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VALUE OF TIME

This is part 2 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:

1. Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy
2. Facebook Marketing Goals: The Safe Approach
3. Facebook Marketing Goals: The Aggressive Approach
4. Facebook Marketing Goals: More Aggressive Approaches

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Setting goals on Facebook is extremely important. As I wrote last night, it’s the root cause of one of the biggest challenges businesses are facing in Facebook marketing: a lack of a proper strategy. If you don’t know where you want to go, you won’t be able to get there very easily.

There are two primary approaches to setting a Facebook strategy that I’ve put in the boring categories of “safe” and “aggressive”. Here, we’re going to go over some of the safe approaches to Facebook that businesses can employ if they want to be truly successful in their goal-oriented strategy. These aren’t my favorites; I’m an aggressive goal-setter. Still, they may be the best way for your business to operate on Facebook.

Goal: PR-Only

Social media has the potential to be an amazing communication tool when done right. It is the best way to have a two-way public relations presence. You can get your messages out and mold the perception of your company’s personality the way you see fit while having an open method through which people can reach you. PR should always be a portion of every Facebook strategy.

There is an option of using it strictly for public relations. This is the easiest way to go. It’s the least productive goal to set, but it’s by far the safest approach and easiest to implement. If your company either does not believe in the value of using Facebook to reach more customers or you don’t have the time to implement an aggressive strategy, the PR-only approach is ideal.

In essence, this goal is to use Facebook sparingly. You aren’t going for visibility. You’re using it for defense only. Growth in the local market isn’t important. You aren’t playing the EdgeRank game nor are you advertising on Facebook at all. With this approach, the only audience that concerns you come from two sources: your website and the search engines.

With the PR-only approach, you play it very safe. You can post sparingly – once or twice a week is plenty (no less than that, though) – and finding content is easy because it doesn’t have to be viral. It technically doesn’t even have to be interesting. It’s an expression of your company’s personality to a limited audience. You can post links to your blog, pictures from the office, industry news, congratulations to employees, customer testimonials, etc.

Because you’re not worried about exposure, you don’t have to worry about getting into your fans’ news feeds. Those who want to get a feel for your company will be able to find it in searches for your name on Google or Bing as well as by clicking on the link that you post on your website and blog. You’re painting a picture with no fears of hurting your affinity and limited worries about getting negative feedback on your posts. Very few people will see it, but those who do have the opportunity to get a good feeling about your company because you’re not taking risks.

Again, and I cannot stress this enough, you will not be reaching people with this strategy. You will have a presence for those who want to find you, but there will be no growth, no additional leads or sales, no engagement, and you won’t be popping up in news feeds. The PR-only approach is a way to hide from all of the potential negatives in social media while still maintaining a presence that isn’t embarrassing. It’s as safe as it gets.

Goal: Basic Presence

This is similar to the PR-only approach, but there’s a chance that it can expose the brand to some additional people. Not many. You won’t be saying a lot but you will be interesting enough to get a little love.

If your goal is to have a basic presence, there are several strategies that can work. One of the easiest is to go with the daily industry picture. This strategy is extremely easy and maintains your presence without much effort. You simply schedule an image that’s relevant to your industry once a day, every day. That’s it. A Jeep dealer would post an image of a Jeep once a day. You can’t mess it up.

This goal is not one that will allow for much growth, but the chances of it ever hurting you are limited. Much like the PR-only approach, having a basic presence is designed mostly for those who find you on search or get directed to the Facebook page from you website. Because it’s likely going to be images that are of interest to your visitors, there’s a chance they might like some of them and get you an EdgeRank boost that can push your posts into news feeds.

This is the most common goal for local businesses today. Ironically, it’s the one that many wrongly classify as aggressive since they’re stepping outside of the bounds of pure business needs and trying to entertain their audience. The reason that this classification is wrong is because it’s still much safer than posting messages. Being fun isn’t necessarily aggressive. It can be, but we’ll discuss that type of goal in the next post.

Goal: Be the Industry Resource

Of all the safe goals, this is the one that requires the most effort. You’re trying to share your knowledge within your industry to your fans. Using the Jeep dealer example, they would be posting tips to maintain a 4WD when it’s not used very often, for example.

This goal can be ramped up more than other safe goals because you’re trying to bring value to the table. Facebook ads can work and this goal can help with branding and public perception if you stay consistent with it. In fact, you can get very active and appreciative fans as the industry resource. There’s a chance that you can build some decent EdgeRank and get shared amongst your target audience.

It takes work. Those who are conservative with their goals but want to be aggressive with the implementation of the strategy will be constantly researching to find more resources to either create or share from other sources. It’s an excellent approach if you have a matching blog with tips and best practices.

Those setting this as their goal do not have to post every day. In fact, once or twice a week can work just as it can with the PR-only approach, but never let your page go dormant for longer than a week. If you have to repost something with a slightly different spin in the description, that’s better than missing a week of posts.

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There are other safe goals out there, but for local businesses if you want to play defense and maintain a presence without spending too much effort keeping it up, these are the best ways that we’ve found to work. The social media game is all about ROI, so if your investment is low, the expected returns can be low as well. When playing it safe, you don’t have to be loved or even liked that much. You just have to be present.

Tomorrow, I’ll go over the aggressive goals that are (to me) much more fun but that also encompass more risk. Playing with Facebook from an aggressive posture takes time and effort and there’s a risk that the returns won’t justify the expenditures. However, there’s also a tremendous opportunity to move the needle.

This is part 1 of 4 in an ADM series about setting Facebook goals:

1. Define Your Facebook Goals Before Determining a Strategy
2. Facebook Marketing Goals: The Safe Approach
3. Facebook Marketing Goals: The Aggressive Approach
4. Facebook Marketing Goals: More Aggressive Approaches

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About a month ago I was asked when speaking before a group about what I thought the biggest mistake was that businesses were making on Facebook. I replied, “lack of coherent strategy” and went on about how too many business pages seemed like they were posting for the sake of posting, that they didn’t appear to moving in any particular direction, and that they were managing their social media presence on a day to day basis. If I could take back the answer (or better yet, elaborate further), I would.

