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Facebook Orphan

The image above shows the last four Facebook activities by a major car dealership in a metro area. Over three months ago, they abandoned their page. This could easily be a very long post where I go into details about how this is wrong on so many levels, but I'll keep it short because if you're reading this, chances are very strong that you're a savvy dealership that would never let this happen.

For the sake of education, I'll at least put a partial list together in case you're not absolutely sure why you shouldn't do this:

  • This page appears in the searches for the dealership by name on Google.
  • This is the page presented to people when they search on Facebook, Bing, and other search engines as well.
  • Abandoned pages can be easily spammed. If a spammer were to find this page, they could start posting links to their teeth whitening or adult-content gateway websites and have it appear at the top of the dealers' activity public activity feed. This is becoming a more common technique by spammers because they know that the business is not paying attention so the chances of them being reported to Facebook are slim.
  • A feed could be setup if absolutely necessary (I'll cover this more below).
  • Customers are posting on the page. Huge opportunities are being missed.

Let's cover the bottom two in a little more detail.

 

Last Resort: Feeds

If your dealership has no bandwidth to cover your social media and no budget to hire an automotive social media service, the absolute worst case scenario is to set up a feed to the page. This is something that I don't recommend to anyone who wants to be successful, but it's still better than abandonment.

You can use RSS Graffiti, Hootsuite, or any number of other services to pull in a feed and post on a regular basis to Facebook. This is a very poor strategy, but it's better than nothing.

 

Customers Can Post

This is the most disheartening part about the page above. Happy customers are talking. I've recently written five blog posts about the importance of developing brand ambassadors. This dealership has ambassadors waiting to be contacted. It's such a waste.

Here are those posts:

Happy customers that take the time to promote your dealership through their own Facebook profile should not be ignored. There's no excuse for this.

 

Don't Delete Them

There's a good chance that you'll have a Facebook presence whether you want to or not. Just because you delete your page doesn't mean that someone else can't toss one up for you. "Fan pages" are very common and if you don't have a page of your own that is outranking the fan pages, you risk letting others control what people see when they check you out on Facebook. Bad move.

Social media is about communication, so the ideas of using RSS feeds is not a good option. Every dealership needs to be watching, even if it's in the form of having the Internet Manager, GM, or owner receive an email when someone posts on the page. For most, this isn't a problem. The industry is realizing the importance of social. If you're not one of those, at least do the bare minimum to not completely fail. It takes no time. To turn your presence into an orphan is a big mistake.

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Social Ecosystem

There are still many in the search engine optimization industry that are fighting the concept that Google (and Bing) is taking social signals into account at a high level when determining search rankings.

These people fall into three categories:

  1. Those who haven’t had the ability or desire to test it. If you test it thoroughly, it becomes extremely clear that it’s real.
  2. Those who do not have the ability to generate and promote high quality, shareable content as part of their SEO strategy. If you can’t do it, you might as well pretend like it doesn’t exist.
  3. Those who have read the blog posts of either of the previous two and took the opinions as truth.

The reality is that, based upon extensive testing that we’ve been running (not to mention some of the things that Google has said over the last couple of years), social signals have a significant impact on the overall SEO of websites.

There’s another thing to consider, though, as pointed out by Search Engine Watch last month. Google is paying attention to social signals through Google Analytics. Some might say that it’s a natural addition to the service since people consider social media to be an important part of their overall marketing, but that’s simply not how Google works. If they add something to Analytics, it’s because they consider it to be important. There’s no need for them to track it if they aren’t considering it in some algorithm, and the most likely algorithm that social signals could effect is their search ranking algorithm.

When Google says something with their actions, it behooves those in SEO to listen. Are you listening?

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Business Blog Post Ideas and Planning

Idea

In business, there is no such thing as writer’s block. It doesn’t exist. Erase the phrase from your mind. You see, in any business, there are so many potential stories to be told that one should never run out of them even if they’re blogging daily. More importantly, this isn’t like writing a novel. It’s not professional journalism. You’re not writing a column. On a business blog, you have the freedom to pull from the ultimate content resource – the internet.

What most perceive as writer’s block in the world of business blogging is actually the brain’s way of saying that you don’t want to write at this moment. Get over it.

With that all out of the way, it’s time to look at some different types of blog posts that can be categorized into a proper plan. This plan can be an editorial calendar, a series of reminders in Outlook, or a notepad on your desk where you jot down your ideas. We’ll get into planning in a moment, but first let’s look at some of the ideas themselves.

 

Blog Post Ideas

This is a difficult topic to write about because no matter how much time and effort is put into it, the end result cannot be complete. The idea potentials are infinite. These are just some blog post types that can help you to get into the proper frame of mind when deciding about which topics to blog.

We’ll use my favorite topic, automotive, to flesh out the concepts:

  • Industry News – As a business, you have the inside track to write about things that others want to know. You’re the expert. A car dealer can write about what’s happening to their brand, new vehicles that are coming out, recalls, races, or anything that is topical today. Here’s an example of an industry news post.
  • Image Posts – These are often the easiest to put together because of two sources of content: what’s happening at the store right now and the internet. A Dodge dealer should have plenty of Dodge Chargers on the lot that can be positioned in various ways. They also have hundreds of worthy images of Dodge Chargers, old and new, on the internet. Keep in mind, if you’re taking images from other sites, make sure they’re receiving attribution. Here’s an example of an image post.
  • Video Posts – As with image posts, most of the heavy lifting is done for you with video posts. You don’t have to a ton of investigating or write a 1500 word article to frame the video into a perspective. You want to write something, even if it’s only a paragraph or two describing the video and what it means to your industry, but it doesn’t have to be much. Let the video do the talking. Here’s an example of a video post.
  • Activity in the Community Posts – Your business is likely involved in the community somehow. It can be a sponsorship of the local little league team. It could be something more significant. Talk about it. There’s nothing wrong with “bragging” if the intention is to highlight the source itself. Here’s an example of a community activity post.
  • Infographic Posts – The internet is a visual experience. There are so many amazing infographics available to us that there’s really no reason not to use them. Make sure the data is accurate, of course, as you’re posting it on your website or blog, and definitely make sure to give attribution (it’s the reason that businesses make infographics in the first place) but don’t be shy about it, either. Here’s an example of an infographic post.
  • Upcoming Product Posts – You know about new things coming down the road before your customers. Expose things to them through your site or blog. This is actually a no-brainer but so few take advantage of it. Here’s an example of an upcoming product post.

Again, this barely scratches the surface.

 

Planning

There really isn’t enough to say about planning to make it deserve its own section in this blog post, but it’s so important that we’re separating it out anyway. Make a plan. There are some great editorial calendar addons to WordPress and other blogging platforms that work nicely. Unless you’re blogging all the time, multiple times per week, these may not be necessary. It could be as easy as posting your ideas as tasks or calendar events in Outlook or whatever calendar software you use.

Me? I have a notepad. If it weren’t for that, I’d probably lose my ability to write with my hands because it’s the only time I ever use pen and paper other than to sign things. It’s archaic, messy, and less organized than the digital counterparts, but for me, it works. Whatever works best for you to keep you adding content to your blog or website on a regular basis is the right way for you to make your plan.

What are you waiting for? Start coming up with ideas, organize them into a plan, and get words onto your blog.

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Never Waste a Facebook Post. Ever.

Waste

I’ve started hearing the second worst advice coming from social media “experts” that I’ve ever heard. It’s just a notch above “buy thousands of fans and followers” on the social media advice scale.

If someone tells you to “be sure to post something X-times a day on social media even if you have to throw something up.”

I know it’s bad advice. I used to give it. Thankfully, I learned my lesson before spreading the advice too far. It blows my mind that it’s still being given to unsuspecting clients today, though, because it has become pretty well-known that on many social media sites, Facebook in particular, a poor and wasteful post can actually do more harm than if you skip a post or two.

Quality is everything. EdgeRank (we’ll use the term for lack of a better word even though Facebook says it’s not reflective of the current algorithm yet they don’t give us a name for the new one – /rant) is extremely fickle, particularly for pages. You get limited opportunities to impress your fans and friends of fans. Any time you blow one of those opportunities through a wasted post, you’re actually harming the chance of future posts to perform.

