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There are two frames of mind amongst search marketing professionals when it comes to major updates such as the Google Penguin update last year and the upcoming Penguin 2.0 algorithm update. Some start to panic as they’ve seen these algorithm updates force companies to make major changes. In some cases, companies have had to close down because adjusting was just too much to bare. The other perspective is that these changes bring the game of optimization more in line with quality over quantity, strategy over brute force, and perhaps most importantly, art over science.

That’s what’s expected with the upcoming update based upon a mixture of common sense and some pointed Tweets by Google’s spam czar, Matt Cutts. The pursuit of quality links instead of having a large inbound link portfolio has been the focus of Google (and Bing) for over a year now and the coming update will likely be more of the same.

The art aspect of it all comes down to getting more value out of higher-quality content that can be enjoyed by real people versus meaningless links outside of content or on sites that have no real value to the search engines. Before, it was easy to stuff links on as many sites as possible to get the juice necessary for SEO. It made it to where the science was dominant – automated platforms, bulk link submission tools, and link generating scripts once ruled the search marketing world. Today, one strong article or infographic on a high-value website can get websites more coveted link juice than literally thousands of low quality links. This is where the artistry comes into play.

As businesses and marketing agencies continue to hone their skills and progress their strategies, it’s important that they understand this dynamic. It’s no longer a good thing to have dozens of link builders hitting up websites. Today and into the future, strong content creators with the connections to get their content placed on relevant and trusted sites are the most sought after resources in the industry. Everyone else is simply spamming up the system and Penguin 2.0 will punish those who do not adapt.

There’s a case against Twitter and Pinterest that is being waged by some in the automotive industry. They’ll say that there simply isn’t a good return on investment, that they aren’t worth messing with because it’s just too hard to find a benefit from them. This is true until you look at one major factor: time.

Twitter and Pinterest require very little time to maintain and keep vibrant. Before we get into the ways that dealers can streamline their efforts to make them more suited for a proper ROI, let’s first take a look at the three major aspects of them that make them worthwhile:

1. Time Driven Algorithm – Unlike Facebook and Google+, the Pinterest and Twitter feeds are completely time driven. When you post something, it appears in the feeds of your followers immediately. Over time, they move down. This is a good thing for their purpose because they’re ideal for getting real-time engagement.
2. Communication – At the end of the day, they are great as communication tools. Twitter allows you to communicate with people about ideas and events while Pinterest allows you to communicate visually.
3. Google Loves Them – If there’s one major reason to improve your Twitter and Pinterest posting habits, it’s Google. From a social signals perspective, they are adored.

Now that we have that covered, let’s go over a proper posting and monitoring strategy that can streamline it down so they aren’t a waste of time.

Quick Visit Twice a Day

Three minutes. That’s all it takes to keep a strong Twitter and Pinterest presence. If it helps you sell on car a quarter, it was worth it. If it helps you get your pages indexed and ranked better so that you sell more than one extra car a quarter, you’re seeing better ROI than anything else you could have possibly done.

Log into Twitter. Check for and reply to Direct Messages. Check for and reply to @replies. Post something. It’s 140 characters. It doesn’t take much effort.

Log into Pinterest. Check your recent activity. It will be mostly repins of your posts, but see if there are any comments. Pin or repin something. It’s easy.

That’s it.

Tools

For Twitter, I prefer Buffer. It’s super quick, there’s no need to mess with timing because it uses a queue, and it shortens all of the links for you as you post. The best part is that it can be a Chrome or Firefox plugin which means that you don’t have to visit the app itself. As you’re browsing throughout the day, you can Buffer it very easily.

Regardless of which tool you use, be sure that you keep your queue relatively full. While I don’t recommend planning your Tweets weeks in advance, you can definitely stay ahead of the game so that on days when you simply don’t have the time to mess with it, at least you have content going up.

A quick note about automation – I never recommend feed posting. In other words, setting any RSS feed to autopost, even if it’s your own blog, is a mistake. From sources that you don’t control, feed posts means that your posts aren’t manually vetted. People can tell. It also means that if someone makes a mistake and posts something that is either inappropriate or a mistake, your feed posting program will get it onto your Twitter feed regardless. I remember seeing a car dealer Tweet a post that said something to the effect of “Empire Avenue verification post 2342hkhk!kj32&hh”.

Regarding your own blog, you should be posting it to Twitter manually. It’s your content so you should highlight it appropriately. Use hashtags. Ask for feedback. Make the title more Twitter-appropriate. It bugs me when people auto-feed their own blog posts because it saved them seconds while costing them an opportunity to truly highlight the important content appropriately.

Lastly, don’t feed your Facebook page posts onto Twitter or visa versa. Not everything that goes on Facebook is appropriate for Twitter. More importantly, it simply doesn’t save much time. If you post something to Facebook that also works on Twitter, do it manually. Seconds, folks. That’s all it takes.

* * *

They don’t take much time. There’s simply no reason to not include Twitter and Pinterest into your social media strategy. Done properly, they can enhance more than just your social presence. They can help with your website rankings, your blog traffic, and the general perceptions that people have about your dealership. We didn’t even get into the more advanced ways that you can use these sites to promote your business. At this point, I’d be happy if dealers were simply using them on a regular basis.

