.  For instance, imagine if a consumer did a search on Google and typed Ford Mustang Manhattan, KS and your video shows up as the first result on the first page of natural Google for your dealership which is by the way over 50 miles away.  The consumer that would have went to the local dealership has now clicked on your video which takes them to your social media site with links to your inventory and video testimonials of happy customers.  Now who do you think that consumer is going to call?

It's great that most dealers are asleep at the wheel and still operate under the premise of if we build a dealership they will come.  What this does is gives a competitive advantage to the dealership that understands this strategy and crushes the competition online.

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

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

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

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

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

Where's the Value in Focusing on Social?

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

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

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

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

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

This will change.

How to Make Social the Hub

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

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

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

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

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

Let's talk.

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

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

The Business-Only Personality

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

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

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

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

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

The Engaging Personality

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

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

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

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

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

Scheduling Based Upon Personality

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

Business-Only:

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

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