In other words, every single thing that you post on Facebook should serve a very distinct purpose. Every single thing you post on Facebook should be of the highest possible quality. Every single thing that you post to Facebook must be something that does one of three things:

  • It conveys a relevant message that is well crafted, important enough to post to Facebook, and positioned in a way in which fans will not block you or report your post as spam.
  • It is entertaining, educational, or acts as a resource. It brings true value to the table for your fans, whether that value is life-saving information or just a quick, hearty chuckle.
  • It is a business-imperative message or link such as an event, a special (and I mean a true special such as the yearly Toyotathon, not a discount on your services that goes out every couple of weeks), or new product offering such as the opening of a body shop or the first 2014 Corvettes rolling off the truck.

There should be no filler posts. There should be no RSS feeds. There should be no integration of Tweets that land on your Facebook page (or visa versa). The difference between a page that carefully selects and crafts every single post versus one that tries most of the time but gets lazy sometimes is like night and day. Every single wasted post hurts the exposure of future posts. Conversely, every single outstanding post helps future posts see more daylight.

Our strategy is pretty simple in concept though a little complex in how it is applied. Here is a quick breakdown of each of the three types:

 

Relevant Message Posts

Relevant Message

There’s a mentality that goes into relevant message posts. It doesn’t have to be relevant to you. It definitely has to be relevant to your fans. In the example above, the message was extremely relevant for this Dallas car dealer. It was a couple of days before the make or break game for the Dallas Cowboys. One simple image faded in the background. One simple message. It was a message that was important to the fans, the vast majority of whom resided in the Dallas area.

Unfortunately for the fans of both the team and the dealership, the Cowboys lost, but it was still great of the company to show their support for the local team. Relevance is about your fans, your customers. It’s easiest to find relevant things to post about by staying in the local area or state. These messages should never be generic. They cannot be something that everyone else is posting. Put the effort in. In this case, the effort wasn’t a lot – find an image (make sure to credit the original source!) and put the relevant message on top of it. Simple, but effective.

 

Value Posts

Value Message

In the instance above, there are two things at play. The image is of a hot rod smoking the tires, but the message is talking about tire maintenance. There’s an opportunity to get two different kinds of likes as a result because it combines a great image with a useful message. The tip itself isn’t extraordinary, but it’s enough to get it a handful of likes even prior to promoting it on Facebook.

Entertain, educate, or both. That’s the mentality with these types of posts, and for many pages the strategy will dictate that these will be the most prevalent. Stick to your expertise and/or industry with these posts. There is a distinct temptation and even a common practice by many to try to revert to whatever is potentially popular. They’ll post funny images of cats. Avoid this practice. As hard as we may try to blend our pages into the whole Facebook mix by posting content that can be shared, when you go off topic you create a potential of missing the expectations of your fans. They may even feel a bit betrayed; if they’re going to follow a car dealer’s Facebook page, they expect to see cars. There are plenty of cats on Facebook already. No need to contribute unless you’re a veterinarian.

 

Business Message

Business Post

While it doesn’t always have to be a link, most business-imperative messages should either lead people to a destination or convey a message about the business that can be of interest. These are the posts that carry the most risk as people normally do not want to see marketing messages in their streams. It’s not uncommon for businesses to completely avoid these types of messages. That strategy can be valid, but with a little effort you can avoid the spam reports and unlikes by making sure the message is worthwhile to your fans.

In the case above that we just posted, we combine four different components (a lot in such a small post, I know, but that’s why it’s called “effort”). The car, of course, is stunning. It’s an actual dealership inventory piece rather than a generic image like the ones above. It carries a message or relevance as it was posted early Saturday morning right before most of the local fans wake up. The wording of the text portion of the post doesn’t say a ton but it does contain a link without being considered a link post by Facebook. You can accomplish this by adding the image first, then adding the link within the body of the text. The click-thru rates are always going to be low, but the message is pointed enough so that those who do click the link are there for a clear reason.

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Put in the effort. You don’t want to let your Facebook page go stagnant for more than a day or two (unless you’re using an extremely specialized and advanced strategy that I don’t have time to go into here), but you definitely don’t want to put content into your fans’ feeds that is sub-par. Make every post great. Don’t waste them. Playing the Facebook game is definitely not hard, but it does require a willingness to work within the algorithm and understand the expectations of your fans. Don’t just meet those expectations. Exceed them.

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There was a promise silently made by social media a few years back. It was so prevalent at the 2009 round of conferences from NADA to Digital Dealer that many might have thought that social media would eventually encompass the entire internet marketing required by a dealership to be successful. The promise was this: “Everyone’s going to be on social media in the next couple of years and you’ll be able to reach them.”

The first part of the promise came true, perhaps even more so than most had anticipated. Everyone is on social media in one way or another. Even if they are not active, from a car buying perspective, it can be assumed that members of any family out there trying to buy a car today are touched in some way by social media. It could be as distant as some of the friends of the buyer or it could be as close as the spouse and children, but everyone in America is affected by social media whether they know it or not.

The second part of the promise hasn’t quite panned out for many. There are certainly many dealers who “get it” and are able to drive traffic, generate leads, and make sales as a direct result of their social media actions. Unfortunately, these cases are few and far between. In fact, I was recently approached by “gurus” to help them find examples of dealers who were showing these sorts of successes. Even they weren’t aware of many examples of the mythical “Facebook Sale”.

They exist. We’ve seen them. They’re not quite as few and far between as Bigfoot sightings, but they aren’t easy to find.

That’s not the point.

While many will talk about the “intrinsic value” of social media, one does not have to be a Bigfoot hunter to find tangible value. It lies in understanding the effects and realizing that just as television advertising is effective without being easy to track directly, so too does social media make it challenging to find the value. The key is to look at the results as a whole by doing two things: find the numbers that can be tied in by absence and to put real indicators into place to measure the ROI properly. I refuse to try to convince dealers that there’s a value without being able to demonstrate it and dealers should refuse to accept that there is a value without proof. Here’s how…

 

Tie in Numbers through Absence

A dealer once told me that the only way he was able to track the effectiveness of his television advertising was to turn them off. When sales dropped, he knew that the TV ads had been working. When he turned them back on, sales went back up again.

The same premise can be applied to social media, particularly if you’re investing enough time and/or money. The sad truth that few gurus will tell you about social media is that there’s a secret plateau. They won’t tell you this because they either don’t know about it or they know that it’s not beneficial to them. The plateau is the place between getting started with social media and hitting the tipping point. Unlike other forms of marketing, social media has a tendency to remain flat up until the point that you really start to hit it hard. The difference in results between a mediocre presence and a pretty good presence is almost unnoticeable. Those who have a pretty good presence aren’t seeing much more in the way of results than those who have one that’s a notch above poor. This is the plateau.

That’s the bad news, particularly since the vast majority of dealerships today fall in between being a notch above poor and pretty good. It’s also the good news. Those dealers who break through the realm of “pretty good” can see a sharp improvement very quickly once they get to good, great, fantastic, outstanding, and beyond. I’m using these esoteric terms because it would take multiple blog posts to try to define the difference between pretty good and outstanding. It’s not about numbers. It’s not even about engagement. It’s about results.

This is where the absence comes into play. If you have a doubt about the effectiveness of your social media, turn it off for a month. Tell your vendor to stop posting and promoting. Tell your internet manager to put up a status update on the various social media sites that you’re “taking a break from social media for the month as we work on putting together something great for all of our fans”. Then, do it. Get off of social media. Don’t post. Don’t reply. You’ll still want to monitor just in case, of course. If your social media is tied into a reputation management service, don’t stop that aspect.

Everything else, shut it down for a month. Look at the numbers. Do you see a dip in traffic, leads, and sales? Make sure to take other factors into account such as fluctuations in search marketing spend, offline advertising, etc. Take those into account and check your results. If your numbers move noticeably, you’re probably getting more benefit out of social than you knew about, so you’ll want to turn it back on. If you don’t see much of a difference, it may be time to explore other options.

 

Put Real Indicators Into Place

For fixed ops, this is easy. All you have to do is run events on Facebook while posting “social media only” specials simultaneously on the other social networks. If you create an event on Facebook for “$14.99 Social Media Oil Change Special” and then post it on your other networks, you’ll be able to see whether you’re reaching people with the message or not. You can create a coupon on your website that is not in navigation if you want, or simply tell them to mention that they liked your store on Facebook when they’re getting their oil changed. Make sure the service department is extremely well-aware that this test is important. You don’t want them telling their “buddy” customers about it while they’re at the store.