I was wrong.

The actual biggest mistake that businesses are making starts a step before the strategy phase and would, in most cases, cure the ills that businesses are suffering with their strategy (or lack thereof). It really comes down to goals and the fact that most businesses are not defining their goals from the beginning nor are they adjusting them as their Facebook presence expands. THIS is the actual biggest mistake that they’re making. To those who heard me speak last month about this, I’m sorry to not give the most appropriate answer.

Every Facebook page should have a goal or set of goals that they want to achieve. Many will give the quick answer and say that their goal is to reach as many prospective customers and clients as possible, but this isn’t a real goal. Even in reach, it’s important to establish why you want to reach them and what messages you want them to receive. Are you wanting to reach them with your sales and marketing messages? Are you wanting them to see your logo and expand your branding? Are you wanting them to see that you’re involved in the various local and industry-specific conversations that happen on social media?

Keep in mind – “all of the above” is not a valid answer. That doesn’t mean that you cannot have a robust and diverse presence on Facebook that tackles multiple opportunities, but from a strategy perspective you’re message will get lost if you aren’t reinforcing it regularly. On average, only 16% of your fans are seeing your message at all and that’s if you’re doing a pretty good job at keeping your EdgeRank strong. While diversifying your message is important, keeping focused on a singular strategy should overrule the desire to be eclectic.

Over the next couple of days I will be diving into a wider range of specific strategies that you can employ. In the meantime, do you have any strategies that you’ve considered? Is there a technique that you’ve found to be effective or one that you think would work? I’m classifying the various strategy types into two categories: safe and aggressive. As with setting goals, determining strategies should be focused. Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew. You’ll end up spitting it all out on the table and embarrassing yourself.

http://www.internetsales20group.com
Make Money Mondays With Sean V. Bradley "Seize EVERY Opportunity"

NADA 2013 was a whirlwind. There was more activity, more excitement, and most importantly more hope than I’ve seen since 2008. Dealers were excited to see more, to learn how to go beyond the survival mode that has been fading in recent years and to concentrate on thriving mode. It was the most encouraged I’ve been about the industry in decade, but there was one thing that has me a little concerned.

It may be a minor blip on the corporate radars of the mega-vendors that are eating up chunks of the industry and it might go unnoticed by dealers who are so busy improving sales that they don’t even notice, but I was fortunate enough to take note during the show and after. What I saw was this: there is a distinct lack of trusted advisers and dealer partners in the industry. I know this because I had many more dealers finding me or calling and asking questions about other products and services than ever before. It wasn’t even close. This year, everyone’s looking and there aren’t enough people to go to for answers.

Here’s one conversation I had yesterday minutes after getting off the plane:

“Hey JD, what do you know about [video company]? Is it worth $[x,xxx] per month?”

I gave my opinion that it may be worth it if he was willing to work with them to maximize the effects. Then I asked him a question.

“Just out of curiosity, [dealer], why are you asking me about [video company]? I have an opinion for sure but there are others who know more on the topic than me.”

At this point, I had talked to somewhere around 30 dealers who wanted to know about product X or company Y. It was flattering, of course, but it’s not something that I’ve ever seen during and after other conferences. The dealer told me about the trusted advisers in the industry; more importantly, he described the lack of them. We’ve worked together for several years and he said I was his “go to guy” for internet marketing questions.

Again, I was flattered, but again I was alarmed. Have industry vendors distanced themselves so far from their clients that they don’t believe them as much anymore? Not to shine the spotlight on us, but it’s part of my company’s DNA to give advice, to help with everything that falls within our expertise even if we don’t sell it as a product, and to educate without an expectation of payment or returns. We run a minimum of two webinars per week at no charge with the intention of earning the trust of current and potential clients because we know that helping dealers will make us more successful. When did this become such a rare trait?

I explored further and was a little shocked to find out that nearly all of the dealers I called said that they didn’t consider their vendors as anything other than vendors. The partnership concept is gone. The trusted advisers of the automotive world have been pushed aside by the companies whose executives don’t talk to more than a handful of dealers per year.

This is not the right direction for the industry.

To the dealers who are reading this, now is the time to expect more. Demand more. We cannot allow the industry to be so numbers-driven that your vendors don’t even know your name or face if you aren’t running a 30-top. You deserve better than that.

To the vendors who are reading this, help us make the shift back to a more personal experience. Even with a good number of customers, we have more executives and digital advisers in dealerships at any given time than in the office. Shake hands. Reach out and talk to your clients. Visit them. It’s a competitive industry and we’re always up for the challenge of going head-to-head with others, but we cannot continuously beat each other up for the sake of the bottom line. This industry was built on handshakes and eye contact. Don’t get stuck in the office. Your clients deserve better than that.

Those who have been in internet marketing for a while realize that search engines are constantly changing. It’s part of the game of staying ahead of the competition to understand these changes and move with them appropriately. Despite this constant state, it’s nothing compared to the changes that happen on Facebook. From a business perspective, the only real winning strategy is to constantly be adjusting the practices, processes, and procedures used to find success.

On Facebook, even the goals are often changed. Unlike search where the goal is almost entirely about driving relevant traffic to a website, social media in general and Facebook in particular often see shifts in the goals for each individual strategy and the overarching strategy as a whole. Between traffic, branding, communications, and messaging, the major components of Facebook marketing remain the same on the surface but digging a little deeper reveals a need to shift with not only the changes that are constantly happening on the platform itself but also those that are happening within the community and the sentiment of the social media world.

One of our biggest focuses on Facebook is helping local car dealers make the most of Facebook. Just in the last month we’ve made adjustments to style, form, and techniques that are in response to the changes. This is an absolute must – a static Facebook strategy is not effective. What worked yesterday may not work today but may work again tomorrow. That’s the nature of the beast.

