Last updated 6 months ago
It can be hard to keep track of everything that happens in a week. That’s why we endlessly roam the Internet in search of some of the most interesting stories from the automotive and social media industries – so you don’t have to. Take a look at what we’ve found this week:
Photos on Facebook Generate 53% More Likes than the Average Post [NEW DATA]
“There’s no doubt that we’re moving toward a more visual marketing world. As users, we often prefer consuming visual content to reading blocks of text. In fact, Facebook users are uploading approximately 300 million photos to Facebook per day, up 20% from earlier this year… But as a business, will catering to this new trend in visual content have a positive impact on crucial engagement metrics, including Facebook Likes, comments and potentially even link clicks?...”
Four Reasons it Pays to Have a Company Blog
“More than 50% of consumers begin a search for a new business or service online. For that reason, almost every successful company runs a website that highlights its products and services. Having a strong online presence is absolutely essential in today’s economy. But you can do more. If you want to make the most of your online presence, then establish a blog connected to your website…”
7 Bold Ways to Build Brand Personality
“Social media and blogs account for 23% of all time spent online, and reach over 80% of Americans with an internet connection. Your consumers want to digitally connect with your brand, but that doesn’t mean they want to buy from a faceless, electronic corporation. Building brand personality and showcasing the people who make your company tick is essential, and it can be accomplished online. We’ve compiled 7 of the sharpest, new ways to build brand personality as part of your company’s inbound marketing strategy…”
6 Tips for a Perfectly Timed Facebook Post
“…Ninety-five percent of impressions and activity on social platforms happen within the feed, according to PageLever, a Facebook analytics platform that provides real-time data, post scheduling and page-management tools…”
The Third Phase of Social Marketing is Upon Us: 5 Steps to Get Ahead
“It’s hard to escape hearing about social media platforms being acquired by major tech players these days. In May, Oracle purchased Virtue for $300 million, in June, Salesforce scooped up Buddy Media for $689 million, and in July, Google joined in, acquiring Wildfire for $250 million. In the past year we’ve reached an inflection point within the social marketing industry. With these three tech giants gobbling up companies, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down – but what comes next?...”
Last updated 6 months ago
If you’re busy trying to blog, tweet, and use Facebook while also responding to your online reviews and simultaneously run your dealership, overwhelmed is an understatement. Just like managing a team of sales and service people, running an effective social media marketing program takes organization, communication and a lot of hard work. One underutilized (but incredible) way to stay organized is by creating a content calendar for your dealership’s blog and social media updates. A content calendar helps to ensure your dealership is integrating social media into your other marketing efforts, and that you're supplying your customers with a steady stream of interesting and relevant content. Plus, you’ll never be left wondering about what to write about.
We’ve often talked about the benefits of creating a content calendar. In fact, we’ve mentioned it a few times when writing articles on the benefits of blogging. (You can read the most recent one here.) However, we feel content calendars are important enough to warrant their very own blog post. Want to make your own? Grab an empty calendar and get to work! Here’s what you need to consider when creating a content calendar for your dealership:
Upcoming Sales/Events
Start by writing down any planned events or sales happening at your dealership. Add those dates to the calendar. You should also think about any community events your dealership plans to attend that could be of interest to your customers. Write down the dates and include those events in your content calendar as well, you'll want to share these with your customers.
Scheduled Marketing Campaigns
What other promotions or campaigns do you have scheduled this year? Are you planning on filming a few commercials, or building a mobile app? Make a note of all of your upcoming marketing plans and look for ways to include these in the calendar. Think behind the scenes looks, sneak peeks or other ways to leverage social media to compliment your planned marketing initiatives.
Seasonal Trends
There are certain times of the year where consumers are after certain things. For example, we recently shared this article that suggests fall is the best time to advertise tire and wheel offers. Brainstorm blog post ideas by writing down a few ideas for each season. You know your business better than anyone, so plan to share relevant information with your customers based on seasonal trends.
Exclusive Offers
Your Facebook fans and Twitter followers want to know that they’re part of an exclusive club. By creating special offers, sneak peeks and insider information that’s only available on your dealership’s social channels, you’re giving your customers a great reason to connect with you online. Ensure you include a few of these in your content calendar each month.
