Automotive Marketing | Automotive SEO | CliqScout Search Marketing

Are you satisfied with your social media efforts?

Effective early adopters of social media marketing that have larger followings often achieve greater success. This comes as no surprise for businesses that commit resources to be proactive promoting their marketing strategy with a consistent message.  The businesses that are unhappy with their results tend to brush over the opportunity social media provides them to propel their brand into cyberspace. Once again, the harder you work at using social media tools, the greater value you provide your customers and the higher ROI you get from them.

Successful social marketing is not just a turn key operation where you set it and forget it. It requires a voice from your business that sets the tone for your brand. A simple social media set up with occasional postings and tweets ads value as a SEO tool, building one way links back to your main site, but it will not help you build a following. Achieving true business success will take time and patience. Since social media  is higher up in the search funnel, instant sales may or may not happen. With the proper long term social marketing plan in place, the payoffs are substantial with increased search visibility, brand loyalty and trust, and a bigger influence on frequent followers.

Don’t write off early results to disillusionment because sales didn’t just jump off the charts. Without a plan or social media strategy ion place, any tool can be a waste of time. A commitment to the execution of your social media strategy will deliver real value and a pay off that improves your influence over the competition. So the question is, what’s your social marketing plan?

The Impact Of Real Time Search Results In Automotive Social Media Marketing
Real time search results now featured in Google and Bing increases the significance of your social media initiatives in Twitter and Facebook. Now that the top search engines incorporate relevant tweets and posts in search results, it is increasingly crucial for you to participate in these online conversations by adding value for your fans and followers. Actively being involved in social media marketing expands your influence with potential customers to engage with your dealership now and in the future.

Some of the ways you can influence your online performance is to promote your presence to Facebook and Twitter with your current customer base.

• Do you currently let your customers know they can find you on Twitter and Facebook?
• Do you include your Facebook and Twitter information in your offline advertising, in the service drive, on customer receipts, in customer waiting areas, and in your showroom?
• Are you actively building your Facebook fan base and Twitter followers by asking your customers to join?

Your social media presence needs to be subtle and engaging while building trust and interest in your dealership. The most effective promotions are once a week special time limited offers or discount coupons. When is the last time you updated your social media promotion on Facebook or Twitter?

How To Use Twitter In The Quick Service Lane
A Honda dealership was having trouble notifying customers about the quick service lane wait times. Sometimes the quick service lane was completely open and other times it would back up rather quickly. The dealer thought about using email to notify the customers with appointments, but that would not be as responsive of a solution as using the real time capabilities of social media.
The recommendation was to use their Twitter account to post current wait times in the quick service lane. A couple of times a day the service manager tweets the wait status. This was also another way for the dealership to grow their customer base that was following them on Twitter. Another concern from the dealer was how to handle notifications to those service customers without social media access. The solution was to add a Twitter widget to the dealer website home page and the Twitter feed into the dealership’s Facebook account. This greatly increases the reach of their message while making it more accessible.
A side bonus to this arrangement was to generate business when the quick service lane slowed down. The dealer now is able to post service specials from their Twitter account that offer unique specials such as $19.95 oil changes from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM for one day only.

Why social media marketing for auto dealers?

Many dealers remain distant from adding social media marketing into the overall brand marketing strategy. These dealers mainly fall into two groups, those who think social media is a passing fad, and those who don’t even know where to begin. The Internet savvy dealers are fully engaging in social media marketing as an incremental strategy to build their business.   As an alternative to traditional advertising, social media is uniquely valuable to auto dealers.

Social Media Marketing is definitely not a fad.

There’s quite a bit of data that clearly shows the fantastic growth of this new communication medium. Compare these growth rates to reach 50 million users:

• Radio – 38 years
• TV – 13 years
• Internet – 4 years
• iPod – 3 years
• Facebook had 100 million users in just 9 months!