The most important thing to remember on Facebook is that there are two things to constantly monitor: changes in strategies that are posted on the various blogs (be careful here – more below) and changes in the results of the various campaigns that you run. It’s not just about watching likes and comments. It’s about watching reach (the truly important number in Facebook analytics) and following the sentiment through in a way that can guide future posts.

We must test. We must see what’s working today and make sure it’s still working tomorrow. We have to watch for fatigue; it’s easy to post great images of Mustangs on a Ford dealer’s Facebook page but eventually even the mighty stallion can get old and turn off fans.

We also need a willingness to try new things. Events, Offers, Questions – these can be effective depending on what you’re willing to offer for your business. Landing pages, video styles, advertising styles – all of these play important roles as well.

This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive guide nor is it meant to be a scare tactic. Facebook is not hard and it doesn’t have to be that time consuming, either. It does require attention and a system through which the changes and efforts can be tracked for true ROI.

Now, about those blog posts on strategies – take note but be skeptical. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what to do on social media to be successful and these opinions are often contradictory. There are very few overall strategies that have ever made me think, “Wow, that’s the one!” There are plenty of blog posts that make me think, “Hmmm, let’s give that a try and monitor the results.”

That’s the key. Take advice but don’t set anything in stone until you test it thoroughly yourself. Facebook can be fickle, especially when the organic algorithm itself can punish pages for making the wrong moves, but you shouldn’t be too fearful of making a mistake or taking a step backwards. The benefits of a strong campaign or strategy greatly outweigh the potential negatives associated with mistakes, so by fearless but monitor and adjust accordingly. Anything short of regular monitoring and a willingness to change can result in the wrong results.

Facebook purists will pan this post. They will say that the best way to post to Facebook is to post whatever you’re doing or thinking right now, that “planning” posts is not only insincere but that it undermines the point of Facebook altogether. Their points are valid and noted. Now, let’s talk about reality.

Busy people who have their own social media and potentially the social media profiles of sites and companies with which they work need tools. It’s true that the best way to post to Facebook is through the native interfaces – Facebook.com itself and their mobile app. However, there are drawbacks. You can schedule posts that go on pages through Facebook.com, but you can’t schedule for profiles. Perhaps more importantly, Facebook has an on again, off again glitch with scheduled posts that often “batches” them into an unintended album for any posts that are not at least 24 hours apart. This holds true for mobile image uploads as well. The problem there is that these batched albums cannot be liked, shared, or commented on in the news feed. If they can’t be interacted with in the news feed, they don’t really exist. Nobody clicks through to interact with them.

These are some of the tools that I’ve used in the past or that I’ve seen others use that have shown to be effective. To be effective, they have to be easy to use, formatted properly, displayed well in the news feed, and “play well” with EdgeRank. Keep in mind, EdgeRank can be adjusted based upon interaction. For example, if your posts from a certain tool tend to get more likes than posts with other tools, those future posts from that tool will appear higher in the news feed. The opposite is true as well. If posts from a certain tool are not as effective, they’ll fall further in the feed and become less visible as a result.

At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference. Which tools work for you? These work for me and people that I know, but that doesn’t mean they’ll demonstrate the same benefits for your posts. Go with what works. This is only a guide of a handful of suggestions.

Post Planner

This tool is invaluable to me. It allows me to manage my profile as well as my pages from within the Facebook environment because it’s an actual Facebook app. I pay for it and it’s worth every penny. I am able to control branding and links through it – everything I post has a link to my “app” which is a redirect to my blog. My only complaint is that it only works in 5-minute intervals. It would be nice to post at any time but I understand the constraints of the Facebook environment. Given what they had to work with, the end result was amazing.

Buffer

This isn’t just great for Facebook. It works nicely (maybe even better) for Twitter. I often cross post an image to both networks and this is the only tool I’ve found that handles that properly, showing in both networks as an uploaded image rather than a link. You can find the times that work best for you and set it up to post at different times on different days if you choose. It works chronologically so there’s no need to input times. You add something to the feed and it drops into the next available slot. Moving posts up or down is also relatively easy and there’s even a shuffle option if you’re scheduling a lot ahead of time.

IFTTT

The social media “recipe builder” is nothing short of brilliant. “If this, then that” allows you to connect your social profiles in ways that are changing the lives of users. It makes it simple to integrate so many different types of content that if I had to pick a favorite based upon pure ingenuity, this would be the hands down winner. For example, you can have a recipe that says if you post to Buzzfeed, the post will appear on Facebook as well and here’s how you want it to look. Takes a little while to master but once you get it, nothing will be the same.

Instagram

If you weren’t one of those who abandoned the service once they went rogue with their terms of service, you’ll be happy to know it’s still a very nice way to put interesting personal posts on Facebook. In fact, it’s my app of choice when posting images that I’m taking from my smartphone. Nothing fixes the low quality of smartphone images like a hipster-friendly filter. Don’t overpost – the app has a tendency to batch and appears lower in the news feed as a result.

Pinterest

Use sparingly. Pinterest has an interesting way of getting batched. If there have been two pins posted to Facebook recently, they show up side by side or one on top of the other with unique interaction buttons. It’s a nice way to mix it up, but it doesn’t appear as well on the news feed. Still worth the occasional post.

What NOT to use to post to Facebook

As with any good list of tips, there needs to be some advice about things to avoid. These are some of the tools that do not work as well on Facebook and should be avoided if the goal is exposure.