With sales, it’s a little harder but there’s a key performance indicator that can help you make a determination about the success of your social media effort. If you go strong on social media, advertising on Facebook and doing all of the things that we ask dealers to do, you will see one number rise on your analytics – searches for your dealership by name. Getting people to click off of Facebook to go check out your inventory is ineffective. Getting the branding out there, being at the top of mind, and making sure that when people in your area are in the market to buy a car that they’re checking you out on search and on your website – that’s a true test of your social media effectiveness. Not surprisingly, the same can be done for television and radio advertising as well.

Of course, there are more tangible ways to detect it, namely traffic to the dealership itself. This is an area that I can’t talk about quite yet because we’re still testing, but the results so far have been nothing short of fabulous.

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Social media doesn’t have to be a mystery. It either works at your dealership right now or it doesn’t. It’s important to do the things necessary to check the effectiveness an understand whether or not you’re truly reaching your audience. Otherwise, you’ll never know if you can dramatically improve it by making the right changes.

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I've shared this story before but it's worth mentioned again. I was speaking to a client about their social media presence. Well, it was actually their lack of a social media presence. They didn't have a Facebook page, they didn't realize that they had a Twitter account that had been set to Tweet AutoBlog via RSS, and they through that Google+ was a premium service that Google was selling. Don't laugh. This was one of the darkest days of my marketing career.

 

When I asked why they didn't have a Facebook page at the very least, he said that "they don’t want people to have the ability to talk badly about them on Facebook." After some explaining about how Facebook and social media in general worked, I got down to what was the real root of the problem. He said that he totally understood that they could post on their own Facebook profile without his permission or even knowledge, but if he had a Facebook page and he posted there then he would have to respond.

Exactly. You have to respond. You want to respond. Every customer challenge is an opportunity to shine.

 

Control the Feedback


Disney. Apple. Amazon. Johnson & Johnson. These are brands that regularly topped the "most loved" companies lists. They do what they can to try to make everyone happy. Despite being at the top of the list, they have haters. Many haters. Thousands, perhaps millions of people have a negative opinion of these loved brands.

Let's look at it locally. There's a Peruvian restaurant close to the office that we go to whenever we want to have a casual lunch. The food is amazing - the Lomo Saltado is the best way to fill up on $10. I took a friend there who loved Peruvian food and he hated it. He even said so on Yelp (granted, the service was uncannily awful that day, but the food didn't impress him either). You simply can't appeal to everyone.

Those who are going to complain about your business will find a way to complain no matter how hard you try to avoid it. The reality in today's uber-connected world is that you can't avoid it and you shouldn't even try. In fact, you should embrace it by allowing as many venues such as Facebook to be the place where you want to hear their complaints.

When people post negative reviews to many of the review sites or tell the story of their experiences on their social media profiles, you often have no recourse. Many of the review sites allow you to reply and you definitely should, but it still goes onto a permanent record. The complaint is logged and you can't take it down. In cases like those, it's extremely important to reply whenever possible with empathy, professionalism, a sincere desire to improve through their feedback, and (whenever applicable) a willingness to make things right for them. It's a best practice to reply to every review, good or bad, but that's another blog post.

Now, imagine if you used your social media, Facebook in particular, as a venue through which people could voice their opinions about your business. Some would say that it would get more exposure that way, particularly if they have a lot of friends, but there's a couple of reasons you'd want it here rather than on review sites. First, you definitely can and should reply to those comments. Using Facebook as a two-way communication tool allows you to shine through the dark moments and highlight the brighter ones.

The second reason is control. When they post a complaint to your Facebook page, you have the ability to control this portion of the conversation. If your reply is thoughtful and satisfactory to the user, awesome! If it starts to turn into an argument or the user becomes offensive, you have the ability to hide it. I do not recommend hiding complaints as a general practice. Take what you can from the feedback and improve your business. Stand behind your product and company and accept criticism with the professionalism and a desire to improve as I mentioned above. Hiding posts is a last resort and should only be used when the complaint turns offensive.

Thankfully, this post does not apply to many. Over the last couple of years there has been a wonderful shift towards the desire to be more open to feedback. It's a necessity with today's quick and easy methods of communication that are available to consumers. If you're still missing the point and choose to do what the image for this blog post implies, I'm not sure what else to say that can help.

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Do you remember the person who consulted with you about social media and told you that brands are having tremendous success on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest? That's the type of person that you're reaching the most according to a report by NBCUniversal Integrated Media.

The report is designed to show how consumers who are part of GenX and GenY are digesting their influences. It took a split approach to the study which consisted of 2,500 people - 2,000 were average respondents age 18-49 and the other 500 were "digital trendsetters" in the same age group which represent 5% of the national population who are "first adopters" of technology and are highly active on social media.

Could it be that the real people you're actually reaching with social media are the same ones who are telling you that social media can reach people? It sounds like a double-talk question but it's important to understand based upon your business. If you're selling a trendy footwear product or pushing a music discover service, there's little doubt that the trendsetters are the ones you want to be able to hit. What if you're selling cookware? Is social media a valid venue?

The answer is yes and no. On one hand, you have 39% of regular people saying they interact with companies on social media while 67% of the trendsetters are engaging. This means that the people who live on social media are the ones that are accepting the messages being put out by brands and according to the study, that's only 5% of the population. On the other hand, 39% isn't a small amount. It's not ideal, but it seems to be growing.

On average, people are following 27 brands on social media. This might seem like a low number and a challenging group to try to get into if you're selling cookware, but considering that in 2011 the number was 9, we're heading in the right direction.

In the end, it really comes down to what your brand is doing and how successful you can be on social media. It's worth a valid attempt and a bit of effort to see if it's going to work for your brand, but I wouldn't be sinking big chunks of my marketing dollars into social media if my target customer is 55+. While the older generations are starting to get into social media and it's the fastest growing demographic, it's also the one that is least likely to be using social media for anything other than seeing pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base.

Here's a graphic from NBCUniversal that breaks down a good chunk of the findings.

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"Trendsetter" image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Why Reputation Management Matters: Your Legacy

“The opinions in this blog are mine alone and not the opinions of who I work for”

If that isn’t clear please click here.

Recently I spoke at an “event” in Portland, Oregon. The room was not at capacity, however those that attended were very engaged. One of my co-workers welcomed the small workshop attendees and dived into best practices for website optimization, SEO and SEM. His down to earth approach, humor and Subject Matter Expertise shone brightly that morning in the Washington room at The Red Lion. Using common sense approaches he brought what some would consider a very high level discussion to level that was easily digestible.


After lunch I took the stage. As there were a couple executives from my place of employment there I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous. I said “amen” and dove into Reputation Management. There was great discussion from the crowd of best practices, things that worked and what to be careful not to do and who they would recommend their peers stay away from. I was then asked if I really thought if Reputation Management mattered at the end of the day. I took a different approach then I normally do this is what my response was…

One of the most influential speakers, authors and someone who changed my life, Gary Vaynerchuk has said legacy is more valuable than currency. Right now I don’t want you to think about money. Don’t think about selling a car, don’t think about servicing another truck. Think about your children and grandchildren. Think about what they will discover about you online. For the most part, what is put online will be there in some form forever. Think about what they will learn about who you were and the organization you worked for. Taking money out of the equation, what do you want your legacy to be?



I am happy to say this made some people in the room think about what their Reputation meant. What do you want to be known for?

Safe travels.


To see what makes a good review click here

To see the 2 most critical items in reputation management click here


Oh and pardon my errors…I stink at typing:)

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Fiat

There is plenty of vanilla out there. As someone who explores various social media campaigns, techniques, and strategies on a daily basis, it gets pretty boring seeing the same old things being spun in slightly different ways. When something truly fresh comes along, I normally applaud.

When I saw Fiat's attempt at being bold on YouTube, I had to watch it again. And again. Each subsequent viewing I went deeper into analyzing what they were trying accomplish with the clever rap. They wanted to go viral, that was certain, and it worked. They're approaching 3 million views. They also wanted to relate to a demographic, and they probably did to some extent by mentioning many of the trials that mothers face when they transition into motherhood.