Social media is a unique venue to build a measure of trust between your dealership and customers. No longer restricted to the larger companies with vast budgets, social media is much more about brand strategy and the proper use of engagement than grandiose budgets. Social media marketing for auto dealers is a terrific tool to strengthen existing relationships with customers, while strategically building your online presence as well as generating traffic and leads. The key to success is in your messaging, if you are only out pitching “the deal of the day”, you’re not really listening. Many new car shoppers demand a more engaging shopping experience when it comes to researching new and used vehicles. These same new car buyers want to review other customer purchase experiences when determining the best dealer to do business with, and social media marketing can have an immense impact on your online reputation. Just like in real life, first impressions online are important too!

Not convinced that your dealership should integrate social media into your overall marketing strategy?

Here are a few more eye opening things to consider:

• Social networking sites have overtaken porn as the Internet’s #1 activity.
• Twitter has seen an increase of almost 1500% over the last year.
• 2 out of 3 people on the PLANET visit social networks.
• Time spent on social networks is growing at three times the overall Internet rate.
• 100 Million YouTube videos are watched every day and every minute 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
• More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day and more than 1.5 million pieces of content are shared on Facebook daily.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.
• If YouTube were a country, it would be the third most-populated place in the world.
• 7.8 billion tweets and counting.
• 68% of Internet users have used social networks, while only 65.1% have used email.

These are some of the social media statistics that astonish many people. So don’t wait for the fad to pass, set up some online profiles in your favorite social networking application.  Many of the top social media sites are becoming their vertical portals recognized by the search engines. Most of the search engines even show relevant social media results within the search results page.  If that isn’t convincing enough to get started, then what will move you to take action today?

Social media marketing is one of the newer and highly effective online marketing strategy for auto dealers.  In terms of reach and cost, social media  can be an effective tool for marketing to your customers and potential customers. Social media marketing is a commonly used term used to describe the use of online social networking sites (for example, Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, Twitter, Linked In). Other social sites include online communities and discussion boards,  forums and web blogs. These gathering places are often used for marketing, sales promotion, public relations and customer service and retention, and reputation management.

While many auto dealers are looking for immediate sales, any internet marketing related to social media generally takes place higher up in the sales funnel. That said, many companies do find success with special offers, one off vehicle selections, and service coupons. Many social sites include features where companies can create profiles where users can interact with the company and review products, promotions, and services.  Social media marketing as an online marketing strategy, is about building a reputation that you can grow that supports your other marketing efforts. Social media marketing is also a great way to build long term sustainable, natural growth website traffic and improved search engine rankings.

To enjoy the maximum benefits of social media marketing as part of your online marketing strategy, you need to understand how it works best for your dealership. More importantly, understanding how and when to use social media correctly will produce the highest yields for your online marketing strategy. This takes time, and is a key issue for many auto dealers who may assign social media to the Internet manager, who most likely is not a professional marketer or content writer. Without a clear understanding of social media marketing, the results often fall below dealer expectations.

Benefits Of Social Media Marketing For Auto Dealers

However, according to a recent social media survey, when social media marketing for auto dealers is done correctly, many businesses have found that they have been able to:

• acquire more visibility for their organization,
• increase traffic to their website,
• develop new business partnerships.

What auto dealers need to do is embrace the benefits of social media as part of their overall online marketing strategy, while very carefully thinking through the goals of their marketing campaigns. Different goals will require different strategies.

While social media marketing for auto dealers is a great addition to any traditional search engine marketing campaigns don’t consider it as a sole substitute. Recognize that successful social media marketing is a process that promotes your website or dealership through social media channels.
This powerful online marketing strategy will add inbound links and increase “share of mind” with your customers resulting in additional web traffic. Social media marketing isn’t intended as a replacement for traditional marketing, but it is an important piece of the puzzle to your overall marketing strategy.

After carefully assessing whether or not social media might be the missing link in your overall marketing plans, take the next step an establish some modest goals to get started. There are plenty of resources available to savvy Internet dealers that are looking to expand their brands into the social media arena. Get started today, it’s a great investment in your online presence.