Everyone who plays in the Facebook page strategy game has their opinions about the types of content to post. Car dealers and vendors have tried different things over the years. Some have found success while others have let it fall off completely, dismissing it as unimportant or too time-consuming to mess with on a daily basis.

For those who are doing well or wanting to do well with engagement on their pages while still demonstrating real ROI, here are some content types that have worked well for us. It’s important to mix things up on Facebook. Fan fatigue happens regularly, especially when a dealer or vendor finds a particular type of content that works well. They tend to favor this type of content in their posts. Some even go so far as to post only one type of content such as cool cars. Your fans watch. They know. By the 10th car in a row, they start to get tired of seeing them regardless of how cool they are. Mixing it up is important.

While there are definitely more than three content types that can be effective, the three below are the ones we’ve found that can account for the vast majority of your posts and still keep your fan base growing, liking, and generally engaging with your page in their news feed.

Local Content

It’s extremely important to understand that this type of content only works well if your page has been built with mostly local fans. We’ve covered before that nearly all of your fans should be local, that having too many fans out of the area can actually hurt your ability to use Facebook for marketing to real buyers. If your fan base is not over 90% localized, you should get that fixed before posting a bunch of local content.

Once you have that established, it’s time to take advantage of what you have around you. The local area is always loaded with interesting places to visit, amazing places to photograph, and intriguing people to highlight. This should be the focus of your localized social media posts.

Local places are easy. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a major metro or out in the country. The people around you area like to see the local area highlighted on Facebook and they appreciate the businesses that do the highlighting. In the example above, we were given an easy pitch to hit. The fans are completely localized (they had 26 fans when we started so we had a clean slate with which to play) and the area is a gorgeous one: Honolulu. As a result, getting nearly 400 likes on the post was a piece of cake and didn’t require a huge amount of Facebook ad spend to make it happen.

While local places might be the obvious choice, there are others. For example, highlighting other loved local businesses or organizations is easy. A post with a picture of a popular local diner, for example, could lead with “We visit Stan’s Diner every Sunday for the pancakes…” These types of posts won’t be as popular as scenes like the one above, but it’s good to spread the love to others. If they see it (and if you have a strong enough Facebook page, they will) they will appreciate the mention.

Lastly, focusing on local people is always a hit. One popular post we did last year highlighted the three local baseball players at the high school that made the all-state roster. It’s something that can be universally liked by the community, particularly if you’re in a small town.

Automotive Content

Not much needs to be said about this. Being in the automotive arena, there’s never a shortage of “carporn” out there for your fans to ogle over. There can be a temptation to flood your page with this type of content, particularly after you’ve had your first viral post, but don’t get too car picture heavy. Again, fatigue will follow if you do.

Something that a lot of dealers are starting to do is to post helpful tips on subjects such as car maintenance. These are great but again they should be used sparingly. Most people aren’t out there changing their own oil and the internet is loaded with how-tos if they ever get the inclination to do it themselves. An occasional post or a quick tip doesn’t hurt.

Dealership Content

Some dealers do this too much. Some never do it at all. It’s expected of local businesses that they should be at least a little business-centric with their posts. These are often the most important posts because they are intended to drive foot traffic, website traffic, or both.

Doing it too much can put a strain on the algorithm and force your posts to become virtually invisible. It’s not all about “me, me, me,” on Facebook (at least not for businesses) and this will turn people off. They don’t have to report or unfollow you to have a negative algorithmic effect on future posts. If they simply pass over your posts in their news feed without interacting with it, there’s still a negative effect.

One common trend has been to post pictures of happy customers in front of the car they just bought. Doing this too much is a big mistake because of the algorithm. It’s a post that has an isolated chance of getting liked. Remember, just passing over the post is enough to cause some damage to your page and people won’t normally like pictures of people they don’t know. There are definitely ways to make it fun and get people to promote their own images to friends and family, but that’s a longer discussion than we have time for in this post. The short of it is that if you do post images of happy customers, keep it to a minimum.

* * *

As I mentioned above, there are tons of different types of content that can be posted. However, there is also plenty of content that should never be posted. Keep it relevant. Remember, you’re a business and people want to view you as such. Trying to sneak into the conversation by posting funny cat videos is an easy way to turn the wrong people off to your posts.

Over the past several months, we’ve been doing a ton of research in the automotive industry about how dealers perceive social media marketing. It’s something that has both thrilled and alarmed us because the results have been greatly mixed. On one hand, many dealers are starting to realize that social media is more than just a fluffy form of marketing that has not demonstrable ROI, a perception that had been growing in 2011 and 2012. Those tides have turned. However, the one alarming piece of information we discovered is that many dealers are considering social media to be a “checkbox item” for reputation management. In other words, if their reputation management provider offers social media, they’re covered.

Unfortunately, this is a bad trend. There are some pretty strong reputation management services available today. They perform some of the right activities that can be performed on the dealership’s behalf when it comes to getting more positive reviews on sites like Google Local and Yelp. The problem is that most of the social components that we’ve seen in these products and services are lacking quality and true return on investment.

It’s much the same battle that we have fought when it comes to search engine optimization. Almost all web vendors offer SEO, but must are simply not that good at it. Again, SEO should not be a checkbox item for a website any more than an engine should be a checkbox item for a car. Nobody goes out and says, “I like the way the car looks and it has all of the seats that I need. Does it have an engine? Okay, good, I’ll take it!”