1. Tumblr – For whatever reason, whether it’s just the threat of another addictive social network or a challenge in the coding, Tumblr posts that go on Facebook do not perform well.
2. Foursquare – The app plays okay with the news feed, but people simply don’t like it as much. Even when images are included, people are less likely to interact with the excellent stalker app as they are when Facebook places integration is used.
3. Twitter – I’m likely in the minority on this one, but I’m not a fan of any interaction between the two services. I don’t like Tweets that come through on Facebook and I don’t like when Facebook status updates come through as Tweets. Call me what you will but neither path seems to work as well as posting independently of each other, even if it’s the same content being posted.
4. Hootsuite – I really like Hootsuite for Twitter and as an overall social media management tool. The Google+ integration and automation has been a lifesaver with all of the G+ pages that I manage. As a posting tool to Facebook itself, I had to stop using it a month ago. It just didn’t do as well in the news feed as the other tools available.
5. Flickr – Just like with Tumblr, Flickr doesn’t do very well. It could be because Facebook spent a billion dollars on a direct competitor with Instagram. That might just be my imagination. However, I love using IFTTT to post from Facebook to Flickr, so not all is lost.

http://www.internetsales20group.com

Ralph Paglia, Sean V. Bradley, Jim Ziegler & Karen Bradley At The Internet Sales 20 Group VIP Party

http://www.internetsales20group.com

"There's Only One Thing Worse Than Training Your Staff & Having Them Leave... & Thats NOT training them & Having Them Stay"!

Zig Ziglar-

“How about a magic trick? I’m gonna make this keyword disappear.”

*SMASH*

“TA DAA! It’s…It’s gone.”

The famous scene from The Dark Knight applies very nicely to black hat search engine optimization tricks today. Those who are still trying to “beat the system” are running into roadblocks, landmines, and deranged Google employees willing to take out your metaphoric eyeball with every slight of hand technique they find. The face of SEO today is completely different than what it looked like a couple of years ago when spammers were rewarded and automated SEO reigned supreme.

Today, anything that smells like a trick should make website owners run in fear.

Search engine optimization is no longer a distant cousin of social media marketing. The two are meeting in the middle with quality content as their cornerstone and earned “love” at their hearts. Link-building is being replaced by link-earning. Bulk likes, retweets, and +1s are being muscled out by organic likes, retweets, and +1s. It’s about earning trust, not faking it. That’s why search engine optimization as an art and science is alive and well.

One thing must be understood. Google has never and will never hate search engine optimization. They have maintained the same stance for years, that their job is made easier by those who help websites tell the world and the web crawlers exactly what a website does, who it serves, and what it offers. Their war has always been with black hat techniques. Their algorithm adjustments are designed to identify these black hat techniques and those silly enough to still be using them.

This is important to understand. So many are starting to shy away from the “evils” of search engine optimization because they believe they run a risk of being hurt by it. On the contrary, truthful and organic search engine optimization is more powerful today than it ever has been. The smack down that Google and Bing have been laying on the spammers over the last couple of years means that those who stay true to what Google and Bing want have the ability to rise higher than ever before. In many cases, these updates have shown that the right listings on websites using the right techniques are moving up without doing anything in particular because their competitors are being forced down by their actions.

Now is not the time to give up on search engine optimization. Every week there will be new articles that declare the death of SEO. These articles are written by those who have found that their black hat techniques aren’t working like they used to and that their rankings are plummeting. As a result, their conclusion is that SEO is dead when in fact real SEO has never been more relevant.

Focus on quality, earn your links and social signals, and think about your visitors first. Google and Bing have rewards that will satiate desires both subtle and gross for those who do things the right way. They’ll bring down furious vengeance upon those who try to manipulate the system with magic tricks. If it sounds black and white, that’s because it is.

When have I seen 150 dealers and a dozen vendors in one room for 3 straight days so engaged?

Never.

Perhaps its Sean Bradley’s commitment to excellence and holding dealers accountable to walk away with action plans from a crowd of unusually focused [Internet Sales 20 Dallas] IS20 members.

Only a handful we’re checking cell phone messages while in session and when you attend the next IS20 you’ll know why; you’re captivated by the content where all the standard institutional auto conference rules and guidelines are smashed.

Instead you get a room full of all star experts and hungry to learn attendees who are captivated by their colleagues, speaking up when any one point or topic needed more explanation or would merit a rebut.

We can thank Sean for his highly conscious efforts to ringmaster a conference where the content was always relevant.  My opinion, IS20 attracts some of the most innovative in the biz, who crave the most up to date practical content that provides the highest return on money and time. 

IS20 is straight legit.

I spoke on a panel about the importance of online reputation. Based on the questions and comments I received from various dealerships, there are some looming problems in the area of managing internet reputation.

For example, Google says on their Conflict of interest page: reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased.  Dealers who are not focused on organically building reviews, and that means anything other than evoking a review from hot links in an email that leads that customer directly to 3^rd party review sites may compromise their Google ranking, score and lead to endless hemorrhaging of removed or filtered reviews. Don’t get me wrong; there are all kinds of traditional ways to gently nudge a customer to leave a review soon after leaving the dealership, i.e., handing them a request flyer with where and how to find your dealership review sites and/or instructions for customers who have a gmail or dealerrater account as to how to post a review.

From what I see with our dealer clients, Google has been very kind to dealers that only allow reviews posted from the customer’s I.P.  Yelp, different story. I couldn’t believe how much disdain I heard about Yelp from IS20 members.  Same ol’ complaint I’ve heard from hundreds of business owners; “I accrue lots of positive reviews and when I don’t advertise upon their request, our positive reviews are removed overnight and negative is all that remains.”  My suggestion; endure the pain of filtered reviews and diversify your portfolio of listing sites and offer customers other review sites to post reviews. If you’re comfortable with paying the ransom they indirectly hold dealers hostage to buy, then look forward to 5 fat stars.  Some we’re saying at IS20 the believability of the star rating system on Yelp is disingenuous. Yelp is highly ranked; on the other hand, we know Yellow Pages are the second largest review site behind Google.

If your reputation management strategy and process is not organic, you’re short term gain, if any, will be weak at best. For example, posting reviews on a dealer owned web page may paint a picture of a dealer in more control of their reputation and no longer hostage to the Google and Yelp review removing sledgehammer.  Sounds reasonable, but here’s the problem.  3^rd party review sites will rank higher, particularly on mobile, than the dealers review web pages where content is controlled and future buyers can sense manipulation or an inauthentic amount of positive reviews and stars. I still haven’t found a dealer owned customer review page with negative feedback, let alone a negative review with a manager’s response to remedy the complaint. Negative feedback that is managed, influences prospects to trust you and is fuel that can flip a sour customer to a raving advocate who tells everyone they know.  

