DreamGrow Social Media

Social media for car dealers

Social media marketing becomes an everyday part of car dealers marketing. Companies should dedicate resources and harness social media to find out how to use social channels for the brand.

The communication is different now and should include combination of marketing, public relations, brand and product knowledge. The tone should be personal and you should speak with both authority and enthusiasm. This helps you to break through barriers, become brand ambassadors and personally influence those who are important for your business.

Think about your sales and marketing. How do you reach your target audience (true fans, enthusiasts, owners, prospects and industry watchers). What makes prospects into buyers? What social tools could be used to help people through different stages of consideration, evaluation and purchase decisions. Find out what works best for you building awareness, helping to make a decision, converting people who consider competitors, provide services to owners post-purchase?

Always ask yourself “why” are you doing something before “what”. This way you can concentrate on bottom line and real business value.

Here are some tips, examples and links to articles that will help you to get you social media activities going.

Examples and cases

Jeep Community

Jeep combines different social media tools to tie together the community of fans. Twitter, Facebook, user images and featured content help users to interact with the brand and share it with their friends.

BMW of Minnetonka

is a really great example on how a local dealership can use Facebook. This car dealer integrated their entire lot to a Facebook fan page so you can can browse all the cars without leaving Facebook. BMW of Minnetonka have created a visually appealing landing page for people who are not yet fans and they have an active wall interacting with their fans.

Social success for Toyota GB’s iQ

During 2008-09 iCrossing UK, a global digital marketing agency, ran a programme of social media activity for Toyota GB to help raise awareness of its iQ city car. This initiative was based on a core blog and a series of activities designed to create word-of-mouth referrals that drove traffic to the blog and generated interest in the car itself. Download the iCrossing case study (PDF).

Volkswagen have been searching for The People’s Reviewer

Not a professional reviewer or a journalist but a real consumer who could give honest reviews and thoughts on Volkswagen’s small compact 4×4 the Tiguan. The reviews were then released online to help people see personal reviews and opinions on how this car performs in real life.

Ford Social Marketing+Auto Industry

Presentations from Scott Monty. He is the head of social media for Ford Motor Company.

Car Dealer Social Media Basics: Blogging

If I could pick one type of site that is a “must have” for car dealers wanting to get started in social media, what would it be? My answer, hands down, is a dealership blog. Before Facebook, Twitter, or any of the others, a blog is the best place to get started.

30 Social Media Marketing Tips for Car Dealers and Automotive Marketing Professionals…

The list of 30 Social Media action items come together to form a sound strategy for most dealerships. These 30 strategy and tactic descriptions were graciously supplied by Inc. Magazine. They were originally prepared as part of a comprehensive social media “cheat sheet” for the time-challenged business owner or entrepreneur. Here is a link to the Inc. Magazine Business Owner Social media Toolkit. I really like what April Joyner put together in the following list because each item listed is described in a way that quickly communicates the strategy, tactical execution requirements and the promised payoff!

Whitepaper: Navigating Social Media in the Automotive Industry

This whitepaper will provide a brief description of social media, its importance and insights on how dealerships can integrate social media into their marketing strategies.

Creating Value in Social Media

Create unique content every day

Unique content is what people are looking for and Google knows that. Fresh and original content is more valued and you gain better ran in Google which brings you more visitors. Creating great content every day is not hard. Point to other resources, share your experiences, help and give value to customers. Not everyone knows what to do when you got a flat tire or need to jump star a car.

Share your content

If you create valuable content then other want to use it too. Leverage that! Find other sites that are interested in your content and gain more visitors. Which sites might find your blog posts, images and videos interesting and find out if they are interested on publishing your content. This can bring you free traffic and you gain much valued link power that will boost you Google rankings.

Let others know you are creating content

Post links to your material in relevant online communities, social media channels, forums, Facebook, Twitter and so on. It can make dramatic difference if you spread the word. Others will pick up and pas your links on. Search engines find those links and the authority of your web properties goes up

Open comments

The main goal of the social media efforts is to engage people. This is a must! So, everything you put up in the social web should be open to comments, ratings, and sharing. This will help you to tie people to your site as they feel that their contributions are being valued and responded to. Open interaction will give you many benefits, such as being your online focus group and sounding board, getting expert opinions from other specialists, showing an human face, etc.

Less advertising, more value

Social media is not another channel to spam with your banners and self serving salesy news items.

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Image credit Henk L

Social Media Employee Policy Examples from Over 100 Companies and Organizations

Here is a great resource. You can use the policies and copy them or just read and get insight into what is considered OK and what’s not in social media interaction.

The following table contains the names of over 100 companies and organization that have published their Employee Social Media Policies or Guidelines online… The left side column is the name of the organization, and it is linked to their organizational or corporate home page. The right side column displays a link to the actual document of policy web page for you to either download or review.

Read the original post.