Back to social media. The automotive industry has, for some reason, lumped reputation management and social media marketing into the same budget, the same type of product. This is very far from the truth. It’s a little discouraging because the effort put into a proper social media marketing strategy and the campaigns associated with it are of utmost importance and having a social media presence that is not aggressive, that acts as a checkbox to be clicked just to say it’s present for the dealersthip, is a huge mistake. Social media is growing so rapidly in both mindshare and timeshare. More people are on it and thinking about it. They’re spending more time on it than ever before. To dismiss it is a problem.

Reputation management is important. It acts as a way that dealers can protect their potential when it comes to business. People who are actively considering doing business with a dealership can be turned off as a result of bad reviews. It’s not common, but it’s present and should be treated appropriately. If having a strong reputation management service can help to save one or two deals a month, it’s probably worth the investment.

Social media, on the other hand, is proactive. It’s intended to take people and get them into the dealership and/or onto the dealer’s website. Even when it fails to do that, the fallback benefit is in the branding, getting the name and logo of the dealership in front of as many local people as possible as many times as possible to make the dealership a top-of-mind consideration when it’s time to buy a car or have service done.

If anything, reputation management should be the checkbox item. Social media needs much more attention and bad social media marketing partners can do more harm than good. Vet them carefully.

Branding is important. It’s something that most businesses want but few do well enough considering the tools that we all have at our disposal through the internet in general and social media in particular. However, too many are starting to use social media as a branding tool only. The reality for local businesses is that it can and should be used to drive foot traffic and website visitors. Branding should be a secondary benefit, a side-effect of a proper promotional strategy.

Look at the image above. It’s compelling. It’s branded (though not by the company that posted it). It combines the power of the OEM’s brand (this is posted on a Chevrolet dealer’s Facebook page), the trust associated with a partner brand (in this case, Black Book), and the clever wording in the description designed to achieve a goal. In this case, the goal is website traffic to a form that is specific to the message of the post. Here’s how the message reads:

“First and foremost, check out that beautiful Camaro. Once you’re done reminiscing about a body style that didn’t really get the attention it deserved, look down at the bottom left corner. You’ll see a logo that you should trust. We trust it.

“Black Book is the most accurate way to get an idea of what your trade in is worth. Before you go shopping for a new car, prepare yourself with knowledge about your own trade in… http://bit.ly/13nyr5E“

At the end is the call to action, of course. Sometimes it’s good to make the link the focus of the post. In this case, because it’s a permanent page (a trade in evaluation tool) and not a time-sensitive landing page surrounding a short-term event, it’s best to hook the viewers with the image and description, then give them a valid and relevant reason to click through to the website itself.

After 18 hours and with the bulk of the Facebook advertising budget still available, it’s at 48 likes and has been seen by 1,300 people. Both numbers will go up in the coming days, as will the number of clicks to the link.

The challenge facing most who attempt posts like these is getting them enough localized traction. There are some posts that are good for branding that have no call to action. Even in those cases, the goal is to massage the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm to favor the page’s posts and display them in more news feeds. Those posts are primarily designed to enhance the success of the “money posts”, the ones with a specific promotional message designed to drive foot traffic or website visitors. If every post that goes up is a “money post”, the algorithm will start kicking the posts down on the feed. If all of the posts are “fun posts” designed strictly for branding and popularity, the point of using social media for business is lost.

Branding-only strategies are easy, which is why many businesses and even marketing agencies focus on them. It allows for intangible benefits. It also makes the success level much harder to track.

As you develop your strategy and campaigns, keep this post in mind. You can definitely have some fun and feel like you’re accomplishing something with a branding-only strategy. Unfortunately, it’s not the way to make social media really hum for your business.

Facebook has been a challenging venue for marketers and advertisers ever since it started really getting popular in 2009. At that time, it was clear that it was the social network to beat and the company started trying to cash in with different types of advertising options. Most of them failed miserably for the same reason that many marketers continue to fail today: people go to Facebook to be entertained, not to be the recipient of ads.

Today, it’s getting easier. People are more accepting of ads. A lot of it can be attributed to the way that Facebook has handled their promoted posts. They have done an excellent (some would say Draconian) job of keeping messages off of news feeds that are too promotional. Between the manual vetting they do of ads and the 20% text rule they apply to images, they’ve been able to keep a relatively strong balance between letting advertisers get their message out and keeping their users happy through minimized spam.

When it comes to putting out a message that resonates, that users can enjoy while still getting the promotional message out, businesses (local ones in particular) should consider adding a touch of fun and flair to their posts. In the example above, the goal of the car dealership in question is to promote their oil change special. There are a couple of different ways to go about doing this. They can make it a Facebook offer which can be very effective if the special is a true Facebook-only special. They could make it an event, but they would have to really make it a true event for that to work and few people would consider car maintenance an event. They could be direct – post about the special and throw some ad money at it. This is not recommended as the negative sentiment would murder the page’s EdgeRank.

