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Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on September 29, 2012 at 12:01pm

@ Rob...Between you and Steve, you have put everything in perspective. like x 10

Comment by Thomas A. Kelly on September 29, 2012 at 11:57am

It always seems no matter what question is posed, the marketers of anything social become defensive and rarely focus on the actual question/topic. I don't see social as an all or nothing thing at this point. Many who promote social would have us believe that there is no such thing as a "sweet spot" and that it is not possible to overspend on social. Today, we would not go out of business, our sales will not drop 50%, and somebody would notice...the folks we pay to do it for us....and over time, a very few of our customers. Should we have a presence? Most of  us do. Are there other ways to find yourself at the top of the heap?...Ask Texas Auto Direct, Finishline Ford, and Sundance Chevrolet for some ideas....all remarkable entities in my opinion.

Comment by Rob Hagen on September 29, 2012 at 11:50am

Steve, full disclosure, my company offers social media services as well. You have the perfect mindset in regards to social media. Facebook is not a direct sales tool, it is a relationship building tool and reputation management tool. You can have a million friends on facebook and that does not guarantee you a certain amount of sales. Facebook gives your customers another means to reach out to you and get to know you, information that might help them chose you over your competition or vice versa.

Comment by Steve Duff on September 29, 2012 at 11:17am

@Kathi Kruse - I understand your skin in the game as you sell social media services. I get that, and I get that the platforms of social media are free - but that hiring a company to market through those channels is not free. Nor is it free to run ads on Facebook. It's not even free if one of my staff posts on Facebook while on the clock (but it's not expensive either). The thing I keep looking at is the branding opportunities and I've never discounted that value. Having said that, I'll just say this... we've got our inventory listed on our 3 websites, Autotrader, Edmunds, KBB, Cars and Facebook. We get internet leads from people who buy cars on all of them but one. Guess which one. 

Comment by Rob Hagen on September 29, 2012 at 11:00am

About 7 years ago, I did an in depth study into the sales that were coming from the leads we were creating. Tons of great information came out of that but one stat is relevant to this discussion. 22% of our SOLD leads only means of communication on the leads were email addresses, either no number or bad phone numbers were given when the lead was submitted.

Why is this relevant? Because that was where they were most comfortable in communicating early on in the sales process. Building rapport, one of the first parts of any sales process, is best accomplished when the customer is comfortable.

Point is, the sales process goes a little different for every customer, that's why salespeople can't be replaced by robots. I guarantee some of your customers check you out on Facebook, I know it isn't 22% but the number will more likely increase in the future as opposed to decrease. Social media is not going away, just getting more complex.

Social media is marketing/branding which is the smallest section in your advertising budget but social media can be your most potent marketing tool. Billboards are great but social media is a living breathing billboard that can adapt to events in your community in the matter of minutes as opposed to days or weeks.

Comment by Steve Duff on September 28, 2012 at 3:31pm

Comment by Kathi Kruse 4 hours ago

What would happen if dealerships turned off the phone?

Business would fall off 50%.

But that's phone.

We're talking about Facebook and Twitter here. Nobody tweets or facebook messages you with questions like "is that red 2011 mustang still available?"

 

I will amend my prior post where I said probably won't notice difference in months or years due to the reminders posted here that social can and does impact SERPs. And as I said in the first post, there is definitely branding opportunities and since it's free, why not take advantage of it. We aren't going to be dropping any of it. My answers to the questions posted (as many others agree) are primarily addressing the question of whether we would close the doors or lose 50% of our business. Anyone here who says yes to either of those definitely has other more important problems to take care of.

Comment by MANNY LUNA on September 27, 2012 at 11:20pm

Its all about the selling doctrine that is in place in the dealership. Hub Hyundai / Mitsubishi has no twitter, facebook ,or G+ presents and yet they have been the number one Hyundai and Mitsubishi Dealer in Houston, Tx all year.

They do have a vendor for custom VSEO and Geo Target MacroSites that get syndicated to social sites. But that's Social SEO and that's not the topic of this blog.

Comment by Keith Shetterly on September 27, 2012 at 10:43pm

Mark's question is on the money, though I think too much of these answers here are narrow-minded.  To be clear, I say there wouldn't be a direct, immediate affect.  Why?

Advertising of any kind will never fix a bad process.  And floor traffic is a mix of advertising, branding, and location, location, location.  Advertising can be deceiving, as can other factors:  The tick near the artery never complains and thinks the rest crawling around just don't need to be doing that, since it was simple for him; the "tick consultants" selling directions to arteries to the other ticks can be everything from spot on to charlatans.

It reminds me of the manic aphorism "Everything happens for a reason", which I despise as it is almost always cast like a spiritual or "zen of the empty or full glass" pompous revelation.  Really, the folks starving in Africa are doing so for a reason??