The only thing I couldn't figure out was whether or not the risk was worth the reward. They didn't hold very many punches, mentioning controversial topics such as fake orgasms and itchy thongs, and the funny play on words talking about dogs and gardening equipment as "bitches and hoes" brought the full spoof factor into play right from the beginning, but can it really do anything other than garner a few laughs and knowing nods of agreement? The challenges faced by mothers were never shown to be addressed by the stylish Fiat 500 other than the fact that this particular mother liked to drive one.

The risk, of course, is that some people will be offended. It's as clean as a spoof like this can get but there will be those who get a negative vibe about the brand as a result. This is fine and any time you take a risk with social media you're going to make people upset but there needs to be a greater reward potential to counteract the negatives.

Unfortunately, the video does not do enough to get positive sentiment for the brand. Mothers may associate with the video, even feel the pain, so to speak, but the positioning of the brand within the lyrics and visuals is not enough to bring the association full circle.

When Toyota came out with their Swagger Wagon video nearly three years ago, they did much more to accomplish the same goals. They created a video through which parents could relate, but also centered it around the vehicle itself. It was effective on both ends - controversial and funny enough to be watched (over 11 million views) without running the risk of offending many people. The Sienna was front and center through most of the video and not just a subtle background statement for the sake of lifestyle association.

Even the name itself was much better. There are those today who likely still call their vehicle their "Swagger Wagon", whereas Fiat naming their video "The Motherhood" does little to keep the video or the branding going once it falls off of people's buzz radar.

Creating a viral video for the sake of going viral is no longer an effective technique. It helps somewhat with branding, but even in that regard Fiat is too subtle without being powerful about it. There's nothing wrong with subtle branding when done properly. Pantene had a viral video that didn't mention the brand or highlight its effects until the end of the 4-minute video. It was effective because the storytelling throughout was powerful and the final minute where the star's hair is highlighted ended at the peak of emotion when the brand is finally revealed.

Fiat was close to having a successful video. Had they worked in the brand into the song itself, toned down some of the potential negatives, and showed that the vehicle represented some level of freedom and expression that their target audience craved, the effects would have been much better.

Watch the videos and you be the judge. Did they work?

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Play Opposite of the Season for Social Media Gold

It’s currently the middle of winter and you know what that means. Time to go to the beach!

Okay, so that’s not a normal conclusion that one might come to in most places across the country. Even in sunny California, the beaches are pretty barren in the middle of winter. That’s all real word stuff. We’re talking about social media, a world of dreams and desires, wishes and aspirations. We may not be able to go to the beach right this very moment, but we can certainly wish we were there with a nice breeze coming off the water making it a comfortable 85 degrees in our swimsuits. That’s not reality today, but it’s definitely something that can work on social media.

For businesses, it’s often about standing out properly on social. Nobody likes the loud social media posting business, the one that posts crap all the time that has no substance, but they don’t mind the occasional creative post. Playing with seasons and circumstances (and more importantly, their opposites) is a way to get attention in a positive way.

A Nissan dealer who posts the image above could attach it to the caption, “It may be too cold to go to the beach right now, but when the time comes, we’ll be there to get you on the sand and under the sun.”

This would have a few different subtle but important effects. It’s appealing to many – there are those who are snowed in or stuck with the flu right now. A great looking truck with the ocean, sand, and sun can become a pleasant thought for those seeing it. It’s relevant – in most places right now, the weather is an issue. It’s downright freezing across the country. Lastly, the image is different but pertinent to a Nissan dealer – much better than trying to stand out by posting cat pictures.

Your messaging on social media can be timely without being bound by the constraints of the current time. Football season has ended for most teams across the country. If your local team is out of the playoffs, it’s not too early to start posting baseball pictures. For example, you could have a picture of your team’s star and a caption like this:

“It’s time to put football behind us for now and focus on winning the pennant. Chase Headley, show us the way!”

All of your competitors are likely posting things that everyone else is already posting on social media. There’s nothing wrong with doing the same, but mix it up from time to time by going “off season”, whether it’s about sports, the weather, or anything else that makes for an interesting topic in your area. Stand out. Be different. Be creative. Get noticed.

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Haters

There’s always a risk when it comes to aggressive advertising and marketing that many are unwilling to take. On television, radio, search, and display ads, there will be those who do not appreciate what you’re putting in front of them. On social, this is greatly amplified because people have the ability to respond.

It is nearly impossible to post effective content and make it visible to your target audience on Facebook without running into the occasional hater. In fact, if you’re not getting any negative comments at all, chances are either your message is not business-effective (are you promoting cat pictures?) or you aren’t reaching enough people. Even with fan-only, highly-targeted Facebook posts, there’s a chance that something someone finds on their Facebook wall will rub them the wrong way and make them leave you a negative comment.

There are a few unavoidable reasons for this:

  • People don’t understand how Facebook advertising works – Let’s say you’re targeting a specific city. You select “automotive” as an interest and you post automotive content. Suddenly, you get a comment that says something to the effect of “How did you weasel your way onto my news feed” or “why is this spam showing up – reported!” There are many users who, regardless of what you post, will not appreciate that you’re appearing ahead of pictures of little Timmy sliding into third base and will react negatively as a result.
  • Just because they liked your page doesn’t mean they like your content – People like pages for various reasons. Perhaps you ran a contest a few months ago. Maybe they clicked “like this page” on a post that one of their friends liked thinking that it was their content. There are many reasons that people might have liked your page in the past. If they haven’t seen you in their news feed before, they might react negatively having forgotten or never realizing that they liked your page in the past.
  • The feed and privacy controls on Facebook are still awful – Despite repeated attempts to make the waters less murky, Facebook has never really made it easy for people to control their news feeds. Most go with the default views and privacy settings which allow for targeted Facebook ads. By appearing in their feed, they think that you’ve done something to get there without realizing that they opted in by not opting out. The biggest lie told by every person on the internet happens when they accept the various terms of services that say, “I have read and agree to these terms of service.” Ya, sure.
  • Friend of fans – One of the easiest ways to expand reach on Facebook is to promote some posts with the “friends of fans” option on promoted stories. This gets more views, but it also exposes your content to people who do not want to see it. As a result, the hate comments are bound to come sometimes.

Regardless of the reasoning for the hate, there are two options to address it. You can reply back to the hate comments in a professional manner. Don’t try to explain it to them – they often won’t buy it and trying to get people to understand the way that Facebook handles marketing is about as easy as getting them to understand the tax code without an accountant handy. The other option, useful only in the most extreme circumstances, is to delete the comments. They will still appear to the person who made the comment as well as their friends, but the majority of people will not see the comments. This is a last resort – transparency rules on social media – but if the comments get out of hand or offensive, there’s nothing wrong with getting rid of them for the bulk of your fans. Do not take it to the next level by blocking or reporting them. This can open up a can of worms.

There are those who argue that there should be nothing at all promotional on one’s Facebook page. It’s a valid strategy and one that can help to avoid any of the negatives that come with using Facebook to promote your business or products, but it’s often a slower path that requires more time and effort. Even then, there’s a good chance that you’ll still be met with some hate even if your content is absolutely awesome and universally relevant simply because many people don’t like seeing brands in their feed at all regardless of the content. Don’t fret either way. You can’t make everyone happy. You can, however, minimize the hate by posting valuable content and keeping quality at the top of your guiding principles.

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Hate” image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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6 Types of Content to Make Your Website POP

If there’s one word I hate using in marketing, it’s “engagement”. The term has been so overused and abused since the rise of social media that its meaning has become distorted. It’s defined in different ways and means different things to different people. Thankfully, the moves by search giants like Google and Bing as well as social giants like Facebook and Twitter have brought in at least a little uniformity to we should look for when trying to harness engagement.

First and foremost, websites today must be engaging. That’s not to say that they have to be interactive; heavy websites that make people jump through hoops to find what they want simply don’t work today and may have really never worked. Today, people want to go to websites and find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. To make today’s websites more engaging, one simply has to add content. I’m not talking about the SEO content that is too heavy on many websites or the “share this on Facewitter” buttons that are put on so many pages that nobody would every willingly share. I’m talking about unique content that is interesting, useful, entertaining, or all of the above.