In this case, they added the localized and timely flair of focusing on a wonderful aspect of living by the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It’s spring and people are thinking about what they’re going to do when school is out, when vacation time comes, and when the weather is in a state of awesomeness that they can venture forth and enjoy the world. The message is clear and ends with the “pitch”:

“Spring in Waynesville, NC. You know what that means, right? Time to plan a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“Before heading out, make sure your ride is in “Mountain Ready” condition. Here’s an oil change special just for your trip…”

By positioning it in a way that takes a positive aspect of local life and applying the marketing message at that point, it allows for the post to flourish. Even though the page itself has around 700 fans, it was liked by 80 people, shared by 3, and commented on by several. Branding was achieved. Positive sentiment was achieved. The link to the special itself on their website received a nice amount of clicks. Most importantly, the message was seen by around 10,000 locals.

There’s a fine line between tricking people into interacting with a post to click on an advertisement and actually engaging with them on their terms and getting the message to them as a result. Using local flair is one of the easiest ways to make this happen.

A mobile strategy is not just for the dealership, it's for you too!

It ‘s no secret that smartphones have become a part of our daily lives. A part of everyones lives and when I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE! From Seniors citizens, to 1st graders. Everyone is rocking the smartphone. 

I know what you dealer principals, GMs and other industry "big wigs" are saying…." We need to have a mobile strategy no shit " and your right at this stage in the game you better but what I am about to go into is not for you. This is for the automotive professional who is on the front line hopefully building his/her business. 

Sales pros this is a step to running your own business. Being a entrepreneur, a Showroom Executive.

Mobile/Smartphone statistics

Mobile now accounts for 10% of internet usage worldwide (this has more than doubled over last 18months) (The Next Web)

• 1.08 of the world’s 4 billion mobile phones are smartphones

• Apple and Android represent more than 75% of the smartphone market

• 7.96% of all web traffic in the U.S. is mobile traffic. That number skyrockets to 14.85% in Africa, and 17.84% in Asia — up 192.5% since 2010

• 29% of mobile users are open to scanning a mobile tag to get coupons

• 39% of instances where a consumer walks out of a store without buying were influenced by smartphones

• 91% of mobile internet access is for social activities, versus just 79% on desktops (Source: Hubspot)

• Over 1/3 of Facebook’s users access Facebook Mobile; 50% of Twitter’s users use Twitter Mobile

• QR code scans increased 300% in 2011 compared to 2010

• The average tablet user spends 13.9 hours per week with the device

• 73% of smartphone owners access social networks through apps at least once per day (Source:Hubspot)

• There was 103% growth in website traffic from smartphones from 2011-2012

• US consumers spend almost 1 in every 10 e commerce dollars using a mobile device (Source:Hubspot)

• There are currently 6 Billion mobile subscribers worldwide

• This equals 87% of the world’s population

• China and India account for 30% of this growth

• There are over 1.2 Billion people accessing the web from their mobiles

• Over 300,000 apps have been developed in the past 3 year

• Google earns 2.5 Billion in mobile ad revenue annually (Source Digital Buzz Blog)

And that trend is even venturing over to car buying. People aren’t just using their phones to login to Facebook or check their emails.

EBay Motors, a division of eBay Inc., did a study of millennials, that’s young people, and found that more than a third used their mobile phone to help research pricing and other factors while on dealer black tops. That’s compared to 19% for other age categories.

So what does this have to do with being a Automotive Professional you might be asking? 

Well people buy from people. These days you need to somehow get in front of your prospective buyer. There are a few ways to do that:

1.Advertise to get new prospects (Whether it be online, newspaper, etc.)

2.Keep a good relationship with existing customers to build repeat business.

3.To get existing customers to refer you to their friends, families, co-workers etc. 

Now lets look at this.

The cheapest way of getting extra business is by building up a good relationship, providing great service and showing your customers that you care.

The question is how do you get in front of them. Well if you have done a good job of building your relationships then your existing customers will refer you to their friends.

How is this done? Usually they hand out a card or maybe its just word of mouth and the prospect is left to look up your number online.

Well what about this idea. Get a premium mobile friendly website. It will work on any phone, or device that can access the internet. 

On your business card you hand out, have a QR code that someone can scan which then links them through to a video of you right their in your mobile website.

It can have tap– to-call. Tap-to-email. It can have a map of where the dealership is so they know how to find you.

It can be loaded with 100’s of photos of each customer you have ever sold a car too.

It can have video testimonials from existing customers telling prospects what it is like dealing with you and why they would recommend you.

It can have video walk arounds of you doing a review on a number of cars. 

It can have a contact form so that people can send you there details and any comments.

They can share your mobile site to Facebook, Twitter and or email it to a friend. (Much better then sending a business card.)

It can have other photos albums of new cars with videos of those cars and all their specs.

The ideas are endless of what you can do with a mobile website.

When you think about it who doesn’t have a phone these days?

What younger generation person doesn’t have a phone these days. They are all over it with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc

That’s where you want to be. You want to be in front of their eyeballs.

Your premium mobile website is like an interactive business card. It’s your marketing tool that you can keep updating and getting circulated.

To see what a premium mobile website looks like check out mine at  "http://m.yourhyundaiguy.com" http://m.yourhyundaiguy.com once you see that it will give some ideas and then with your own imagine added to it you will have the best marketing tool to crush it.

Not all mobile websites are the same just like not all cars are the same. With mobile you want something that is gong to work on all devices and is designed with the latest mobile technology.

Mobile is your next big move as a "Showroom Executive". If you do not already have your website up, you need to knock that out before you kick your mobile strategy in gear in my opinion. 

