No matter how much it’s discussed, there are still massive
amounts of misinformation in addition to retail kick back in regard to social
media in general and what it does specifically for car dealerships. However the
simple question still remains the same: why?
It’s almost 2013 and some social signals are already making
a significant impact on local search queries and a couple networks are
absolutely affecting search engine optimization. Almost nobody at the OEM
level, not one of the existing enterprise social media providers and most
vendors have demonstrated proper use, understanding or leverage of social to
benefit you. It’s sad, however most dealers aid in this continuing and continue
to buy “services” from them…
If you’ve simply hired a social media company to “manage”
your social network content, you’ve likely made zero or near-zero impact on
local search as well as branding, defending SERP positions and a list of other
benefits. We see this continually via mediocre dealership Facebook pages,
auto-feed only Twitter accounts, automated blog posts copied onto hundreds, yes
hundreds, of other dealership blogs and copied Pinterest photos; the result? Complete
disconnect from people on their networks.
“But it’s not selling cars!” or “I don’t care about that
social garbage, that’s not what we do”, or “When it shows results, we’ll jump
on it properly” responses demonstrate that what’s happening in digital simply
hasn’t sunk in. Yes, there’s lots of talk, just very little good action, let
alone great. So are you going to hate the player or hate the game?
Most simply want to hate the game, not who’s doing it at the
dealership or outsourced to (aka the player).
Some hate the player recognizing that the game is not to blame. However,
it’s neither. Our focus continues to go, inexplicitly, to BS “traditional”
marketing especially when there’s a sunny financial or industry volume
report. There’s a near blanket of
ignorance put toward the largest, yes largest, shift in media consumption. And
we all do it. Well, over 90% of us.
How can you book an airline ticket online after checking
Kayak or Travelocity, or buy a pair of boots you’ve never tried on before with
glowing reviews, or even do a stock trade on your phone, tablet or computer
followed by sharing your gain on Facebook and then turn around and ignore
what’s happening with the socialization of media and search?
Digital signals are unavoidable. More importantly,
everything we do affects how others consume products and media, let alone
search.
So hate the player if you want, or hate the game if you’ve
got a louder voice or bigger fist, but when you finally decide to pay
attention, make investments, educate staff properly and turn the tides in your
favor, don’t complain if it’s too late or that someone else is eating your
lunch. It’s already happening.
Best Practices: Professional Insight, Powerful Results