I applaud dealers who leverage negative and respond on the dealer’s site, however responding to negative on the 3^rd party review sites, specifically Google would help lift you’re Google score much more than reviews on the dealer site.  

To the point of short circuiting negative complaints; why would you not capitalize on the moment you follow up via email, offering hot links direct to review sites like Google, and also welcome complaints from customers submitted to the Dealer. This protects your CSI, amongst a hundred other great things.

News Flash! I’m yet to see a disgruntled customer who submits an unsatisfied complaint that will also post on 3^rd party sites. Why? They’ve voiced concern to the dealer and will give the dealer a chance to remedy the problem.

What worries me most are the looming problems for dealers, especially those who encourage customers to post an invaluable review on a web page other than Google or other highly ranked 3^rd party review sites.  I have found very few customer dealer review web pages that rank on the 1^st page of Google when a “dealers name” with the keyword “reviews” is queried.

Every day I hear all the antics dealers use to capture feedback.  One review building tactic that makes me cringe is allowing an outside reputation agency to collect customer feedback who then posts the reviews on behalf of the dealer from an I.P far from the dealership. Even if the agency is in town, the methodology is manipulative and not organic. If you’re not organic then don’t expect Google algorithms to give you the top ranking when your future customers are hunting for the best dealer using local search.

p.s go claim your top review listings before your competition does

Jerry Hart
eReputationBUILDER
888-810-0441

In many ways, the standard thinking about your marketing no longer applies when it comes to what’s happening online. Two of the largest components, search and social, are in a constant state of flux. For better or for worse, the big players like Google and Facebook do what they can to keep marketers and the businesses using them on their toes.

Chalk it up to constant improvement if you’d like. Say that they’re out to get us and that they don’t want us to succeed because then they won’t be making as much money. Whatever theory works best to make you understand that stagnant strategies are ineffective, so be it. That’s not to say that there aren’t components of search engine optimization and social media marketing that haven’t worked for a long time and will likely continue to work into the future, but the overall status of SEO and SMM are always on the move. What worked yesterday may not work today but may work again tomorrow.

This stems from a conversation I had with a potential client who was convinced that the Google Penguin and Panda updates had reached their final form. There were no more changes to monitor, no more adjustments to make. His site was ranking well and there was no need to push any further. There are two problems with this philosophy. First, Panda was updated just last month for the umpteenth time since it rolled out in February, 2011. At almost two-years old, it’s still being adjusted. Penguin is far from hitting its final variation – Google has all but said that. Then, there’s the dreaded Zebra update that may or may not be a mythical unicorn more than a real obstacle, but whether it’s real or not doesn’t really matter. The point is that Google is always improving, which means that search marketers must always be improving as well.

The second fallacy with his argument is that their rankings were thought to be as good as they were going to get. We have a client who has been getting optimized since 2003. Every month we’re fighting to keep the progress that we’ve accumulated over the years while pushing them further in other keywords. While there is definitely a plateau that can be reached where the gains from improved SEO start to level off, the idea that SEO can be in a pinnacle phase with no need for further improvements in the future is preposterous.

Social media is worse. In social, it isn’t just the changes that the websites themselves make that make strategy adjustments important. It’s the trends and flow of the communities themselves that make a difference. Case in point – I was working with a client not too long ago who was feeding multiple RSS feeds onto their Facebook page and into their Twitter stream. There was a time (short as it may have been) when this strategy of “more is better” worked. That was 2010. Today, any business who is auto-feeding a dozen posts onto their Facebook page per day is reaching nobody. Once I showed them how to look at their statistics, they realized that out of 17K fans, their posts were reaching an average of 16 people. Everyone had either shut down their stream from their news feed or had seen so many without liking any that Facebook shut it down for them.

Their Twitter account was a mess. With 4k Twitter followers, nobody had engaged with the account in weeks. Their posts were all doubled up – they were posting from the same feeds onto Twitter and Facebook, then feeding their Facebook onto Twitter.

This isn’t intended to single out a couple of juicy examples. Most businesses are not taking such a careless approach to their online marketing. However, it does seem that there is a rise in complacency. When success is found, it’s time to move on – at least that seems to be a prevailing attitude.

The reality is this: success is relative and there are very few who have reached a level that cannot be dramatically improved upon with better understanding of the current trends. Instagram was a huge portion of many business’s Facebook and Twitter strategies just a few weeks ago and now is being abandoned altogether by many. Pinterest is hot today but is facing spamming threats that could plummet the site into strategic unworthiness. Google+ is effective today for search rankings and may become more effective in the coming months, but it could also fall off the radar completely if Google decides that it’s just too easy to manipulate.

Nobody knows what’s happening behind closed doors at the companies that drive our industry. We can speculate. We can guess. We can keep our eyes open, read the various blogs, talk to insiders we have in out back pockets, but at the end of the day we’re all dealing with too many unknown variables to rest on what works today.

I’m not trying to scare anyone. I just want it to be understood that your online marketing efforts should be tweaked, adjusted, monitored, and tested on a regular basis. To sit back and let the changes happen without you, to be passive in an extremely aggressive atmosphere, would be the biggest mistake you can make, particularly if you’re already doing well. I’ve said in the past, “Being thankful for what you have doesn’t mean you have to be satisfied with it.”

Perhaps a more appropriate “person” to quote would be Ricky Bobby: “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”

Words are cheap. What matters is the true belief system behind your words and the actions you take because of those belief systems. Economies don’t improve, people improve. Waiting for something to happen is for losers. The most important economy is the one created between your ears.

During down markets you have to get creative to make things happen. Although you may not be able to push a new car market if it’s not there, you can niche market, create affiliations, utilize your customer base better and push a used car market. In other words, there are options for success. Standing and waiting for the world to create your economy is not a good option.

There is an old quote that says, “When you go to work on yourself and get better it’s amazing how much better your customer’s get.” The one activity that can always pay off during a down economy is individual and organizational development.