Building brands and marketing strategies are very much a passion of mine so any automotive professionals reading AutoSuccess Magazine please feel free to contact me for a strategy session. 

You can find me on the internet!

Robert Wiesman

For years, the acquisition of a bigger, “better” Facebook page has been a focus of many in the social media marketing realm. There are companies that are dedicated to the task. The reality now (and for a long time, actually) is that fan acquisition for business Facebook pages is such a minor piece of the puzzle that it’s something most businesses should push to the back burner. It’s not that you don’t need them at all, but the success of a Facebook page is determined by reach and fans are only a small part of the equation.

When someone likes a page, they have the potential of seeing your posts. For better or for worse, Facebook has made it challenging for the majority of your fans to actually see your posts on their news feed. They have to really, really like your posts a lot for them to appear on their news feed without help, which causes a chicken and egg conundrum. They have to see your posts to be able to like, share, or comment on them, but they need to like, share, or comment on them before they start seeing them in their news feed, at least organically.

This is where Facebook ads come into play, but there are distinct challenges there as well. Those who discover the reach potential of Facebook ads often make the mistake of promoting the wrong content. It’s not just about posting the “fun” stuff naturally and using Facebook ads to boost the promotional content. That is only effective until the content starts getting negative feedback. Remember, every time someone is presented with the content and chooses not to interact with it, that’s a bad thing.

A common series of events with Facebook ads looks like this:

1. A user tries Facebook ads for the first time and their reach explodes for very little money spent.
2. The content wasn’t super-viral and while it gets more interactions than most of the page’s content, it doesn’t do well in relation to the people it reached.
3. Over time, the Facebook ad budget starts to yield reduced results. Hundreds of thousands reached becomes tens of thousands, then thousands.
4. Budgets go up but engagement and reach stay stagnant.

Play the ad game the right way with EdgeRank in mind. That’s an entire other post. For now, let’s get back to reach versus fans.

Here’s an example of an above-average car dealer’s Facebook reach statistics:

In this example, you see that they’ve done a pretty good job of keeping it local. They have a page for their dealership in the Los Angeles area with around 4K fans. They post good, engaging content regularly. Their reach isn’t bad for an organic-only strategy.

Here’s an example of how a properly managed Facebook page should look for a local business. In this case, it’s a car dealership in Waynesville, NC:

The targeting is hyper-localized. They’re getting almost all of their views and engagement from within a 50-mile radius and the vast majority within a 20-mile radius.

They have around 700 fans.

Getting fans is important, but it’s only important in that it helps to expand a page’s reach. It isn’t who likes your page. It’s who sees the posts. The more people you can get to see your posts, the more effective your social media campaigns can be. Fans are part of it. Ads are part of it. Content is part of it. Putting together the exact right mix of the three is one of the biggest keys to success.

As JD and others have pointed out, the almighty Google is altering the game with Penguin 2.0.  No longer are the 'Top Tier" SEO experts going to be able to manipulate search in the way they used to.  We are now, more than ever, going to have to come up with "fresh" content.  Notice I said fresh CONTENT, not necessarily fresh TOPICS.  Let's use our sheer numbers and help each other out.  I don't know about the rest of you, but one of the challenges of unique content is not one of creativity, but consistency.  I have the greatest ideas for blog content.....for about one week.  Then, like my desire to excercise and eat right, it fades.  I know that everyone on this site has plenty of time to set around and inspire the right side of your brain to come up with new topics, right? 

No.

Here's where this site comes in.  For those who wish to participate, here's what I'm asking.

As a reply to this post, list as many content subjects as you can.

If we get some good participation, we could all have a healthy list of ideas.

Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up. —Oliver Wendell Holmes

Just topics, please.

Ex.

5 Easy things to do to your trade in to increase it's value!

The Top 3 Reasons to use Synthetic Motor Oil!

5 Things your Company can do for your community!

Danny Benites

In the early days of search engine optimization, the pitch that many companies used was very appealing. “We’ll get you listed on thousands of search engines so that everyone can find you.”

Today, this seems like a ludicrous statement. There’s only three real search engines that account for 97% of the search traffic and it’s been like that for some time, but back as recently as 2008, many companies were still pushing automated search engine submission as their primary selling point for search engine optimization. The same thing is happening today, only with social media.

There are companies out there promoting the concept of building and maintain profiles on dozens of social media sites. This is a joke on many levels. First, the majority of social media sites are not profile-driven. In other words, having a presence on them is only somewhat useful based on high levels of activity on the feeds and interactions with other users. The profiles of individual businesses themselves are never seen, never show up in search, and not viewed from the site itself. Second, any time a profile is associated with lightly trafficked social sites, there’s an additional chance of failure. Smaller sites get hacked. They go dormant. They get shuttered. There’s no good reason to have these sites because of the potential negatives associated with them.

The most important reason to dismiss these sites is that they’re simply padding. Businesses often like bulk. They like knowing that they have all of their bases covered. Unfortunately, the majority of social media sites out there are simply not bases that need to be covered. Why pay to have a presence someplace that is useless? It’s just fluff. It’s filler. It’s a way to say, “look, you get more out of our social media service because we give you dozens of social sites!”

There are four must-have social media profiles for the sake of engagement and three others that are relevant for different reasons. That’s it. The rest is just part of a sales pitch.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest

These sites are necessary components of social media marketing for just about any business. They are where the action is currently happening. They bring value from a search perspective and are well-visited by people when they search for businesses by name because they actually have a chance of ranking.