Timing
Now that you’ve jotted down most of the vital information for your content calendar, it’s time to put it together. Be realistic about how often you can post, and stick to a regular schedule. If it’s not possible to blog every day, then don’t put it into your calendar – the goal here is to create a steady stream of content to share with your customers, whether it’s once a day, or once a week. Don’t forget to schedule posts for weekends and holidays, too. Those days are often overlooked, however, can be some of the best times to connect with your customers.
A content calendar is a great way to keep your dealership organized and ensure that you’ve always got something to blog, tweet, or share. Not only that, but it makes it easy to integrate social media with your marketing campaigns, and allows you the opportunity to schedule blogs and social updates in advance, so you can focus on running your dealership.
Does your dealership have an editorial calendar? What do you make sure to include? Share your tips in the comments below.
Last updated 6 months ago
When you’re trying to get found online, all roads lead to your website. Thankfully there are plenty of little things you can do ensure your site ranks well on the search engine results pages. But as a local business, your dealership doesn’t just want to rank well online – you want to rank well for searches by people in your local community. Read our local SEO tips to help ensure your dealership gets found by customers in your area:
Show customers where to find you.
If you’re hoping to get found by local customers, you’ll want to ensure that your dealership’s contact information is prominently displayed. Ideally, your contact information will be on each page of your site. Best practice suggests that your dealership’s phone number and address should be in the top right hand corner of your website. If you have multiple dealerships, have a ‘Contact us’ page that shows the addresses and mapped locations of each of your businesses. This reinforces your physical location(s) for the search engines. That helps to ensure your dealership will rank well in the search engine results pages when customers in your area browsing for new cars or service centers in their area.
Create great content.
While you always want to ensure your website is filled with great content, changes to Google’s search algorithm has made content a top priority. You need to make sure you’ve got plenty of content on your website that talks about your dealership, your community, and your sales and service departments. Once customers find your website, it’s your dealership’s content that’s going to help them decide whether or not they’d like to visit your physical location. While you’re going to want to ensure that your content includes your dealership’s important keywords, you’ll also want to avoid overusing them. Keep your content conversational, and do your best to add new content to your website at least once a month.
Get listed.
Online directories are a great way for your business to share your contact information. By claiming your listing on local directories, you take advantage of multiple ways to reach customers and get them into your dealership. Your goal should be to get your dealership listed on as many of these websites as possible. miSocial can get you listed on hundreds of local directories that can be managed with just one login. When signing up, it’s important to ensure that your information is correct. If you chose to get listed on each site individually, keep track of your username and password information just in case you need to make any changes to your listing in the future.
Be social.
Search engines are starting to assign value to social signals, like tweets, ‘likes,’ shares and check-ins. That means your dealership needs to get social. Start by creating a social media strategy, and signing up for networks like Twitter and Facebook on behalf of your dealership. Include social sharing buttons on your website and blog posts and be proactive in interacting with customers, and asking for reviews. Sharing helpful and relevant content will ultimately help you to build an engaged community.
In order for your dealership to get found online, you need to ensure that you’re establishing a local presence. How is your dealership using the Internet to connect with local customers? Share your tips in the comments below.
Last updated 6 months ago
It can be hard to keep track of everything that happens in a week. That’s why we endlessly roam the Internet in search of some of the most interesting stories from the automotive and social media industries – so you don’t have to. Take a look at what we’ve found this week:
Study: 36% Of Mobile Automotive Searchers Convert ‘Within the Hour’
“Earlier today Nielsen, xAd and Telemetrics released the third part of their ‘mobile path to purchase’ study conducted earlier this year. The research focused on three verticals: restaurants, travel and autos. While almost all the mobile and tablet users doing research on these devices are highly qualified purchasers, there are differences in the consumer behavior from vertical to vertical. The data released today pertain to the automotive industry…”
Study: How Car Makers Can Drive Views for Social Video Year-Round
“Car makers know how to seize the big opportunity in the Super Bowl and make the most of social sharing of those ads. Case in point: Volkswagen’s ‘The Force’ ad was the most shared ad of all time, with more than 6 million shares and more than 62 million views, said social video ad platform Unruly in a just-released research paper…”
Social Trust Factor: 10 Tips to Establish Credibility
“When building an online persona and brand usually we start with the most basic aspects including over arching brand, logo, colors, core messages, etc. All of these are foundational to success. We develop our plan, develop our platform, create and launch our brand presence, integrate social with our business goals and start the social media engagement. However, after a few months goes by we realize nobody is buying from us. Nobody is opting in to our email lists. What has happened? Why don’t they want to further engage with our brand? Do they not trust us?...”