Everything boils down to the four P’s of business - people, process, product and positioning. Do you work daily on your personal development? Do you work daily to increase your knowledge and ability to sell your product? Do you work daily to increase the effectiveness of your process? Do you work daily to increase your positioning through better marketing? If you work on these things daily you will determine your sales success in good times or bad. Good times will now become the norm.

Thoreau said it best: “Things don’t change; people change.” Make a commitment to figure out why you want to do something. When the why gets strong, the how gets easy. When you know why you want something, ideas of how will flow to you. Concentrate on the solution, not the problem. When you dwell on the idea of a prosperous market you create the reality of a prosperous market.

When you open the door to your belief system, you close the door of scarcity. When you are suffering from a lack of something it’s because you have a mental condition of lack. Everything apparent in your outside world of today is a direct reflection of your inside world from yesterday.

As you improve yourself you begin to think and act on another level of energy. Imagine the analogy of playing a video game and having to get a good enough score at one level to go to the next level. Once you improve enough you enter a whole other level that creates another opportunity for improvement.

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http://www.internetsales.com

Make Money Mondays With Sean V. Bradley "Motivation, Inspiration & Dedication"

There’s no doubt that it takes a lot of hard work and dedication to maintain your online reputation, and it may be tempting to look for ways to ease the burden. One way is to hire a company that specializes in reputation management. There are plenty of companies out there that offer seemingly quick and easy ways to improve your online ratings. Unfortunately, some of these review companies may be using “Black Hat” techniques and putting dealers that use their services at risk. A classic example is the dealership that suffered devastating reputation damage a few years ago because of the review-posting practices of a company they hired. A customer discovered that suspicious “reviewers” were writing 5-star reviews about all kinds of businesses and dealerships across the nation on the same day.

Another area of concern is the activity of a company’s own employees. The Federal Trade Commission charged a California marketing company with deceptive advertising after it found that the company’s employees were posing as ordinary consumers posting positive reviews online. Even worse, The Florida Attorney General sued an auto dealership for violations of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, for its employees allegedly posting fake reviews.

FTC guidelines require companies to ensure that their posts are completely accurate and not misleading, and planting or allowing fake reviews is a clear violation. Dealers may also face liability if employees review their employer’s services or products without disclosing the employment relationship. The FTC requires the disclosure of all “material connections” between a reviewer and the company that is being reviewed. These connections can be any relationship between a reviewer and the company that could affect the credibility a consumer gives to that reviewer’s statements, such as an employment or business relationship. So if employees, friends, family, or vendors post reviews to prop up a dealership’s online reputation, they must clearly disclose any relationship they have with the company. In addition, all reviews must be an honest opinion based on a real experience. Reviewers must never endorse a product or service that they have not used personally or create any other form of false endorsement.

Failure to follow these regulations can result in substantial penalties. In recent actions, the New York Attorney General fined a company $300,000 for ordering its employees to write fake reviews and the FTC ordered another company to pay $250,000 for fake reviews posted by the company's affiliate marketers. In the Florida dealership case, the lawsuit seeks restitution for harmed consumers, civil penalties of up to $15,000 per violation, attorneys’ fees and costs, and injunctive relief.

The FTC has stated that companies are fully responsible and liable for all inappropriate actions of their employees, their vendors, and any advocates they recruit. While reviewers may also be held personally liable for statements made in the course of their endorsements, the FTC has indicated that its enforcement activities will generally focus on companies receiving the reviews.

Paid-for reviews are another area that regulators are cracking down on. The practice of offering a free oil change or gas card to a customer in exchange for a good survey has long been frowned upon by manufacturers. Because there are no factory gatekeepers when it comes to online ratings, it may seem tempting to offer customers an incentive to post a positive review. The good news is that you can if you want to; the not-so-good news is that the FTC requires that any reviewer provided with any form of compensation for posting a review must fully disclose the source and nature of any compensation received. So, if you pay for reviews and the reviewers fail to disclose their compensation, you may face liability. This is an area where it’s easy to get caught and besides the legal danger, your reputation will likely take a big hit.

While paying someone to write a review is not illegal as long as it is disclosed to the reader, doing so would likely hamper the review's credibility. In addition, the dealer would be responsible for holding the reviewer accountable for properly disclosing the compensation. In other words, paid-for reviews are probably not worth the trouble.

Besides the potential legal ramifications, fake, paid-for, and “on behalf of” reviews violate the Terms of Service for most review sites. Google, Yelp, and others are cracking down on reviews written by someone hired or paid by a business, and violations could result in having reviews removed or worse, being banned and causing a dip in your search rankings. There’s also the very real possibility that after getting caught gaming the system, no one will trust your reviews ever again.

This past summer Google deleted hundreds of reviews from a number of dealerships for what they described as “suspicious behavior” and “spammy” content. Unfortunately, it seems that they went over the top and deleted many legitimate reviews, but the fact remains that they are looking very closely at the review-posting process. Google wants to ensure that reviews are posted from real people and not agents acting on a consumer’s behalf. There are a number of companies that offer business owners a service that will call their customers, collect a review, and post it on Google. This violates Google’s policies and those reviews will eventually be removed for spam.

Yelp has long been notorious for filtering reviews on their site, but recently they have gone even further. Apparently, they set up a sting operation to help uncover companies that purchase fake positive reviews, then calling out the offenders and showing the world its evidence. Consumer Alerts have shown up on Yelp reviews that say “We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business. We weren’t fooled, but wanted you to know because buying reviews not only hurts consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules”.

If someone is assisting you with your online reputation management, make sure you fully understand exactly how they are gathering the reviews, posting them and distributing them. This goes for your staff as well.

It’s never been more important to be 100% authentic in your review-gathering and Online Reputation Management – the penalties can be very large and are not worth the risk. Questionable reputation management tactics can destroy a dealership’s credibility, lead to legal headaches, and do far more harm than good.

