Social media marketing is already growing very quickly. How long before it replaces the traditional forms of dealer advertising? And if that sounds ridiculous, think how important the internet is for your business today and how that compares with your marketing 10 years ago.
Here's the question - how do bricks and mortar car dealers capitalise on social media; where to start, what needs to be done, and who does what to ensure success? How do you define success?
I ought to declare that we have a vested interest in exploiting social media marketing. Aside from being a company which does not have large advertising budgets and therefore relies on an alternative strategy. Our C It Now dealer base are also in the great position of being able to produce lots of new video content very quickly and easily. Which raises other questions; what sort of content should they be producing and how should they distribute it?
Social media marketing is about conversations. So one question I'd like to help answer is how to share this new content on social media platforms. I'd also like to explore what else could be done to help develop new conversations with dealer customers.
With that in mind, I'll be writing a series of blog posts exploring the answers to these questions, uncovering opportunities and how they can benefit your business.
Let's get started.
1. What is it?
Wikipedia has as a pretty useful definition for social media marketing. The aim is to create content that attracts attention, generates online conversations, and encourages the recipient to share it with their social networks.
Networks include Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, You Tube, Flickr, Bebo, MySpace and many more.
2. Relevance?
Facebook was the most visited site on the web for the week ending March 13, 2010, surpassing even Google in week-long stats for the first time in history.
There are 25 million active Facebook accounts in the UK (April 2010). Male/female split is nearly 50:50, slight female bias; the biggest age group is 20-29 (7.9M), then 30-39 (4.3m). The smallest group is 50+ but this is still north of 2m users.
34% of global internet users visited Facebook yesterday, 25.9% visited YouTube and 6.45% visited Twitter.
In terms of daily time spent by each visitor; Facebook users spend 31 minutes, You Tube 20 minutes and Twitter nearly 8 minutes.
Alexa traffic stats
Facebook and YouTube both rank higher than the BBC which is a staggering statistic when you think about the BBC's powerful position in UK culture.
3. Not a quick win
And there's the rub. I've contributed to various automotive discussions on Linkedin where 'experts' talk about the fact that social media is free. On the basis that you don't have to pay Autotrader a weekly media fee I guess it is. But this hides the true cost which is the time that the dealer needs to spend and the inconvenient truth that results take months, years, not days.
This type of marketing is a long way from the culture of paid for, short term tactical advertising which provides immediate results. Not really surprising that most dealers are simply ignoring the social media phenomenon.
4. Content
And here's the other rub; dealers need to create content that attracts attention, generates conversation and encourages people to share. That's hard enough to do if your job is developing content for a living. What's a car dealer supposed to do? Even those dealers with a marketing function are typically swamped with short term tactical activity because the pressure is on to make immediate impact to the sales figures in order to justfiy their cost on the business.
5. What are dealers already doing?
I've started by providing a snapshot on what UK car dealers are doing on Facebook.
My Facebook searches suggest that relatively few dealers have a presence. Those that do (and good on them) can be split into several different groups.
i) We're on Facebook but we don't do much with it. They have a presence but no one is updating it.
ii) Using Facebook specifically as an advertising platform. 'Save upto £5,000 on an XC90 Active' for example. It all tends to be offers and reminders that they're selling cars. Why not? Facebook provides another marketing outlet and offers more editorial freedom than the manufacturer's dealer web site will. What else could they be doing?
iii) A good example is Inchcape Mercedes-Benz who focus on news rather than advertising, sharing human interest stories within their business.
"Customer looks forward to blue sky thinking with new cabriolet"
"Couple flying high after a taste of the finer things at Mercedes-Benz of Leicester"
"Liverpool apprentice named among Britains best"
6. Do car manufacturers differ?
They certainly do. As a for instance, Audi has 738,915 followers, Mercedes-Benz, 374,466, and Vauxhall Corsa 21,578. This was a big difference from UK car dealers who have relatively few followers.
Jaguar also took my eye. At 83,262 followers they are serving a global community of enthusiasts.
Their editorial is also very different. The marque is less concerned with selling cars but keeping followers informed about events such as Le Mans with pictures and video of the Jaguar RSR; and the 75th anniversary of the E-Type. 'Jaguar' is very much a personality, a brand, not a sales house only focused on cars on their forecourt.
If I was a Jaguar dealer, I'd be investing some time on their discussion forum answering the questions that are posted and generally being a helpful dealer.
'What do you think about the 2010 Jags?' had 31 posts for instance and some of those posts are from Jaguar owners.
Vauxhall is also interesting because it's a Facebook product page designed for a UK audience. The content is heavily focused on the World Cup - I wonder if they have a 'plan B'.
That aside they encourage participation - 'win a team shirt' by sending in your photos when you're celebrating with your mates, enter the Pop Art Idol competition (now closed). They also couldn't resist adding a product announcement on their discussion page where they showcase the new black and white limited edition Corsa; the two posts on this subject were both from Vauxhall Corsa with no reply from their 20,000 plus followers.
It's clear from the better Facebook examples mentioned above that some dealers and manufacturers offer engagement opportunities. Part of this is as simple as providing regular updated content; even better if the content goes beyond a straight sales pitch. Of course, if you're a C It Now dealer, able to publish regular video sales presentations of cars on your forecourt, you're already providing a higher level of entertainment and engagement than most customers are likely to find elsewhere.
The start point with Facebook, aside from setting up a Facebook page is to research your market. What are other dealers already doing, how active are they, what sort of content do they currently publish? If you're a franchised dealer, what content does the manufacturer publish and are there opportunities for you to engage with their follower base? Do current customers have Facebook accounts? What about a mailshot to your customer base to find out what sort of content would potentially interest them?
Once you have a better idea, the next step is to decide how often you will publish and who is responsible?
For the C It Now dealer the burden of content responsibility can be spread across the salesforce who should all be capable of presenting a car using the new video archive service. For some C It Now dealer's this also extends into the service department where they can use video to help explain the C It Now video service. Highlighting the fact that your dealer salespeople can offer live video presentation on any car is a benefit that won't go unnoticed on Facebook. Giving the opportunity for your potential customers to meet your sales team virtually is also a good way to start breaking down any barriers that might exist.
What else should dealers be doing on Facebook? Are there some simple, quick wins which can help to create more conversation and engagement? What do you think? Do you have any good examples that you'd like to share?