Just a quick shout out to Evan and the gang at Oxmoor Hyundai in Louisville Kentucky. We’re proud to announce that they are the #1 Hyundai dealership in Kentucky, selling 1009 Hyundai’s in 2011. Plus, they are the first Hyundai dealership in Kentucky to sell more than 1000 cars in a year! Keep up the great work! So far, it looks like they’re well on their way to top that number in 2012!

I don’t mean to say that a social media novice can not pull off a successful campaign.  Quite the opposite actually.  Your key to success or failure lies with the knowledge you utilize and the approach you take.  With that in mind, I have compiled a list of do’s and don’ts that all social media managers should be aware of.

Before we get started though, I want to stress the two most important factors in creating and maintaining a successful social media campaign.  TIME & EFFORT.  It’s all or nothing.  Don’t take the easy way out.  Your potential customers, followers and other members of your network will see right through laziness, and start ignoring you.

How do your social media efforts stack up?  Read on and make sure you and your people follow these guidelines.

Automotive Social Media Dos

1. Build a strong social network.

So you have hundreds or even thousands of followers on Facebook & Twitter.  That’s the most important thing right? Wrong.

How many of those followers have actually bought or might buy a car from you?  How many actually interact with you?  How many actually pay attention to your posts and updates?  Are you keeping track of these stats?  If you can’t honestly answer those questions in a positive manner, then your network is just as weak as one with a small number of followers.

You have to engage your followers.  Social media is all about having a conversation.  The only difference is that the conversation takes place online rather than in person.  Your role will be to get the conversation started.  Your followers should be the ones keeping it going.

It is of upmost importance that you do your best to not turn your conversations into sales pitches, at least not right away.  Subtlety is key in social media.  If your followers get the sense that your are only in the conversation to try and “swindle” them into buying a new vehicle, they will simply ignore you.

2. Blog. It’s essential.

Social media was invented by bloggers.  Without them, social media would basicly be and endless stream of status updates and comments, and little else.

A blog doesn’t have to be difficult, but it will take some time.  You can set one up through popular blogging sites like WordPress or Blogger in just a few minutes. You can even use your Facebook page as a blog.  The key element is that you make regular posts with good content that people can read and comment on.  If you have a big topic, you could even do a series of posts.  This often encourages people to read more of your posts and even share the information with others.

Once again as with all aspects of social media, keep the sales pitch out of it as much as possible.  Remember, subtlety is the key.

3. List Posts

A lot of popular websites write articles with themes like “The Top 10 _______ of _______.”, “How to _______”, “_______: Best Tips” or even “_______: Dos & Don’ts”.  I’m sure you can think of dozens of these kinds of posts/articles you have read.  I call them “List Posts”.  Internet users typically respond well to list posts.  They generally know what to expect from the title and the articles are easy to skim through to read only the sections of interest.  Readers are also more likely to comment on a list post as they may have additional items, points to add or opinions to voice about the content of the article.

Another advantage of list posts is that once you come up with a theme, it is often fairly easy to write the entire article.  It keeps things nice and organized both for the author and the reader.

You won’t want to over use list posts though.  One solution to keep things fresh might be to make posts where, rather than written lists, you make or find video entries for your lists.  If you create your own you can upload them to free video sharing sites, like Youtube or Vimeo and then post links to them on Twitter or Facebook, or embed them in a blog entry.  That way you will get even more exposure to various parts of the web for a minimal amount of work on your part.

4. Pay attention.

Keeping up with the latest industry news as well as everything happening on the web is important in both social media marketing and marketing in general.  Find sites, blogs and individuals to follow that might help keep you informed of important information pertinent to your dealership or brands you represent.  Use an RSS reader (like Feedly or Google Reader) and be sure to comment on posts that you like. Comments are a great way to get noticed on third party sites.  Be quick enough to be one of the first commenters on a particular post or article and you can steer the conversation any way you want.

5. Stick to your brand philosophy.

Even though you are using a modern approach to your marketing, be aware of how the brands your dealership represents are marketing themselves.  Your brands have guided you for years in offline marketing, so let it do the same with your social media marketing.  Use their example as a guide to how you approach your dealership.  It will keep things consistent for the customer and make things a lot easier for you.

6. Familiarize yourself with your online community

Some forms of social media, especially forums and fan sites, have their own cultures.  They have their own etiquette, favorite topics, and jargon.  In order to participate in their discussion and be accepted, you will need to be well-versed all of them and be adaptable as things change.

Here is an example.

Let’s say you started a thread on a forum dedicated to one of your brands about a new model that is coming out.  What you didn’t realize though is that there are already one or more threads about the same topic, and you didn’t put the thread in the right section of the forum.

Regular users of forums HATE repetition of topics and will typically not respond well to these kinds of mistakes.  It is a much better solution to stay abreast of a forum and only comment or start a new thread if you have something to an existing thread, or if you are certain it hasn’t been covered before.

Automotive Social Media Don’ts

1. DON’T SPAM!

Spam is a difficult word to define precisely.  According to Wikipedia, it is traditionally defined as “the use of electronic systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately”.  The definition is evolving though.  Spam used to be term associated with only email.  It has since grown to be associated with multiple forms of social media.