Wow! After 48 hours, I believe the jet lag is gone! And just under 48 hours (and waiting over an hour in the airport AFTER I spoke to someone) to FINALLY get my bags back from my trip to Dallas!! Aaahhhhh!!! 

I'm still flying high, though, because I have so much energy from the Internet Sales 20 Group, which in my opinion was the most motivating 3 days of my life.  I say my "life" because my "career" is only a tip of the iceberg.  If you are not happy as a person, you will not be happy as a professional.  Attitude does not start with an "A" by coincidence...it's because that's where it all starts!!  I made some genuine connections with great people that I can't wait to see in Los Angeles at the next event and they have definitely changed my attitude for good! 

To sum up 32 hours in 3 days of intense learning and sharing thoughts, great customer service rules the world, and everything else, including the sales, will come naturally!

Being in customer service myself, I find that I analyze others in the same profession daily.  Sometimes, it benefits us to adjust our approach on the phone, and in order to do that, we need to make sure we understand where it all starts.  I believe we all know this to be the obvious, but common sense isn't so common...right!!?? 

Case in point.  I recently had an issue with a common furniture company. I called into the trusty "800" number, and after a few minutes playing with the "automated person" trying to tell a computer what my issue was, I finally got a human being!  I wanted to exchange some office cubical pieces I ordered.  I then got transferred to a guy in I-dont-know-what-country-land...that was absolutely no help.  I had asked the company to return the pieces, or instead of returning them, just help me exchange for what I need.  He proceeded to explain why he couldn't exchange the broken parts for new ones.  After this conversation going nowhere for about 10-12 minutes, I then requested to speak to a supervisor that can help me....hopefully.

As if you didn't already get my point, the supervisor was even better at giving me reasons as to why they "couldn't do it" (GREAT at using 3rd parties as verification for procedure, just like we do in the car business with bank programs, vendors, and even state and federal regulations).  I then realized I had to put my salesman cap on, and along with that comes "the sweet man voice" ...and for the record women, this works better for you than it does for us men! ;-) 

Remember the thing about bees with honey, as opposed to bees with vinegar...right?

I proceeded to put myself in her shoes, and bluntly asked to put herself into mine as the customer that spends a lot of money with her business.  I literally asked her to "close her eyes, and imagine my frustration with having to deal with your company, that you charged me (and didn't disclose) a ridiculous amount of money to deliver furniture that I could have picked up (across the street). One piece was missing, another broken, and all I want is to do what my company hired me for...build an Internet Sales Department to help my business grow!!! ...and quite frankly, I hope you can appreciate that my time is money, and I don't like wasting money!  I do not mean to have an attitude with you ma'am, but I'm really hoping you can make this better.  Can you see what I am saying and appreciate where I am coming from?"

IMMEDIATELY, she put me on hold for less than 20 seconds, and came back with a 10% credit and refunded the WHOLE delivery charge!  My new furniture is coming Next Friday, and I told her that I am very eCommerce savvy, and that she just turned the murderous review that I was about to put ALL over, into a satisfying experience that I appreciated her making right! 

 

Don't be afraid of bad reviews and irate customers!  Even if we put our happy face on everyday, we can't please everyone, all the time.  No matter how hard we try, there will be "that one".  The real professional will acknowledge the objection,  isolate it, and come up with a satisfying solution that helps both parties better themselves.  If the customer is right, let's do the right thing.  If the customer is wrong, then let's explain to them why it is, what it is.  Use 3rd parties when evaluating trades, telling people interest rates, or even quoting price!  "We have a cash price, retail (financing) price, and a leasing price...which one were you most interested in Mr./Ms. Customer..??" 

Now you are asking an open ended question to find out what the customer's concerns are.  When the prospect suggests a ridiculously high number for their trade, we can't tell them they are wrong and how it really is (as much as we want to).  There is a right way and an even better way to handle every situation that arises.  As Dr. Covey says to begin with the end result in mind, and simply handle every situation with the care it deserves.  Without customers we wouldn't have a job! 

Happy selling!

 

Andy Fedo

Director of Internet Sales

Lithia Nissan Hyundai of Fresno

afedo@lithia.com

 

It’s on thing to have people like your business. It’s another thing to have them “like” your business, as in on Facebook. Your customers may like you, but there’s a good chance that they won’t like you on Facebook. There are two primary reasons for this: (1) some people simply don’t like very many brands at all on Facebook, and/or (2) the first impression they had when they came to your page wasn’t impressive.

There’s something extremely important to keep in mind when trying to understand how Facebook for business works. According to numerous studies, people never return to your page after they’ve liked it. They got to your page from your website, as a recommendation based upon a piece of content that one of their friends liked or shared, or through Facebook advertising. Once they land on your Facebook page, they will decide extremely quickly whether or not to like your page. If they decide against it, the chances of them ever seeing anything that you post in the future will be dramatically diminished other than possibly through Facebook advertising (though that’s not even guaranteed).

Getting people to visit your Facebook is an art unto itself that requires a future blog post, but once you get them there you can do certain things that can help you to get more likes as a result. Keep in mind that it’s not about being likeable. It’s about being Facebook “Like-Worthy”. People are dishing out likes to businesses much less frequently than before. They are more selective now. Get selected! Be like-worthy.

Cover and Profile Pic

In Facebook’s ideal world, your business cover photo would be just that – a photo. They discourage the use of words or messages in the cover photo. I totally understand and somewhat agree with the philosophy, but I also understand the importance of the cover photo in establishing an appropriate first impression.

The profile pic is a challenging concept as well. Not all logos fit nicely into a square. By now, most businesses should have learned that they need a square variation of their logo even if only to put on social media profiles, but not everyone has. If you haven’t, make one… now. Your logo or other branding image should be easily discernible as a square. There’s no other way around it. Make it look like it’s supposed to be there, not like something that was poorly shrunk to fit into the space. It’s subtle but important.