For businesses, it’s often hard to find and produce content that people will find interesting, useful, or entertaining. It’s not that the content doesn’t exist on the internet today or in the minds of a marketing professional. It’s that they don’t always know what kind of content they can find and produce. Here are seven such types of content that can work for your business to make your websites more engaging. There are plenty of articles (some that I have written) that discuss the reasons that you would want your websites to be engaging from a search and social marketing perspective so I won’t go into those reasons here. If you need to be convinced that it will be helpful, start with those articles first, then come back and learn more.

 

The good ol' image gallery

If there’s one thing that internet is not short on, it’s images. If there’s one thing the real world isn’t short on, it’s cameras thanks to the rise of smartphones. Between the two, finding or taking images that pertain to your industry, your local area, or both is a piece of cake.

With Chevy’s recent release of the 2014 Corvette, the internet is loaded with plenty of pictures. A Chevy dealer could compile some of the best images and load them up on their site. Take note – any time you use an image from somewhere else, you should always link to the original source. Attribution is ever-important when posting content to your website. There will be those who still contact you even when you properly attribute and ask you to remove the images. If it’s taken by someone else, it is has a copyright. Always respect them. There are plenty of sources that love to get links to their content and are willing to let you share.

The written content on a post such as “10 Awesome Angles of the 2014 Chevy Corvette” doesn’t have to be huge. At the minimum, a paragraph or two of unique content at the top is fine. What’s better is a little description of each image below the content as well as the one or two paragraphs at the top.

 

YouTube video(s) and commentary

The last thing you want to do is post a video by itself on your website. This brings no value and the visitor might as well link to the video itself. What you definitely can do with videos is find one or more of them (again, they must pertain to your industry, your local area, or both) and post them with appropriate commentary. Let’s say you find a great video about the 2014 Corvette. You could write up a couple of paragraphs detailing what led up to this epic new design, show the video, then discuss how this Corvette is dramatically different from your perspective. Unique commentary is extremely important here. You do not want to be posting the words of others. This should be personal. Make sure that the visitors who find this video and commentary get value out of both aspects.

To really add value and make the page engaging, use more than one video. People can share a single video more easily from YouTube itself than from your website, but by making it multiple videos on the same topic, you’ve now compiled something that people will be more willing to share as a link on their own website or through social media.

 

Link lists

These are great, but be very careful with them. The ideas is that you’ll write a short article – one or two paragraphs – about a particular topic, then offer several links to other websites that are also talking about the subject. If you write up a piece about the Corvette, you could then link to reviews or commentaries from trusted sources such as Car and Driver or Motortrend. The title of these pages could be something such as “How the Internet Responded to the 2014 Corvette Launch”.

The part about being careful – make sure that the links open in a new tab or window. What you don’t want is content that drives people completely away from your site. Linking out is not a bad thing despite what many experts tell you, particularly when you’re working with engagement content. Remember, they aren’t there on that page to buy your products or services right this very moment. They likely landed on the page by clicking on a link in search or social and their interest is learning more about the new Vette. Your benefits (I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about it but I’ll just mention it briefly) are not in the visitors that come to the site but the benefit these pages give you through search and social to drive future traffic to more important pages on your website.

 

Infographics

The beauty of infographics is that they’re visual. As an internet society, we love to see things more than we love to read about them. Even if the graphics themselves are loaded with words and statistics, they are often done so in a visually stunning manner that is more worthy of being shared. Take a look at this infographic we created for Mashable. There’s tons of data, but it’s easier to share because of the graphic nature of the content.

Just like with a video, do not simply post an infographic and walk away. You should post at least a little commentary about the graphic itself, what it means to your, your industry, your customers, your local area, or all of the above.

 

Full articles

This scares many people. For the most part, businesses owners and the marketing people that work for them aren’t journalists by trade. Thankfully, what most business owners do have is an expertise in their industry. Even if you’re not a great writer, you can probably come up with information that can be interesting to the layman and have someone else put it into a proper article format.

With the rise of AuthorRank, this may prove to be the most important overall form of content that we put on our business websites.

You don’t have to post too often, but if you can’t stay at least a little consistent by posting 2 or 3 full articles a month, there’s really no need to post them at all. If time is too scarce, stick to the…

 

Response articles

It may be hard to come up with original content, but it’s never hard to express opinions. There was a long article yesterday about Les Mis on FoxNews. I really liked what it had to say, so I wrote a response article to it. This response took no time at all – less than 20 minutes – but got the point across in a way that the internet likes without having to do a ton of research other than reading the original article.

As an expert in your industry and/or local area, you’ll find that writing response articles is one of the easiest ways to get a good amount of unique content on your website without having to do a ton of research. In essence, the research is already done by the real journalist. All you have to do is offer your opinions about what they got right, what they got wrong, or expand on what their basic premise was. With practice, these get to the point that you’ll be able to easily post them at your convenience.

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Making websites pop on search and social isn’t as hard as most make it out to be. It starts with great content and continues into proper practices to make the search engines and social media sites love your stuff.

POP” image courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Ninja

A recent study by AdAge, which has been tracking such things since 2009, shows that there are over 180,000 people on Twitter who claim to be social media mavens, experts, consultants, ninjas, pros, warriors, or some other noun that’s intended to fill you with confidence about their ability to save you from the evil world of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. This is up from 16k when they first checked.

It’s challenging for businesses to keep up. The world of social media offers so much potential, so many options, and has so many people using it every day that the allure to get involved is high, but there are risks. Bad strategies, an inability to keep up with changes, and the potential to blow a lot of time and/or effort are all high. Businesses often look to experts who reside in this world on a constant basis to guide them through the mess.

The bad part is that the industry can be an extremely lucrative one, so many people are jumping in without having a true understanding of how to make it work for business. The good part is that there are things you can do to identify the good ones from the bad, the real ones from the posers. Here are some telling signs:

 

Check their personal accounts

The most important component here is that follower counts mean nothing. For under $100 a Twitter user can buy thousands of “followers”. Given enough time and a willingness to accept any friend requests, a Facebook account can hit the 5,000 “friend” limit in a couple of months.

You’ll be looking at two things when checking the accounts. Links – what kind are they posting? Are they posting links to notoriously spammy sites like Hubpages and Squidoo? Do the links lead to teeth whitening, Forex, or “how to make money from home” ebooks? Everyone has to start somewhere, but those who are worth their title should have gone beyond the spamming and moved into the realm of quality content posting, particularly with their personal social media accounts.

The second thing you’ll look for is interaction. Are people retweeting them? Talking to them? Engaging with them? Commenting, liking, and sharing their content on Facebook? Giving their posts +1s on Google+? If so, is it organic? Just as with the account size factor, it’s not hard to buy likes and retweets. Are the people engaging with them real people or fake?

 

Look at their advice, strategies, and tips

Most gurus have a blog. They may have a YouTube channel. They should be on Pinterest. Check out the content that they’re posting and the advice that they’re giving. While not every guru is a writer, it’s safe to say that they should be able to put together a list of tips at the very least.

Are they putting out advice videos? These don’t have to be regular – a video with the right content can be useful for months – but there should be something of interest, some rants or recommendations that work on video. Are they pinning quality infographics on Pinterest?

Content is a tool of the trade. If they aren’t putting out content on their own sites or social profiles, do they really know what they’re doing or are they regurgitating strategies they read on Mashable and Social Media Today?

 

Look at their clients

As with any agency or individual that you hire, it’s important to look at the results of their efforts. Check to see if the pages they run, the accounts that they manage, and the content that they’re posting is effective.

Again, size doesn’t matter here. It would be easy for me to say, “don’t work with people who only have a couple of clients” since my company is loaded with clients, but it’s simply not true. Some of the brightest minds and most effective social media experts that I know only keep a handful of clients. Size is not important. If anything, being too large means that your needs won’t get the personal touch that you might require.

The most important component here is to call or email the clients. Be very skeptical about experts who use the “client confidentiality” ploy. It’s true, there are times when businesses do not want it known that they use a social media agency, but that really only applies to being out in public. I’ve had clients that do not want us to post that we work with them on our website, but none of them in the last 5 years have ever said they were unwilling to be a reference to a potential client. If they’re unwilling to let you contact their clients, they might not have any.