From Content to Lead to Handoff: Inbound Marketing in Six Steps
“Technological innovations have had a dramatic impact on how buyers find, evaluate, and purchase goods and services. Today, consumers readily look online, often via their mobile devices, when seeking information and advice. And just as readily they tune out advertising and other interruption-based messaging. As a result, marketers need to be more attuned to where, when, and how people want to receive messages…”
31 Easy Ideas to Create Content Your Customers Want
“’I don’t know what to write about!’ If you are trying to recruit social ambassadors for your business, you will quickly run into this challenge from your colleagues. And if you accept the Social Business imperative, you know that we all need to grow our army of storytellers in order to gain a greater share of the conversations taking place on the social web. We need to attract an audience of interested parties. And ultimately, we need to convert that traffic into quantifiable business…”
Last updated 6 months ago
By now you’re probably aware that online reviews have an impact on your dealership’s bottom line. In fact, 52% of consumers trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations [via HubSpot] – meaning it’s more important than ever for your dealership to be collecting reviews online. While I’m sure we can all agree that your dealership needs to inspire customers to write positive reviews, there’s still some confusion on the best places to collect reviews. Here’s our list of 3 places your dealership should be collecting reviews online in order to build its web presence:
Online Directories
Online directories are the online equivalent of the yellow pages. These sites tend to rank well in the search engines and collect ratings for all types of businesses – not just auto dealerships. Since they’re so easy to find, online directories are often the first place customers go when searching for local businesses. Our miSocial program can help your dealership get set up on more than 150 local directories, but getting listed on the popular websites below is a good place to start.
Google Places/Google+ Local: Now called Google+ Local, these reviews show up in the search results when someone searches for a local business on Google. Scores are calculated on a 30-point scale based on user reviews from 0 – 3, with 0 being the worst, and 3 being the best. You just need a Google account to sign up.
Yelp!: A free review site that lets customers rate businesses of all types on a 5-star scale. Any business can set up a profile and respond to reviewers. (Read our tips for responding to reviews.)
Yahoo Local: Yahoo’s equivalent of Google+ Local, these reviews show up in the Yahoo search results and use a 5-star rating system.
City Search: Also popular with consumers, Citysearch is a local review site that often makes an appearance in the search engine results pages. Like the sites mentioned above, it's free to use.
Niche Websites:
These websites are for auto dealers only, so it’s likely that someone looking to purchase a car or take their existing vehicle in for service will find their way to websites like the ones below. If you’re going to get listed on one of these sites, it’s important to work hard to maintain your dealership’s positive reputation.
Edmunds: Edmunds has plenty of information on cars and prides themselves on doing hard work for car shoppers and auto dealers alike. There’s a section on the website dedicated to dealership reviews, and they’re split into sales and service ratings.
Dealerrater: A car dealer review site that uses a paid certification program to help dealership’s work to resolve any customer service issues. The site is free to use for consumers.
Your Web Properties
Your website and social media profiles can also be a good place for you to collect customer reviews. Of course, you can always share your best reviews from around the web on these channels too.
Facebook: Facebook has a dedicated place for fans to leave recommendations for your dealership. If you’re not already seeing ‘Facebook Recommendations’ in your timeline, select ‘Highlights’ under your cover photo.
Twitter: While Twitter may not be the first place customers look for reviews, you can keep track of positive mentions of your dealership by starting to ‘Favorite’ tweets that could also act as reviews.
LinkedIn: Leverage the ‘Products and Services’ section of your LinkedIn page and allow customers to leave reviews for different vehicles or maintenance services.
Your Website: Your website is the perfect place share positive reviews from across the web with your customers. Make it easy for consumers to leave reviews on a dedicated page of your website by including a form that automatically uploads their comments.
Reviews are an important factor in acquiring new customers. What other online review sites does your dealership use? Share your tips in the
comments below.