To the vast majority of internet users, spam is the definition of evil.  Take part in generating it, and you will see your social media efforts sputter and spin out control into a quick demise.  Unless you want to lose all credibility with your followers or potential followers, DON’T DO IT!

Here’s a short list of what constitutes Social Spam.

• Unsolicited or Irrelevant Links
• Promotional Comments (With or without links)
• Automated Direct Messages

As I have said before, when it comes to social media, subtlety is the key.  You will find virtually no one will respond positively to a constant barrage of sales pitches or promotional posts.  If they feel they are trying to be sold, they will simply stop listening.

Automated messages or posts on social media are an often overlooked form of spam for most car dealers.  There are a lot of vendors out there that will try to sell you on how easy it is to generate massive amounts of content for your social media and website. Don’t fall for it.  If it is automated it is hurting more than helping.

Here are a couple examples.

• Videos automatically generated from your inventory videos and posted to youtube
• Photos and links to vehicles in your inventory tweeted or posted one vehicle at a time

While services that offer this kind of automation can supply you with a ton of content almost none of it is useful.  I’ll use the automated youtube posts as an example.  Here is a video I found of a used honda.  At the time that I found it, it only had 12 views and it was uploaded in December of 2009, nearly two years ago.  There are hundreds more for the same dealer.  This is NOT to type of content that people on Youtube want to see and would definitely be considered spam.  In fact, even if this dealer did have some videos that users may be interested in they would have to sort through the hundreds of inventory videos just to find them.

Your community wants to see posts from real people, not spam.  Any time they see an automated post from your dealership, you lose credibility, and it won’t be long before you are ignored all together.

2. Avoid blatant sales pitches & marketing tactics.

Social media requires subtlety in your marketing tactics.  Inflatable gorillas and “HUGE SALE!” signs or their digital equivalent just don’t work with social media.  If you want your dealership to have positive results with social media, you will need to adapt.  The average internet user has little patience for gimmicks.  Shoving price after price in their face is pretty much a guaranteed way to lose people’s attention, and subsequently your ability to communicate with them at all.  Relevant contests, games, and quizzes as well as high value content like high-res images, videos, and information on current or future models are a much better choice.  In short give them quality information and goodies, not a sales pitch, and they’ll love you for it!

3. Dead profiles are bad profiles.

There are a ton of “dead” dealer profiles out there, many of them created by people that used to work for the dealership, but are no longer employed there.  Out dated profiles like these are a real nuisance with social media.  No one likes following, friending or becoming a fan of inactive pages and profiles with little or no real information on them.

Step one in every dealer’s approach should be to search thoroughly for profiles and accounts that have been setup referencing your dealership, and either reclaim them or delete them.

4. Don’t forget about reputation management.

There is a fairly significant amount of information on social sites that you should factor into your online reputation, like comments, posts or reviews about your dealership.  While you are engaged in social media it is vital that you gauge reaction to your dealership and it products and take measures to counter any unfavorable comments, posts, or reviews about your store.

If negative signals point to an actual problem, take them to heart just as if you were dealing with the issue in person.  It is not the best idea to simply delete the comments, if you even have that ability.  Instead, you should respond to each issue immediately.  You may be able rectify the negative perceptions by posting information about how the issue was resolved or by providing the facts without getting defensive.

5. Don’t overdo it.

Your Social Media activity should take it’s own natural course.  It’s not about the number of posts, tweets or updates you make.  It’s about the quality of them.  It is important to update regularly, but only as regularly as you have useful and relevant information for those updates.  This holds true for activity on all your sites.

6. Don’t use social media as a battleground.

Using your social media accounts to try to smear or slander your competition is a BAD idea.  You should use your social spaces more as tools to get people onto your own websites and buy your products.  Calling out your competition only brings them to your potential customers attention and invites retaliation.

Hopefully you find these guidelines helpful while planning your social media strategy.  Let us know what you think of them, or if you have anything to add by sounding off in the comments below.

Interesting article on how the U.S. deadlock on the federal budget deficit could impact the automotive industry.

Introducing the new Google Place Page:

While the place pages will be working similar to the way they always have, the subtraction of third party reviews is a pretty big deal.  Depending on your business, it could be either a blessing or a curse.

Most of our clients are car dealers and many of them use review sites like DealerRater.com to help build their online reputation.  Now that google will no longer be showing those ratings on place pages, it feels like a bit of a blow.

Many strong customer reviews that were showing up for our clients are now suddenly gone.  They do still show up on the DealerRater site, but Google Place Pages are visited far more frequently.

There can be a positive side to this decision though.  If your business has multiple negative reviews that were showing on your place page from third party sites, those will drop out and essentially be none existant (At least not on your Place Page)  This could give you a fresh start to getting some positive reviews about your business.

Since the launch of Google+, Google’s new social networking site aimed at competing with Facebook, Google seems to be revamping and simplifying all of its major services. We’ll be keeping you as up to date as we can.

Check back here soon for more news.

We are excited to announce that we have started our own blog!

Check back here often to keep up to date not only on what is going on with Rutledge Integrated Marketing, but also with our clients and the automotive industry in general.  If you like it, feel free to subscribe to the feed or leave some comments.

Look for alot more content soon!