Social media isn’t hard. It’s time-consuming. It requires a constant attachment to the changes that are happening. That’s the main reason to hire gurus, experts, and agencies – if you’re running a business, do you have the time and energy to devote a couple of hours a day keeping up with it all? Finding the right person or agency isn’t hard, either. Yes, it requires an investment of time to find and check out candidates, but that is time well spent. It’s better to have no strategy or presence than a bad strategy driving a poor presence.

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Facebook

Semantics. That's what many will say. They'll tell about how trying to define the difference between being a marketing platform and being a marketing tool is pointless.

Others will say it's much more of a platform for marketing than it is a tool. They'll say that it's the community and the venue that offer the benefit and trying to corner Facebook into a toolbox is unwise.

Both, in my humble opinion, would be terribly wrong.

When looking at Facebook as a platform, we see certain elements that stand out. It's huge - a billion users can't be wrong, right? It allows businesses to create pages and market their wares on these pages and within the news feeds of their fans. It allows apps which can be used to do nearly every business operation directly from the platform. With all of this evidence, it's clearly a marketing platform, right?

This is the biggest mistake that many businesses make on Facebook. In many ways, it's a trap, and the majority of businesses who look to Facebook fall into that trap.

Facebook wants to be a business interaction platform. It wants to be a marketing platform. It wants businesses to look to it and (in some cases) pay them money to get their merchandise and services exposed. The only thing stopping them (other than poor decisions regarding business since 2009) is that the power of Facebook, namely the people, want nothing to do with it.

This is the key point that businesses must understand. It's the point that steers Facebook away from their unstated goal of being a marketing platform and towards the unfortunate reality that they are a tool in an overall content marketing strategy. Through Facebook, a business is better served promoting the things that are not necessarily "business focused" in order to gain favor with the Facebook algorithm. They can (and should) do this through ads, but the reality is that a business must be willing to interact with people and engage with the community before they can have any chance of getting marketing benefit from the site.

Once this is done through any of a dozen groups of techniques, it now becomes possible use the tool for marketing that Facebook truly is. It's a tool in a toolbox that includes LinkedIn, YouTube, and, of course, the four majors of today (which can change at any time).

Businesses must understand this distinction. They must learn that what happens on their Facebook page is minuscule compared to what happens off their page, that what they say is meaningless compared to what others are saying about them, and that to make their message work, they have to get involved rather than put themselves into a box.

Platforms are boxes. Tools lead to the freedom to explore.

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Sunday. All the Marbles

In business, we often look to social media as another venue through which to achieve our business goals. It's a marketing goldmine - at least that's what the experts are telling us. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the websites and apps that the people, our potential customers, are visiting, so putting out our marketing messages on these venues makes absolute sense.

The problem with that premise is that people aren't going to those sites to receive marketing. One can argue that the same is true for television and they would be right. Television is an extremely effective advertising platform for many despite the fact that most people don't like seeing advertisements. The real difference is choice. On television, radio, and other venues, we have the choice to change the channel but normally we sit through and watch the marketing in between our shows because we don't want to miss it when it comes back on. On social media, the messages are chosen. Those who are posting content that doesn't appeal can be easily unfollowed. In the case of Facebook, they can be blocked, removed from the news feed, unfollowed, and even reported as spam.

It's a paradox. How does a business achieve their goals on social media while maintaining a connection with the audience that prevents them from blocking us? There are several answers to this question and many different strategies that can work, but one of the easiest and most underutilized is simply posting the things that we and our audience enjoy.

In the example above, the city in which a car dealership resided had their local team playing for their playoff lives. Sunday was the day that would determine whether it was time to pack it up for the season or continue on into the playoffs. The post itself, a simple message, was put on Facebook the day before the game and promoted through Facebook ads. The results were very strong. It had over 100 likes, a handful of comments, and dozens of shares, the majority of which were done by locals to the area since the Facebook ads were extremely geo-targeted.

How will this help them sell more cars? First, it expresses the dealership's personality. They love their local team. It's not a marketing ploy - the owners and most of the employees are strong supporters of their football team. Second, it's a shared love - many of their customers and potential customers are fans. These two things are great from a PR and branding perspective but they don't answer the question of how this directly helps them sell more.

That answer is the algorithmic response. When a piece of content resonates and is widely liked and shared by the target audience, it dramatically improves the ability for the marketing messages that follow to be seen by the same people and their friends. Facebook's and Google+'s algorithms are designed to reward businesses and individuals who post popular content with more visibility. By working in the truly likable things within a business' market area into the overall social media mix, the marketing messages will see more exposure. One strategically placed and properly promoted "fun" or "inspiring" message followed by one or two marketing messages will have a dramatically higher reach than a flurry of marketing messages that are not set up by the fun pieces.

The easiest way to find the right content is to look inwards. What do you know? What do you like? What do you enjoy that your audience will enjoy as well? For local businesses, it's best to stay laser focused; don't jump on a movie's buzz bandwagon, for example, but stay in the realm of your business' expertise and/or the local area's interest.

As with so many pieces of advice that I've been giving lately, the moral of the story is that if you "keep it real" and deliver authentic messages that resonate within you, there's a good chance they'll resonate with your audience as well.

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Use Hashtags Instead of Social Icons on Ads

If you ever want a crash course on the latest social media studies but don’t want to spend the money to do them yourself, just watch the Super Bowl. You have to assume that if companies are spending millions to produce and distribute 30 second spots for the big game, they’re going to research what’s working today.

This year’s big takeaway was a shift in the way that companies were presenting their social media. As described here, there’s even a debate about the winners and losers. The results of the research were easy to spot. Many advertisers decided that hashtags were the way to go social this year.

If you think about it, nothing could be simpler to understand. Hashtags are social network agnostic with the glaring exception of Facebook. Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and countless other social networks apply hashtags to their streams to allow for tagging and easier searching. Popular hashtags often get featured on these sites. It’s a way to win bigger than simply posting a Twitter handle or Facebook page URL.

You should apply the same concept to your campaigns, particularly when interaction is a part of it (and it should be). It’s no longer about sending people to your profiles through your advertising. They won’t go. If they want to interact with you on social media, they’ll find you (at least they should be able to if you’re doing it right in search and on your website). They will, however, be willing to take part in a conversation. The best way to group conversations on every venue other than Facebook is through hashtags.

For Facebook, things are different and that deserves a blog post of its own, but for now if you focus on hashtags to spread your campaign messages in your advertising (print, television, and just about everywhere else), you’ll find that your social media interactions can improve. If you’re still posting your profile handle next to a blue bird, you’re probably not getting anything out of it and simply wasting space.

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Acoustic Guitar

When putting together strategies and making adjustments (and the occasional complete overhaul) of social media pages, processes, and content, there’s nothing better than to get a client truly “plugged in” to the social media world. There’s an excitement that surrounds it, particularly after a couple of weeks when the results start improving and the processes start moving like clockwork.

As John “Hannibal” Smith used to say in every episode of the A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

There’s a challenge, though. Every now and then, the system starts to work too well. The plans can be so effective that it’s good to take a quick break from the routine and step into a realm that I like to call Acoustic Social Media. It’s a time when you stop the planned posts, turn off the automation tools, and actually spend a day or two (or five) getting your hands involved and actually play directly with the social media profiles.

 

The Machine: Playing Songs While Plugged In

You should be using tools. If you’re not, you’re either small enough to stay nimble and effective working everything directly or you’re not being successful with it at all. Management and monitoring tools can allow strong business pages and profiles to maintain a consistently improving social media presence, run timely campaigns when they’re supposed to run, and put together an overarching strategy that goes unnoticed by the casual observer but that is a work of art from the birdseye view.

I’ll use my Twitter account as an example. I check for Twitter replies every hour or two when I’m at the computer. It’s important to me to maintain a strong Twitter presence, so the majority of my direct time on Twitter is seeing the Tweets of the people I follow and responding to direct communications. I could do that all day. Unfortunately, that leaves very little time for actually Tweeting from a business perspective; my account is a combination of business and personal.