Most importantly, there’s engagement potential. Properly managed, these four sites are where 99% of the social interactions can occur. It is a focused strategy that does not look at fluff as a primary sales tool and focuses on the things that actually matter in social media.

YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs, and others

YouTube is a channel. It’s a place where businesses can expose their message. LinkedIn is the professional component. It’s a measure for recruiting, a venue for public relations, and an excellent place to display the nuts and bolts of a company. While it’s arguable that it can be beneficial for B2B companies, it should not be utilized as a venue to attract B2C prospects.

Blogs are the personal repository for business communication that does not happen through video.

With blogs and YouTube, it could be argued that they are social media sites in that they are content-driven and attract eyeballs, but in reality they are monologue components of the marketing strategy. Yes, people can comment on them so technically dialogue can happen there, but it’s an internal dialogue. When blog posts or videos are shared on the above-mentioned four social sites, the dialogue can truly happen.

“Others” are the sites that are potentially valuable but not absolutely necessary for success. Tumblr, Foursquare, Chime.in, Flickr – these are sites that can bring value and should be considered by companies that have all of the above profiles humming and running on all cylinders, but are often a distraction otherwise. Also included in “others” would be the rising social sites. Yes, there are still websites and services that have potential to become players and they should be monitored, but putting effort into them in the early stages is not prudent. For every Pinterest that we put early-adopter effort into, there’s others that nobody has ever heard of that wasted time.

A quick note on automation

This is a debatable topic and I respect those who disagree, but the concept of running the smaller social sites through automation is a bad idea in my books. Yes, it’s possible to create a social profile, then hook it into a feed or other posting protocol that allows hands-free social integration. Some use this as the reasoning behind having dozens or hundreds of social profiles. “I build it and then I let it run itself.”

That’s appealing, but it’s also dangerous. Again, these sites get hacked. They become devalued. They get overrun with spam. They fall off completely. The risks are greater than the rewards.

* * *

Social media done right has the potential to help businesses advance their marketing and improve their customer communications. It should not be viewed in the terms of “more is better.” A proper social media strategy puts all efforts into venues that count. Otherwise, it’s just fluff to help a sales pitch.

I could go on and on and fill pages on what you should do if you are going to be successful in converting service customers to sales prospects. Instead, here is a proven three step process to help get you a couple of deals before the month ends.

1. Look for customers who are driving 2005-2010 vehicles. While you can technically sell anyone, this is about putting "first things first". Ask your Service Manager for a list of appointments and don't forget the Quick Lube customers as well.

2. Be a "One Minute Salesperson". Start by telling the customer how nice their vehicle is. Always start out with something positive, or an "emotional deposit". That will prep them for listening to what you have to say.

3. Let them know your Used Car manager is looking for a car almost exactly like the one they own. Ask them this million dollar question: "If I could get you more for it than it's worth, would you consider trading it in?"

The worst case is you hand them your business card and make a friend. Our records show that every customer who takes you up on your offer will buy a car 50% of the time and pay all the money. You might be uncomfortable at first, but it will get easier, especially when you "begin with the end in mind-A SALE!!!!!"

It's all up to you.....

I was moderating a small panel at a conference about two and a half years ago that focused on Facebook fans. The two panelists represented the two different sides of Facebook promotion at the time: one focused on local quality fans and the other focused on bulk fans. After the debate, one might have called it a draw. That was over two years ago. Today, there’s really only one side that deserves any representation at all. Local businesses should focus solely on getting local fans, period. To get a broad reach of fans outside of the market area as a local business can do more harm than good.

Only one side of the argument “deserves’ to be mentioned today, but unfortunately that’s not the case. There are still plenty of companies out there that try to use contests or other incentives to coax people to like their pages. Some even purchase fans. Both methods are antiquated.

Don’t Reach Too Far

This is still very prominent today and it needs to go away. No games. No giveaways. Get that our of your head. You don’t need to get fans that way.

To the right, you’ll see a standard demographic breakdown from a Facebook page we recently took over. They had been growing their fan base through contests for some time. Despite the fact that the drawing for a free iPad required that the winner had to come to the car dealership to pick it up, there were still hundreds of entries in the form of likes on the page that came from outside of the area, even outside of the country. I know that iPads are great and all but nobody’s going to hop on a plane to get the iPad they won.

Fan growth can and should be organic and transparent. We’ve had extreme success with stating the absolute truth. In one example, we took over a car dealership Facebook page in Honolulu that had 26 total fans. Three months later, they have over a thousand and their demographic composite is exactly what we want it to be:

Other than the four people in Cincinnati dreaming of living in Hawaii, the likes we’ve built have been completely localized. The goal should be that every person who follows you on Facebook should be within driving distance of becoming a customer. Some would argue that you can expand your reach beyond the immediate local area, but in the vast majority of America, keeping it hyper-local is the way to go. It isn’t just about focus, either. It’s about exposure. Your brand needs to be seen by as many locals as possible and the easiest way to do this is to make sure that only locals are following you.

Don’t “Coax” Fan Growth

Here’s the thing. People will follow businesses. It has been proven time and time again that people are willing to follow businesses if they give them a valid reason to do so. A contest is not a valid reason. Getting the latest funny cat pictures is not a valid reason. The latest Facebook game is not a valid reason.

