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I just came across a very interesting article in Dealer Marketing Magazine regarding a recent study exploring the impact of social media as it relates to the car buying process and I want to share with you some of the findings and discuss how it can help your dealership's social media strategy.

Shopping for a Car

Basically, the study found that Facebook is playing a fundamental role in the entire car buying process. For example, 84% of new car buyers use Facebook. If your dealership doesn't have a Facebook Fan Page, you're missing out on a boatload of customers. Additionally, the study also found that 38% of car buyers will use social media to research their next vehicle purchase. However, that's not even what stuck out to me. Get ready: 1 out of every 4 car buyers are using social media to discuss their recent car purchase. That's not all.

After Leaving the Lot

A staggering 58% of car buyers are either posting a comment or status update on their Facebook page about their new vehicle. It's not just Facebook either. Many car buyers are utilizing twitter to discuss their new vehicle and the dealership they bought it from (33% and 28% respectively). If your dealership hasn't got involved in social media, then you're missing what your customers are saying about you. Essentially, you're being left out of the conversation.

I could go on and on giving you stat after stat, but it'll just sound redundant.

What to make of all of this?

This study tell us that instead of going straight to the dealership, many shoppers, more specifically new vehicle buyers, are researching online. It's not just the dealership's website the consumer is visiting. No, rather, they are checking out the dealership's Facebook page to research and see what current offers they have (i.e. Honda Civic for special lease offer this weekend).

If you don't have a Facebook page or Twitter account? Well, it's simple. You're losing out on a potential customer. Not to mention, you're missing out on engaging with your customers and managing your online reputation, regardless if they're saying something good or something bad about your dealership.

What do you think of these statistics?

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Random Note on Social Media

Today, Consumer Reports really gave it Ford regarding the Explorer, Fiesta, and Focus. (More on that here) It is pretty surprising given the success Ford has had over the last few years, growing in reliability and quality with not only their vehicles, but also their technology. 

 

Anyway, I checked out Ford's twitter feed, which is the most active in the entire auto industry, and they linked to a discussion forum on their website. The topic was : "Tell us why you love Your Ford Explorer."

I just thought that was a really smart social media and reputation management technique.  Here's that tweet.

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Ten Mindful Ways To Use Social Media

Great List from Tricycle on the absolute best ways to utilize social media. My favorite is #6: Be Active. Not Reactive

 

1. Know your intentions.
Doug Firebaugh of SocialMediaBlogster.com has identified seven psychological needs we may be looking to meet when we log on: acknowledgment, attention, approval, appreciation, acclaim, assurance, and inclusion. Before you post, ask yourself: Am I looking to be seen or validated? Is there something more constructive I could do to meet that need?

2. Be your authentic self.
In the age of personal branding, most of us have a persona we’d like to develop or maintain. Ego-driven tweets focus on an agenda; authenticity communicates from the heart. Talk about the things that really matter to you. If you need advice or support, ask for it. It’s easier to be present when you’re being true to yourself.

3. If you propose to tweet, always ask yourself: Is it true? Is it necessary? Is it kind?
Sometimes we post thoughts without considering how they might impact our entire audience. It’s easy to forget how many friends are reading. Two hundred people make a crowd in person, but online that number can seem insignificant. Before you share, ask yourself: is there anyone this might harm?

4. Offer random tweets of kindness.
Every now and then I ask on Twitter, “Is there anything I can do to help or support you today?” It’s a simple way to use social media to give without expectations of anything in return. By reaching out to help a stranger, you create the possibility of connecting personally with followers you may have otherwise known only peripherally.

5. Experience now, share later.
It’s common to snap a picture with your phone and upload it to Facebook or email it to a friend. This overlaps the experience of being in a moment and sharing it. It also minimizes intimacy, since your entire audience joins your date or gathering in real time. Just as we aim to reduce our internal monologues to be present, we can do the same with our digital narration.

6. Be active, not reactive.
You may receive email updates whenever there is activity on one of your social media accounts, or you might have your cell phone set to give you these types of alerts. This forces you to decide many times throughout the day whether you want or need to respond. Another approach is to choose when to join the conversation, and to use your offline time to decide what value you have to offer.

7. Respond with your full attention.
People often share links without actually reading them, or comment on posts after only scanning them. If the greatest gift we can give someone is our attention, then social media allows us to be endlessly generous. We may not be able to reply to everyone, but responding thoughtfully when we can makes a difference.

8. Use mobile social media sparingly.
In 2009, Pew Research found that 43 percent of cell phone users access the Web on their devices several times a day. It’s what former Microsoft employee Linda Stone refers to as continuous partial attention—when you frequently sign on to be sure you don’t miss out anything. If you choose to limit your cell phone access, you may miss out online, but you won’t miss what’s in front of you.

9. Practice letting go.

It may feel unkind to disregard certain updates or tweets, but we need downtime to be kind to ourselves. Give yourself permission to let yesterday’s stream go. This way you won’t need to “catch up” on updates that have passed but instead can be part of today’s conversation.

10. Enjoy social media!
These are merely suggestions to feel present and purposeful when utilizing social media, but they aren’t hard-and-fast rules. Follow your own instincts and have fun with it. If you’re mindful when you’re disconnected from technology, you have all the tools you need to be mindful when you go online.

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While most people think of Twitter as a marketing tool, which it is, it can also be used to replace or augment other business activities.  Businesses can even save costs by using Twitter for some of their activities.  In this post, we are exploring some of the business areas where Twitter can help you bring down costs.  These will be especially useful for small businesses which don’t have a lot of money at disposal.

twitter money

1. Order taking – Twitter can be easily extended by businesses as an order desk.  Create an ID especially for booking orders for your products and services.  Use any of the desktop Twitter tools or, even better, use one of the available mobile applications to track orders.  No need to employ someone to manage your order desk 24/7.

twitter order taking

Who is doing this: The Coffee Groundz that started booking orders on Twitter in 2008.