To make sure I remain robust but engaging, the majority of my Tweets that aren’t directed at people are done through tools:

  • I use Buffer for a good chunk of them. My formula is relatively simple – image, link, quote or thought, link, quote or though, link, image. Rinse. Repeat. The majority of these Tweets are personal, though I include some business Tweets from time to time if it’s important.
  • I use Triberr to find and auto-schedule interesting marketing content. Like Buffer, Triberr does the scheduling for you based upon your settings which determine how often you’re posting. I scan the content on Triberr, open the links that I like, then approve the good ones to be posted into the queue.
  • Content that I post on Pinterest, Tumblr, Scoop.it, and my personal WordPress blog go live the moment that I publish on those platforms.
  • Important Tweets – those I post directly through Twitter whenever they occur.

By doing it like this, I have a machine of content generation that works very much like a band. Each tool has its purpose and unique sound just as the guitarist, drummer, bass player, and vocalist all have their roles when playing their songs. When looking at my feed, it looks pretty darn random. It’s hard to see the rhyme or reason. In essence, it looks as if I’m just an extremely active Twitter user who posts whenever I see something that strikes my fancy. It also looks like I’m awake 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s not far from the truth, but I do sleep on occasion.

Staying “plugged in” to the machine allows for a consistent flow of content that goes out at the right times. It’s enough to be ever present but not so much that it gets annoying.

 

Unplugging – Acoustic Social Media

There are some tremendous advantages when popular singers leave the big stage and run some shows in a cozy atmosphere without the assistance of amplifiers. First and foremost, the sound is more pure. Regardless of how amazing the sound is at a large concert, it really doesn’t compare to listening to artists playing an acoustic guitar and a singing into a microphone connected to a couple of small speakers.

The intimacy is palpable. You can see the sweat on their temples, the movement of the fingers over the strings, the emotion in the faces during the tough notes. It’s real. They’re not looking at the crowd as “Cleveland” or “Sydney”. They see the crowd as a group of people who came to hear them bare their souls.

The music isn’t just heard by the audience. It’s felt. It’s raw. This is where artists and audiences can really make a connection.

Social media works in much the same way, only without the sweat. Turning off the automation for a little while allows users to reach out with their business pages. They can respond more quickly to what’s happening in real time. They can have conversations that happen back and forth at a rapid pace rather than replies that are hours apart.

I will likely never be convinced that a “set it and forget it” approach to social media works, but “set it and monitor closely” is the most scalable and effective way to truly use social media for business. If you have the time to skip the “set it” part and work social media in an acoustic manner from time to time, you won’t just be mixing it up with proper engagement and a personal touch. You’ll have an opportunity to roam around in the virtual world and see what’s going on outside of your campaigns and strategies. Just as few artists are able to be successful without the big concerts, few companies can sustain a purely organic social media presence without full time employees dedicated to the process.

If you can unplug from time to time, you’ll find the value within the intimacy.

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Journalist

“Journalist” according to Wikipedia: “A journalist collects, writes and distributes news and other information. A journalist’s work is referred to as journalism.”

It’s important to understand what I mean when I use the word. Many people hear the word and think of a “reporter” since most people who call themselves journalists today follow the news reporting line of the art. With that understood, let’s get right into it…

Every company who wants to reach the highest level of success in online marketing going forward needs to have someone acting as a journalist for the company. They needs someone who collects, writers, and distributes news and other information about the company, the industry, the customers, the local area – anything that has relevance from a marketing perspective. This hasn’t always been the case. Until very recently, a good SEO content writer would suffice as long as they had some skills to put together a nice press release every now and then. SEO content was all that you really needed to succeed.

Today and going forward, that’s no longer the case. That’s not to say that you don’t need SEO content. In most cases, you do, at least when getting your site put together. If you’re in a competitive industry like automotive, you’ll want additional SEO content pages to be built regularly just to stay ahead of the competition. To truly push forward and start dominating on both the search engines and social media, you’ll want to apply some journalistic art to your website and blog.

You need a journalist.

It doesn’t have to be a full-time job. It could be someone at the company who can do it occasionally. It can be you. If you’re involved with marketing at the company, it’s a great skill to have. It doesn’t take a degree from OU’s School of Journalism to get the job done. It just takes understanding your industry, a touch of creativity and brainstorming abilities, an eye for good content, and a willingness to stick to it.

 

No, a Content Writing Service Won’t Work

There are plenty of very strong and useful content writing services out there. Some of them put out great work. Most are mediocre, but even that’s okay as long as you can edit it a bit before publishing. The problem with these services is that they’re designed specifically to build SEO content. They rarely put out content that is worth reading and sharing which is the goal of your company journalist.

More importantly, they aren’t at your store. They aren’t there meeting and talking to customers. They aren’t shooting the breeze with the guy in accounting or participating in the March of Dimes walk like the girl in the service department. This is where the journalist comes in and it is hard (impossible?) to outsource.

 

The Journalist’s Role

The goal is to put out content that helps in four major areas:

  1. Search Rankings – Google and Bing need SEO content on the site to let them know the proper purpose of each individual page, but they love real content that people are willing to read and share. They can tell the difference between content that is meant for them and content that is truly meant to entertain or inform your visitors. This type of journalistic content can propel your other content to the top in ways that SEO content alone simply cannot do.
  2. Social Sharing – Nobody is going to share your specials page. They’re not going to share a piece of content written by an SEO content writer titled “Chevrolet Dealer Serving Madison Proud of Award Winning Models”. This content has its place, but it’s not going to find its way on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+ without some artificial inflation (which Google and Bing can smell from a mile away). What people will share is a piece of content at the same dealership titled “Everything We Know About the 2014 Corvette is Mind Blowing”. An outsourced content writer might be able to put out something decent, but then it won’t have the flair that your business demands. Make it special. Use a journalist. Be a journalist. If you know you’re industry, you can do it.
  3. Public Relations – Again, it takes someone at the store to take pictures and videos when you sponsor the local Social Media Saturday meetup. Yes, there are plenty of press release services out there that do a nice job, but they can’t put out the real content that is replacing the canned content that goes into press releases. Real people don’t read PRWeb. Real people won’t find the content that gets syndicated to Yahoo News except for the few weeks that it ranks well in Google. Blog and website content that sticks, that’s already associated with the company, and that you’ll have some measure of control over forever – that’s the place where real public relations starts in 2013? Why? See reason #2. Social media is the new public relations driving force, not press releases.
  4. Humanized Businesses – Today more than ever, people want to deal with other people. The business atmosphere is loaded with automated telephone service, autoresponder emails, and vanilla content that nobody reads. By adding the human flair of a journalist at the store posting pictures, videos, and stories at the store, on the blog, and across social media, you’ll be able to highlight the human factor that people consciously or unconsciously crave. They may not know why they prefer to do business with you, but after the transaction is complete it won’t matter. Now it’s time to keep them happy through ongoing service – a different topic altogether. You have to get them in the door, first. Humanizing your business is a step in the right direction for both you and your customers.

One of the most important parts of good journalism is to keep it as short as possible. On a topic like this, 1000 words simply won’t be enough, so proper journalist standards says that I need to break this up into parts. Part II of The Company Journalist Series will cover how to pick the right topics and give examples of what you should be posting on your site and blog to start building your content marketing goldmine.

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What is Your Dealership's Personality?

It's one of the most overlooked components of a modern automotive internet marketing strategy. Some do it naturally, expressing the way they want the dealership to be perceived by customers and potential customers by instilling a unified sense of direction amongst employees, on their website, and throughout their online interactions such as on social media or when replying to reviews. Most have not set up a personality in the traditional sense and are just trying to get by day-to-day facing whatever obstacles come at them.

Your dealership's personality shines through regardless of whether you've established one or not. For most, it's one that is friendly, inviting, and competitive. This works. It just doesn't work as well as it could if the dealership took a more holistic approach to all customer-facing activities online and offline.

So, what exactly is a personality as it pertains to a dealership (or any business for that matter)? Let's start there...

 

Understanding Your Business Personality

It's not the easiest concept to understand. Sure, we all have a personality that shines through from the top, permeates to our employees, and (hopefully) manifests properly to our customers. It could be as simple as a "whatever it takes" personality, one that tries to communicate to customers (and employees) that we're here to earn your business and we're not going to let price get in the way. For others, it could be a community-effort personality, one that focuses on the family-owned-and-operated component that builds trust and lets customers (and employees) know that they can count on your dealership to be there for them.