The valid reason that you’re looking for is all around you. You’re the expert in your field. People come to you and trust that you know what you’re talking about when it pertains to your business. If you’re a car dealer, you know cars. Period. Your content should reflect a deep understanding of the automotive industry, your brands, the local area, and your customers.

Present it just like that. There’s no need to promise that you’re going to be interesting. Promise tangible things that pertain to your business. For example, you can advertise that your Facebook page is “The home of the most important Chevrolet news, pictures, and videos that pertain to you, Honolulu.”

It works. We know. We’ve seen it in action.

When people like your page because they think they can win something, play a game, or perform any action that has nothing to do with your business, they will not be engaged. If they’re not engaged, they’re wasted fans. Having fans that are not engaged kills your EdgeRank and makes your actual business-relevant messages and branding invisible to your audience. I cannot stress this enough. In the future, I’ll compile a blog post that proves beyond a doubt that this is true, but for now, you’re just going to have to take my word for it.

When Your Fans Are Local, You’ll Reach More Locals

This is arguably the hardest thing to do on Facebook when a page has been algorithmically damaged by poor strategies. Getting the algorithm to like you again takes time, but it can happen. It’s a healing process.

In the example above, it’s clear to see where the engagement is happening. By keeping the page completely local, we’re able to more easily target the dealership’s message towards those who can come buy a car, get their oil changed, or interact in some way with the dealership.

This isn’t a large dealership. It’s not a large Facebook page. In fact, it has around 700 fans. Thankfully, those 700 fans are engaged and we’re able to reach the local audience with their message much more easily than if they had fans spread out across the country or around the world. That’s the key to all of this. By keeping it local, you can reach the people that matter. Unless you’re Dell or Skittles, chances are that you aren’t going for a global audience. Make sure your Facebook page reflects this concept.

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We work to make money. That’s the point. While many of us find fulfillment through our work, it still normally comes down to money as the driving force that gets us up in the morning, puts us in our cars, and heads us down the road to our job. While money might be the motivating factor for having a job, it’s not the most important motivator for keeping employees happy.

In this infographic we created for Salesforce, we explored many of the factors that keep employees happy and working at their peak levels of performance. While 56% of senior managers thought their company was above average at delivering appropriate appreciation, only 23% of their employees agreed.

Take a long look at this graphic. If you’re not the boss, maybe you should send this link to them as a not-so-subtle hint of information they could use to make them better at their own jobs.

Along with a total revamp of Maps, Google has announced at I/O, the forum and their blog the return to a 5 star review system. You can request an invite to the new Maps here. From their blog post:

Users who opt-in to the new Google Maps will now rate businesses on a scale that ranges from one to five stars. The system maintains the precision of the former 30 point scale while improving the readability and accessibility of the business listings. Your customers will be able to find up-to-date, accurate information on your business faster than ever. As a business owner, you’ll notice that past ratings have been mapped to the five star system.

Here is how the new scores are now calculated:

poor/fair = 2 stars
good = 3 stars
very good = 4 stars
excellent = 5 stars

Some other notes from Google:

• Users on legacy Maps, mobile (Android + iOS), Google+, Google.com, and other properties will continue to see 30 point ratings for several more weeks
  • If a user is opted into the New Google Maps and clicks on a “more reviews” they will be taken to a plus page where they will see the 5 star ratings
  • However, if the same user had just navigated to the page from plus.google.com they would see 30 point scale
  • Note that users just searching on google.com not coming from New Google Maps will continue to see the old results.
• Google will no longer be asking users to rate on specific dimensions/aspects. For example, for restaurants users will no longer rate the “food”, “decor” and “service”.
  • Google will show just one overall score (they used an algorithm to translate the food/decor/service scores into a blended overall score).

To the dismay of many, Google replaced the yellow stars with the Zagat system in May, 2012 when Google rolled Places pages into Plus. It was clear from August of last year that Google was testing a return to the 5 Star system and they were never removed from local AdWords display.

The current iteration of stars appear to be universally red and it seems that they will roll out to all properties over the next few months. The new “Places” results that were spotted earlier will apparently be the results seen when visited from the new Maps interface.

Original article from Mike Blumenthal

Jerry Hart
President
eReputationBUILDER
Schedule a free demo

After nearly two decades in the Automotive Industry it still amazes me when a sales person is out there walking through features like a robot...emotionless...cold.

When I was a Nissan Manager I had a great guy on my team named Bruce. Bruce was a genius and he could tell you the inner workings of the Maxima's engine and how and why everything did what it did but Bruce, like many other intellectual giants, couldn't close a self closing cabinet door because often times he missed the most important piece of the puzzle.

He forgot to find out what made his customers happy. 

Why is it so important to find out what makes the customer happy? DUH! If you don't know what makes them happy, you won't know why they aren't happy with their current vehicle anymore which means you won't know how to help them see how the new vehicle is going to make them HAPPY AGAIN!

No matter what product someone is buying, they're really buying the a hope of how this product is going to make them happier than they are right now in this moment. When they say "yes" to the product or service it's not because the 'value' is there on an intellectual level... it's because the VALUE is there on an EMOTIONAL level.

Find out what makes someone happy so you can tailor your next presentation to show HOW your product can make them happy again.