So, driving online traffic to your site via SEO or SEM (PPC, remarketing, etc.) is stupid if your site does nothing to help the shoppers.  However, if you're the Big Dog in your area you can convince yourself that you don't need to do much about that site operation, as folks come to you, anyway.  Essentially, all online advertising can suck for you across a spectrum of reasons, from "don't need it, we're fat and happy" all the way to "it sent our customers to the awful maze we laughingly call a website".

As to Social Media, I follow a simple rule much, much older than I am: "For sales, wherever two or more customers are gathered, so should you be there also."  It's not that hard nor expensive to hold that social media presence, and what you would miss if it were turned off would be the same thing you would miss if you turned off the billboards and the TV/Radio in some markets--just the end of the year, you might be down some cars and wonder.  Immediate?  It's not an immediate on or off, just like turning a sailboat, in fact--sales is about momentum, and momentum is powered by everything from advertising to branding to reputation to location location location.  Oh.  I said that already.

What we all forget is that not only does "a rising tide lift all boats" (meaning great car sales years for the country  will dump more sales on you just by turning on your lights and opening your door/lot)--but also folks NEED our boats.  SO, if you're an established store in a metro area the problem in advertising--online, offline--is radically different.  Assuming that SEO has no place for everyone because it hasn't hurt YOUR store is more a testimony to the tide of advertising--AND the processes that have to be in place.

Because, as I opened with, no advertising will fix a bad process.  If you need more traffic and sales, advertise and fix your processes, too--if you're happy with your traffic, fix your processes for even more sales.  Really, assuming there is "one" answer for everyone, such as SEO, PPC, social media, etc., is just as wrong as assuming these aren't answers for SOMEone.

I've audited online charlatans right out of a dealership and saved the dealer thousands of dollars.  Just be careful to know, in the same breath, that success is many factors and not the same everywhere.  Sometimes, the worst enemy to our future success . . . is our current success.

My $.02.  Thanks!

Comment by Timothy Martell on September 27, 2012 at 9:07pm

It's kind of a silly question really. 

A similar question could be posed to car dealers: What would happen if they turned off their TV spots, their Radio Ad's. news paper ads and stopped running the same old mailers every month?

Very little would happen right away.

Frankly, the social media question itself is almost irrelevant since 98% (or more) of dealers are not leveraging these communities properly, so what if any result would there be? Likely nothing. After all, if you keep casting a fishing line in a cement school parking lot, you won't catch any fish will you? 

Also, the note about "basic SEO" is rather contradictory. If you're "turning off" social media, then you are effectively turning off a major component of your SEO strategy. Facebook shares have been shown to have as much or more weight in SERP rankings as back links. Because dealers have failed to leverage social media successfully isn't the same as placing too much weight on social media. 

The real issue is the panicky "sky is falling" sort of mentality dealership management often respond to new media. Remember when the internet was going to be a passing fad? Remember when this was common:

Dealer Principle says to GSM, "GSM! Whats the story with this internet thing?" GSM says, "We've got a website!" DP responds, "Alright good, now that we've got that internet thing covered, we can get back to selling cars!"

Not much has really changed in that regard. Yes, you should have a cohesive digital marketing strategy that incorporates social media as a function of that strategy. But I rarely see much strategy out there. Instead dealer's sort of "collect tasks". An OEM rep says dealers need a Facebook page, so the dealer gets one. Some one at some seminar says social icons should be on the home page. What happens? They get icons! 

There isn't much talk of the fact that SEO is not a digital marketing strategy or that a Facebook page isn't a digital marketing strategy. Where's the dealer with a great optimized website that blog's every day with awesome engaging content that get's syndicated through their social media properties that all have thousands of engaged followers who like comment, share, follow, RT, +1 that content to other people? Where are the compelling value propositions in the form of ad's on dealer blogs designed to take advantage of the 55% more web traffic generated by a well written updated blog? Where is the custom crafted retargeting being done with different messages for people who just landed on the dealer blog vs clicked through to the dealer's website vs clicked through and submitted a lead?

The issue isn't that too much attention is being diverted to social media, the problem is that serious attention is rarely placed on anything until we stop fearing it and begin to understand it and -- even more for a dealer, until they see tangible causality IE I take this action and I get that result. Digital marketing processes are not like traditional media. Digital results in a far more complicated path to conversion. 

My 2 cents...

-M

Comment by Mr. Natural on September 27, 2012 at 7:48pm

@ Steve D.  Good on ya'... I've gotta' go through this thread and see how many are SEO promoters...

I wonder about this: I get many SEO pitches masquerading as leads. They start the lead clock...every moment we don't respond costs us money. Funny, they never provide their phone number-good thing, cause I'd give 'em a piece of my mind-then, when I respond by email, I never hear from them. What is up with this?

SEO??? Scum Bags!  I hate em...Their chicken s**** that hide behind their IP address.

HA!

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