Some go a more direct route. This is where the old television commercials come in with men screaming about amazing deals. This type of personality is often frowned upon, but it has been effective in the past and is, to some extent, still effective today. How long that will last, nobody knows. I would anticipate that the effectiveness is waning.

What is your focus point? That's the start of establishing your personality. Do you focus on being the volume dealer that can has the right vehicles and that can deliver the best prices possible? Do you focus on being honest and personable, making low pressure and pleasant experience the trademark of your company? Is your dealership fun with the owner wearing crazy hats and blow-up giant monkeys gracing your roof from time to time?

Whatever your focus is, you can build your personality around it. Now, let's look at the importance of establishing your personality from the dealership level straight through to websites and social media.

 

Why a Personality is Important

You can't be everything to everyone. You can't tell them on one hand that you're a volume dealership that does anything and everything to put them in a car, then try to be the low-pressure, awesome customer service and experience dealership that relies on repeat and referral business. You can try, but it doesn't work.

The only way to control the public perception of your dealership is to craft your personality around a single focus.That's not to say that you can't be a volume dealer that uses a low-pressure style and has a monkey on your roof. It means that you shouldn't try to communicate all of those things to your potential customers in your advertising and marketing. Different things appeal to different people, but more importantly different things turn people off. They may not care whether a dealership claims to offer the lowest price because they think that all dealers will negotiate down to the same price, particularly on new cars. They might have had a bad experience in the past with a dealership that claimed to be low-pressure, only to feel like they were getting ripped off.

The more personality types you try to maintain, the more opportunities you have to turn someone off about the dealership. Consolidate. Pick the single component of your potential personality that you feel will resonate best at the dealership and through your marketing.

Make sure it's real. If you're a dealership that questions the salespeople any time they take an up that doesn't make it into the showroom, you can't take on a low-pressure personality because your salespeople will not give that impression to the customers. If you hold gross and refuse to cater to the undercuts when your competitor down the block keeps giving away cars, don't try to take on a price-beater personality.

When you have a singular personality that resonates across all channels, you'll be able to attract customers who are seeking this particular type of dealership. That's not to say that you will be turning away the invoice minus half of holdback customers if you express a hometown, good-experience type of personality. It just means that you're targeting a particular type of customer specifically and avoiding having too many personalities that can turn more people away.

Once you've decided on a personality, it's time to make it a reality.

 

Building the Company Culture

Some of you have already established a true company culture and now need to make sure it's applied to your online marketing efforts. Those of you who fit this bill can skip to the next section.

For the rest, it's an absolute necessity to get the company culture built. Sounds hard. It's not. It really only takes an email or two and maybe a mention in the next company meeting.

You know who you are. Let your employees know. All of them. Here's a quick example of an email that can be sent out:

To The ABC Motors Family:

We wanted to thank you all for your commitment to our success and communicate with you some of the goals we have as a dealership. For starters, we are moving forward with a plan to adjust our marketing preference around the fact that we do business differently than our competitors.

As you know, we strive to give our customers the best experience possible. We want them to know when they buy a car or service their vehicle here, that we're going to go out of our way to make the experience an unexpected surprise. Car dealerships often have a bad reputation based upon the business model itself. At ABC Motors, our goal is to delight our customers. We need your help.

When you're communicating with customers, always be mindful that our company culture is centered around giving them an outstanding experience. We hold this with the highest regard and we will want you to as well. If you have any questions or suggestions, please email Ralph@ABCMotors.com.

When was the last time you sent out an email reaffirming to your employees what your company culture really was?

 

Translating the Company Culture into an Online Personality

This is the tricky part. How can you sculpt your message to accomplish everything that has been outlined here? You have the overview. Now it's time to make a plan. That's not something I can do directly in an article; it differs from dealership to dealership, personality type to personality type. What I can do is give you some things to keep in mind while you're formulating your holistic strategy:

  • Make Your Website Match - There's nothing worse than a generic website. Despite what OEMs have been telling you (and thankfully some are finally starting to change their tune), a unified look and feel with your competitors is not a good thing. People are no longer "internet-challenged" the way they have been in the past. They know how to navigate any dealership's website very quickly regardless of how many they've visited. Make sure that the message that you're sending out through your website matches the dealership's personality.
  • Focus on Certain Pages for Personality - You have a limited number of opportunities to communicate your personality to the dealership. It's not just a matter of putting a slogan in your header and calling it a day. Every important page of you website should reiterate the personality. The "important" page include About Us, Vehicle Details Pages, and the most overlooked but highly trafficked page on your website, Hours and Directions.
  • Build Ads with Your Personality in Mind - Whether it's television, radio, online videos, or banner ads, you should set the tone properly. If you're loud and fun, don't use boring colors and boring voices. If you're down to earth and family-focused, put the kids or grand kids on the ads. Communicate your personality consistently with a slogan and, whenever appropriate, expand on that personality by making a longer commitment in every ad.
  • Respond to Reviews with the Right Voice - There should be a consistency that flows in your response to all of your online reviews (you are replying to all of your reviews, good or bad, right?). That doesn't mean that you're saying the same thing over and over again. It means that the tone and personality flows through your responses and establishes a consistent voice. This is who you are. This is how you reply to customer complaints. This is how your reply to happy customers. Keep it unified.
  • Center Your Social Profiles Around Building Your Personality - The vast majority of dealerships do not have an appropriate voice on social media. This is different from your review response voice. It's your way of interacting with past and potential customers that reinforces that personality. There is a ton of potential symbolism involved here as well as the need to build on your presence through your personality. I will go into further detail about this in the next post in this series.

Getting the right personality in place is one of the keys to success in 2013. Most dealers have been pushing forward and having successes and failures online with their advertising and marketing. For 2013, let's eliminate the failures and improve on the successes. It starts right here.

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The Second Screen

In 2013, there will continue to be a growing number of people who have their smartphones and tablets handy while watching television. People are multitasking more often now than ever before while enjoying their television time. They are Tweeting, posting to Facebook, and visiting websites all from the comfort of their living room.

Many of us have done it before. We’ll be watching the game or our favorite show and talk about what we’re watching through our mobile devices on social media. We will see something that catches our eye and do a search for it to get more information.

Television shows are taking advantage of this, but it’s rare to see advertisers do the same. This is perplexing as there has never been a time when a television ad asking people to “act now” can actually get them to do just that. Those who use television ads can get immediate responses and interactions by crafting it into their television ads.

It’s better than telling people to “call now” or “come on down” because they’re not in that mode. They’re passive. They’re safe. When they’re watching television, they don’t want to get on the phone with a salesperson or stop watching the game to head down to a store. What they will do is visit a website, a social media account, or otherwise contact a store that advertises properly.

Think about it. Many car dealers use television advertising to get their brands out there, to talk about their low prices, and to highlight a sale that’s going on right now. There are people in the market for a vehicle who are currently watching television. They may even be watching your television ad right now. Why don’t you ask them to engage while it’s at the top of their mind.

It could be as simple as setting up a campaign. You can post an event on Facebook and pin it to the top of your page. The event can be to highlight the big sale this weekend. You may be giving away a free gift such as sunglasses to anyone who clicks that they might attend the event.

Then, it’s a matter of putting it in the television ad. Talk about the sale. At the end, say something like this: “Go to our Facebook page and like our sales event. Everyone who does gets a free gift just for attending – no purchase required!”

When they click that they’ll attend, it will show as such to their friends and family. More importantly, you’ll have the ability to engage with them before and after the event. It’s a soft lead, but you have to assume that people who actually show up aren’t there just for the free sunglasses. They are there to test drive a vehicle. The rest is up to you.

It doesn’t have to be so blatant. It could be as simple as “Send us a Tweet or post a comment on Facebook about what you think the score will be this weekend. The closest guess gets a free oil change!”

You could always go for the direct approach. “Go to our website right now. We’ve posted our no-nonsense best price on all of our new and certified pre-owned Altimas, so if you’re in the market today, grab your tablet or smartphone and head to abcmotors.com.”

This is where creativity comes in. People have their smartphones close by and their tablets within reach when they’re watching your television ads. Take advantage of it. Adapting to the second screen will help your television advertising and mobile marketing work together to bring better results to both.

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