Before I decide to make a purchase on any big ticket item,  I search the company’s name in Google and see the rating  the business received. I also read a couple of the customer reviews. I, like most shoppers, am turned off by bad reviews. Shoppers are using the Web now, more than ever to research and review companies.

Which rating service should dealerships pay most attention to? Google and here’s why:

I googled a local dealership here in Orlando, and the first…

June 26th,2012.

Today, Haystack Digital Marketing , one of the nation’s largest full-service advertising agencies and audio visual production company for the retail automotive industry announced its strategic alliance with ActivEngage,Inc., the automotive industry's premium live chat and real-time business intelligence solution, …

After watching this 60 Minutes bit on The Age of Millennials, I thought to myself- oh great, apparently we are the doom of civilization. Being born in the 80’s lumped me into the Generation Y category, but I felt insulted when we were described as narcissistic praise-hounds that didn’t know how to cope with…

As a Social Media Specialist, I’ve been asked many times before what is it that I do and how I do it. I simply reply, I write, because social media is far too complex to describe in one sitting. New sites are popping up everyday, like Bo.lt, a website that is supposed to be better than Pinterest (crazy, right?), and new trends are always rising. Which means it is my sole purpose to research industry trends and analyze current social business data available to…

Sales leads come in many different forms, yet few sales reps adjust their sales follow-up process to sync with the latest intelligence available about those leads. If not careful, they could be turning qualified sales leads into "not interested" responses or even worse, …

We all want to spend our advertising funds in the most efficient way possible and after reading this, you’ll probably want to stick to mobile advertising or add it to your budget. Nearly three in four mobile users (74.0%) say they fully pay attention to mobile ads while browsing the Web, either on a regular (35.3%) or occasional (38.7%) basis, according to a recent survey from Prosper Mobile…

You might not use Instagram, but you’ve probably come across photos that 50 million users of Instagram have taken and put on the web. Also, more than likely you’ve heard the news that Facebook acquired Instagram in April for $1 billion.

What’s so special about Instagram? Its calling card is the photo filter,…

Pinterest is a pretty easy thing to grasp, right? You just pin pictures and hope that someone likes them or comments on them. We all know that Pinterest is quickly becoming the go-to social media site and if you have a Pinterest account and a decent amount of followers/likes, you may be asking yourself, now what? You think you might have mastered the art of the pin, but have you thought about making words pinnable? Let’s say you have a great blog you want to share on Pinterest. Take a simple…

More and more automotive brands are recognizing the value of live chat and OEMs such as Nissan and GM are suggesting that their dealerships use allocated funds towards chat. At ActivEngage, we are our own largest customer.  We use the very same …

Do you hate seeing that your customers have unsubscribed from your email list? Do you loathe seeing them “unlike” your fan page. Do you cringe when your customers are no longer your Tweeps? Well, the average customer is bombarded with around 3,000 messages a day so more than likely, if they leave, they’re just not that into you.

How can you court your customers back and gain…