Mat Koenig
CEO of KonigCo
Partner in AutoOption.com A Better Option for Dealers Coming June 1st

http://www.internetsales20group.com
http://dealersynergy.com/
http://makemoneymondays.net/

Make Money Mondays -  Orphan Owners

Sean V. Bradley talks about how sales leads left behind by customer sales reps who have left the company are opportunities that need not be left behind.

Facebook has been a promising venue through which to market a dealership ever since it reached a high level of popularity back in 2008. Back then, it was just breaking the hundred million user level and was showing signs that it would be able to be business-friendly in contrast to its rival MySpace. Now, it’s 10 times bigger and commands more time of humans than any other website.

The problem is that it’s not the easiest marketing platform to master. Unlike Google, Twitter, and other players that are used on a daily basis, Facebook has algorithms that keep dealers from finding success. Google has an algorithm, of course, but because people go to it to find businesses, they make it very easy for those willing to pay money or play by the optimization rules to get the exposure they need. On Facebook, users aren’t going there to engage with businesses so trying to “sneak in” marketing and advertising is an act that goes contrary to the desires of the users. This is why the algorithm can be so harsh.

It’s difficult, but it’s not impossible. There is plenty of advice on the internet that tells businesses and marketers how to have success on Facebook. Unfortunately, some of it is poor advice. Others are simply antiquated. Most make general assumptions. There aren’t very many specifics that small businesses can use to make an impact.

The best way for a local business to move the needle is to get to a point of local exposure and built up trust that allows them to give their marketing messages exposure and that promotes communication with customers and potential customers through the network itself. Accomplishing this takes a process.

The first three steps in the process are the easiest, the ones that can all be described in a single blog post. The stages beyond the first three get much more complex, not because they’re so much harder but because they become very specific to the goals of the dealership as well as the personality of the team. We can’t go into those, but the first three should be enough to get you going:

1. Grow locally

Here’s the bad news. If you have accumulated a ton of fans outside of your market area, there’s a good chance that you’ll have to dump everyone and start over. It’s not fun. It’s not easy (unless your following is so extended that you have to delete the page altogether and start from scratch – that’s easy). It can be one of the most gut-wrenching decisions you’ll ever make pertaining to your social media marketing, particularly if you’ve been doing it for years. All that effort, wasted. It hurts.

The good news is that building back up from scratch isn’t as hard as most think. It requires money – Facebook advertising is the best way to get a local following built up – but not much. Many businesses are already through this stage and can boast having a mostly-localized following. Regardless of how you get there, this is the first step – get your following up to acceptable level.

2. Get engagement

This is always the scariest piece of advice and the most challenging stage to implement. First, the term “engagement” is so overused and misunderstood. To so many, it means cats. The internet is loaded with cats. People post pictures of cats all the time. It seems like a great place to start.

On a local business page, there should be no cats allowed unless you’re building a page for a veterinarian.

Every business has some sort of relevant content that can be posted. No business is so boring that they can’t find interesting things to post that pertain to what they do. This is paramount – car dealers should be posting cars, automotive tips, and localized events because that’s what the people who liked their page expect. There’s no need to get too clever. Strong content doesn’t have to be contrived. It doesn’t have to be shared from George Takei’s awesome Facebook page.

Keep it organic. Keep it real. Keep it relevant. Your fans will like it and become engaged (whatever that really means).

3. Earn the right to market

There was a question asked on a forum about how to judge success on a Facebook page. They had built up to a nice number of fans. Their fans were mostly localized. They had engaging content on the page (though there were some cat-like posts that we don’t recommend, but otherwise it wasn’t bad). Now, they wanted to see where the ROI was.

Unfortunately, there was none, at least not that was noticeable. They had made it through to stage three but hadn’t taken it to the next level.

Facebook users aren’t as silly as we often believe. They don’t like a local business page without the understanding that they’ll likely see some marketing materials cross their feed from time to time. If they don’t want the marketing content, they wouldn’t like a business in the first place.

Some take this to the extreme and post only marketing stuff. This is a huge mistake based upon what was mentioned above – the algorithm. Marketing content does not perform very well under most circumstances, so having only marketing content won’t work. You’ll lose fans. You’ll move down in the news feed based upon poor EdgeRank. You’ll be broadcasting messages that nobody will ever see.

In stage three, local businesses have to earn the right to post marketing content by doing a couple of things. First, they have to be very proficient at step 2 and have an audience that is engaged. Then, they have to craft their marketing content in a way that can get the message out there while doing minimal damage to EdgeRank or following. There is no way to post marketing content that won’t turn some people off. You simply want to minimize the damage. Done right, there are more positive effects to EdgeRank from the right marketing material than any of the negatives that are bound to happen.

It must be timed appropriately. That timing is based upon the activities on the page on a regular basis, but the right mix of conversational and converting content should be worked in. Too much and you lose too many fans. Too little and there’s no ROI. Finding the right mix is the key and it’s something that must be diagnosed on an individual basis rather than prompted in a blog post.

* * *

These are just the first three stages. There are more, but again they are really dependent on more factors than that can be described in a post. Whatever you do, don’t jump ahead. Engaging content is worthless if you have 20 fans. Marketing content is worthless if you have the fans but they’re not engaged. If you start here, you can get to the next level which is true return on investment. You have to start somewhere.