Now, back to the cover photo. It should be enticing. It should be visually stunning. It may or may not need to have a message. Whatever you use as a cover photo, it should be something that appeals to your target audience. Don’t forget the placement of your profile picture. The best types of cover photos actually play off of the profile picture, even if only based on placement. In the cover image example above, the message is clear, targeted, and positioned just above the logo. The image itself is something that can be appealing to the target audience – a professional who appears victorious.

Like Other Pages’ Posts as Your Page

It’s the activity on Facebook that is done so infrequently but that can be a true differentiator between your Facebook marketing and the marketing of the competitor. When you “use Facebook as” your page, you can then go to the Facebook news feed and see posts of the other pages that your page has liked.

Liking, sharing, and commenting on what others post while logged in as your business page is an easy way to branch out and get the attention of your target audience. Your page should be liking pages that are relevant to yours. Local publications, industry companies and vendors, personalities that share your interests – like them as your page.

Once you do, the fans of those pages will see your support, your name, and understand that you are active on Facebook. Instant like-worthiness, especially if it’s something like a local charity that your company is supporting.

Pin the Best Content to the Top

Anything that isn’t time sensitive, that was popular with likes, comments, and shares, and that represents what people will see regularly or semi-regularly on your page should be pinned to the top. It cannot be too old – no more than a couple of weeks at most – because some people may not notice that it’s pinned and think that your page is inactive or posts very rarely. Most will scroll down and see the more recent posts, but you don’t want to risk missing anyone.

When you pin something to the top, that content is the first thing that visitors to your page will see once they scroll below your cover photo. Make absolutely certain that it is representative of what you will be bringing to the table if they like your page. It’s important to get more fans, but it’s more important to get the right fans. That picture of a cat you posted yesterday might have outperformed everything else you’ve posted this week, but if that’s not what you’re going to be serving up regularly, don’t pin it.

* * *

Facebook isn’t hard, but you have to understand some of the things that can separate you from the competitors. This is one of those topics about which I strongly encourage asking any questions if you have them. It’s that important.

The vast majority of business websites out there tend to stay laser-focused on their goals. Whether they’re intended to sell a product or generate leads, it seems that all of the content placed on their websites works towards this end. While there’s something that can be said about the strategy, changes at Google, Bing, and social media sites makes it beneficial to post content that does nothing more than educate, entertain, or act as a resource for people without attempting to sell or generate a lead.

If you want to truly get ahead of your competitors this year, you should be willing to devote a little bit of time (or money if you choose to buy it) every month on content. This isn’t the type of content designed to get ranked in the search engines, but it can help your important pages get ranked. It’s not the kind of content that will generate leads through social media, though you have opportunities every time someone lands on your site. It’s the type of content that is truly giving – you’re motives should be business-oriented but the content should be able to stand alone.

First, let’s take a quick look at why this helps. We’ve covered it before but here’s a refresher:

Valuable Content Helps the Rest of Your Site

Google, Bing, and the social media sites love quality content. They can tell the difference between quality content that is beneficial to visitors and content that is designed specifically to generate leads and/or sales. They can tell by the content itself in many cases (particularly in the case of Google) but they can also tell through inbound links that are earned and social signals that are given.

When you have content that people are willing to share, whether by linking to it from their websites and blogs or by sharing it on social media, the search engines and social media sites (Facebook and Google+ in particular) give additional trust to the domain. This is the primary reason that we strongly encourage having a blog on the primary domain itself. That’s not to say that there are no benefits from having an offsite domain, but for this exercise the benefits yielded come from the domain’s interactions.

A post that is valuable to visitors can link to other pages within the domain, helping both the domain in general and specific pages rank better in Google. For Facebook and Google+, sharable content ads the trust factor. Most domains do not appear as well on social sites regardless of the content because they do not have an established history of trust. By posting content that people share, the social sites start to get “acquainted” with the domain. You can tell if your domain needs a trust boost by having someone post content from the site and then clicking it on Facebook. If a warning comes up that “you are about to leave Facebook and go to blah blah blah”, then your domain is not trusted yet. You can fix this. You just need more people sharing the content on your domain. This can be achieved by posting quality content that people are naturally willing to share.

This type of useful content helps both in search and social. Now, let’s look at the content types.

Content Worth Sharing

There are several different kinds of content that can play well for the search engines when it comes to building two of the primary SEO signals: inbound links and social shares. The general way of looking at it is to take your industry, your area, or both and apply your knowledge into the creation of content worth sharing. Here are three examples:

• Entertain – Let’s say you have a Ford dealership. You can post a gallery of images of classic Mustangs, title it something like, “7 Epic Mustangs from the 60s and 70s”, and write up a 3-5 paragraph blurb about the storied history of the car. Many people love classic cars (and Mustangs in particular) and will be willing to share the page and the images on their social profiles as well as their blog or websites.
• Educate – With what you know about your industry and location, you should be able to teach people things they didn’t know. Even if you don’t know for sure, the internet is there to help. For example, you could post something like, “The Storied History of the Seattle Space Needle in Pictures”. Gather up some images of the Space Needle from when it was built and during times of note, write up a quick paragraph or even a sentence describing each scene (make sure it’s unique – don’t copy and paste!), and post something that will be educational on your site today and into the future. This has excellent sharing potential from locals.
• Resource – You’re the expert. Show it. There may not be a direct business reason to post a story titled, “How to SYNC Any Device in a Ford Fusion“, but the information can be helpful to those who run into challenges. They may share it. They may link to it. If they visit the page, they will likely stay on it for a while as they apply the advice. This component of the search algorithm isn’t discussed often but when a page is sticky, the domain gains trust in search.

These are very basic overviews of the ideas, but the key is to stay consistent. Some have asked me in the past why I keep it limited to two pieces of content. I don’t. If you can post every day, go for it! Twice a month is something that’s sustainable. In the business world, we often find ourselves starting a new project and abandoning it if it becomes too hard. Twice a month is enough to build up a nice library of content that can benefit your marketing immediately as well as over time.

The key is to stick to it. Schedule it. Make it happen. You’ll soon find you’re looking at your competitors in your rear-view mirror.