In a hurry? Use The Social media Policy Tool to get your social media policy in minutes. Answer a series of questions and instantly generate a draft policy customized to your business. PolicyTool policies provide a comprehensive and informed framework for your legal counsel to quickly create a binding policy.

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Image credit Michal Zacharzewski

Social Media and Young Adults

Pew Internet & American Life Project released a study about internet and social media use among Millennial generation by situating it within similar data for adolescents and adults older than 30. The data on teens is drawn from a survey conducted between June 26 and September 24, 2009 of 800 adolescents (ages 12 to 17). The adult data are drawn from a survey conducted between August 18 and September 14, 2009 of 2,253 adults (age 18 and over). Here are some of the key findings:

Blogging is down among young adults

• One of the findings is that young people are blogging less than they used to. 14% of online teens say they blog, down from 28% in 2006.
• Also the commenting activity is lower as 52% of teen social network users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006.
• In 2009 15% of internet users ages 18-29 maintain a blog —a 9% point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages thirty and older now maintain a personal blog (7% in 2007).

Social networking sites’ usage numbers

• 73% of wired American teens use social networking websites. 55% of online teens used social networking sites in November 2006.
• 47% of online adults use social networking sites, up from 37% in November 2008.
• 72% of online 18-29 year olds use social networking websites, significantly higher than the 40% of internet users ages 30 and up who use these sites.
• Adults are increasingly fragmenting their social networking experience as a majority of those who use social networking sites – 52% say they have two or more different profiles.
• Among adult profile owners 73% have a Facebook profile, 48% have a MySpace profile and 14% have a profile on LinkedIn.

Teens are not using Twitter

• 8% of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter. Older teens are more likely to use Twitter than their younger counterparts; 10% of online teens ages 14-17 do so, compared with 5% of those ages 12-13.
• Young adults lead the way when it comes to using Twitter or status updating. One-third of online 18-29 year olds post or read status updates.

Mobile

• Three-quarters of teens and 93% of adults ages 18-29 now have a cell phone.

Internet usage

• 93% of teens ages 12-17 and young adults ages 18-29 go online. 74% of all adults ages 18 and older go online.
• 48% of online teens have bought things online: books, clothing or music, up from 31% in 2000.

Image credit Bina Sveda

Social networking B2B vs. B2C

B2B companies who are using social networks are more active than B2C counterparts. This is most visible in microblogging, discussions on third-party sites, blogging and monitoring their social footprint on different sites. B2C companies are ahead in a few areas: social media advertising, user ratings and reviews, and online communities for customers and prospects.

Some pretty interesting stats from emarketer.com.

Resources: How to Use Social Media?

In my search for different cases of social media I have stumbled on a lot of lists about organizations using social media. To make them easier to find I post them all here for reference. Special thanks goes to Peter Kim for starting the huge list in A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples.

A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples. Pure gold! 1,140 examples at the time of this post. You can sort them by company name, type of social media, industry and country.

Ray Schiel’s list of uses of social media by category: online video, applications, widgets, social networks, blogging, podcasting, crowdsourcing, bookmarking and tagging, microblogging, photosharing, wiki, virtual worlds, mashup, word of mouth, pr, etc.

26 Social Media Marketing Examples in Detail on Ignite Social Media’s blog. 22 cases analyzed four more to go. This list goes deeper and gives an overview of what’s really happening.

Social Media Blogs Top 200. Learn from the gurus and improve. The list uses PageRank, FeedBurner, Alexa, and Technorati, the average number of comments for ranking.

The Top 50 Social Media Blogs Of The Year EvanCarmichael.com has created a list of great social media blogs.

15 Top Social Media Agencies. Who are the top dogs on the business. Learn guys. Social media companies can be research focused, software heavy, app developers, monitoring services or consulting firms. The social media agency is one that helps companies extend their brand and marketing through training, long term strategy, and execution.

It’ll take a lot of time to go through all that material but if you know a really good resourece then please add it in the comments.

Advertising spend on the top social network and blogging sites increased 119 percent

Time spent on social network and blogging sites accounted for 17 percent of all time spent on the Internet in August 2009.

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used,” said Jon Gibs, vice president, media and agency insights, Nielsen’s online division. “While video and text content remain central to the Web experience – the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.”

Online Display Ad Spending on Top Social Network Sites More than Doubles in August 2009.  Year-over-year, estimated online advertising spend on the top social network and blogging sites increased 119 percent, from approximately $49 million in August 2008 to approximately $108 million in August 2009. The share of estimated spend on these sites has also grown, increasing from a seven percent share of total online ad spend in August 2008 to a 15 percent share in August 2009. via Nielsen | Nielsen Reports 17 Percent Of Time Spent On The Internet In August Devoted.

Social Media Handbook for Local Red Cross Units

Social Media Handbook for Local Red Cross Units might come handy when creating your own social media game plan. So, read and use what parts you can. Handbook in Google Docs.