2. Polls and Surveys – Use Twitter for getting people’s opinion on your business and activities by letting them poll or participate in surveys.  You can use PollDaddy’s twitter polls which is a free service or twtpoll which is a paid service but provides advanced options.

twitter pollstwitter poll

Who is doing this: CNET, CNN, Yahoo, United Airlines to name a few.

3. Emotional Intelligence – Twitter users often share their experience, feedback and opinions about products and service they use.  Businesses can now track what is being shared about them on Twitter without spending a fortune.  There are free tools like TwitScoop and TweetBeep for tracking tweets that mention your brand.

Here is the result when I searched for Dell.

twitter reactions

An extreme form of emotion expressed on Twitter is Unfollowing someone.  If you are already using Twitter for your business and want to know which of your messages made you lose existing followers, you can use TweetEffect that tracks the change in the number of your followers with every Tweet.  Good tool to measure the impact of your tweets.

twitter emotional intelligence

twitter trending

Who is doing this: Actually anyone can do this and you can gather emotional intelligence not just about yourself but others also.  For example, using TweetEffect, I tracked the changes in President Obama’s followership and found some interesting relationships between the Tweets and followership that you can see in the images above.

4. Customer Service – Another area where Twitter can be very useful.  Provide a Twitter address where customers can send you a direct message whenever they need help with your products and services.  Track and respond to customer queries and support requests through any of the free Twitter management tools.twitter customer service

Who is doing this: I know of Comcast and JetBlue.  Please let us know through comments if you know anyone else.

5. Competition Analysis – Want to know what your competition is doing, what is the buzz about your competitor on the Internet, what are some of the areas that have your competitor’s customers unhappy and so on.  You can track all these things through Twitter.

twitter stats

Use TwitterStats and TweetVolume to find out how many times people mention your brand and your competitor’s.  These two only provide quantitative analysis.  If you are looking for qualitative comparison, you will need to make use TwitScoop and TweetBeep.

Who is doing this: Anyone, just that nobody wants to do it publicly and that’s why I don’t know of any name.

6. News, Announcements and PR – No need to hire an expensive PR agency to announce and distribute your company’s news.  Use Twitter to distribute news and make announcements.  Send a message to @MicroPR and it will be distributed to all the media professionals and bloggers who follow them.  You can also use #Twitpitch hash tag to pitch your company, product or service.

google twitter

Who is doing this: Google uses Twitter to share the news stories and important announcements related to all its products and services.  Dell also shares announcements @Direct2Dell.

7. Raising capital and donations – This is something that most non-profits can make use.  I am not too sure of the legal issues involved in companies pitching for private investments through Twitter but know of at least one example of such request.  Jason Goldberg, the founder of Social Median, that was recently acquired by Xing, posted a message on Twitter soliciting angel investment.

socialmediantwitter

8. Hiring Talent – If you are looking for talented people to join your business, chances are you will find them on Twitter.  Just post your requirement as a tweet and you may end up getting references from your followers or direct messages from interested parties.

hiring on twitter

Who is doing this: Sodexo USA, a company involved in food service and facilities management has a dedicated Twitter account named Sodexo Careers.

9. Special Offers, Discounts and Coupons – Use Twitter to notify people of discounts that you are offering without advertising costs.  If you wish to provide coupons to your customers, use twtQpon to create and distribute discount coupons.

twitter sales offers

Who is doing this: Dell Outlet offers deals and discounts through Twitter.

10. Manage company events – Want to invite people to your company’s event or a webinar.  Use Twitter to promote your event.  In case you want to be more organized, use CalTweet or VeVite.  These tools allow you to set up an event on Twitter, invite guests and have RSVP responses mailed to you.

Know of any other areas where businesses can save money using Twitter for managing their activities, please care to share.

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Toyota Turns To Twitter To Repair Its Image

 

Toyota has been dealing with negative backlash from the massive safety recalls of its vehicles; and is even suffering in terms of sales. So what does the company do to repair its image? Turn to Twitter, of course! The Japanese auto giant has launched a branded channel on TweetMeme, in partnership with Federated Media, which aggregates and organize Twitter conversations regarding Toyota.

Called Toyota Conversations, the site brings together the top stories being Tweeted about Toyota, from news articles to press releases. The site also shows visitors the most popular videos and images being shared about Toyota on Twitter. And the channel includes a Featured Tweets from Toyota’s Twitter account and press room as well as AdTweets, which are Tweetmeme’s retweetable ads for Toyota.

You may notice after taking a look at all of the top stories that are being aggregated on the site, that most of the news is positive. That doesn’t seem to match the general tone of the media writing about Toyota, which has been quick to criticize the car company for its manufacturing mistakes. If you take a look at Twitter sentiment app Tweetfeel, the sentiment of Tweets mentioning Toyota lean more negative. Tweetmeme channels can be set up to pick up only certain news sources. It looks like Toyota picked the friendlier ones.

That being said, it’s definitely interesting to see such a high-profile company taking to Twitter to try to reform its image by engaging directly in a dialogue with consumers. As we’ve seen with the recent Southwest/Kevin Smith incident, Twitter is influencing public relations in unprecedented ways. Now more than ever, brands are flocking to Twitter to not only monitor and track what’s being said about their company on Twitter but to influence and participate in the conversation.

                   

Source_  http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/02/toyota-turns-to-twitter-to-repair-its-image/

 

 

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