Why is this important?

It’s important because it shows the mentality of the car dealer industry.

How often do you hear from the dealer Principal or GM state that they don’t see the point in social media because they don’t see how it sells cars? Or how often does your supervisor approach you with questions like, “how are things going for us on Facebook? Are we selling any cars from it yet?”

Study after study suggests, and marketers using social media confirm, that the point of social media is not for selling or closing deals, but rather for numerous other purposes such as to:

• Drive traffic to your website
• Build your brand and reputation online
• Add value to the customer experience
• Establish and maintain relationships
• And more…

Fortunately this is becoming a moot point that I think many dealers are getting past, but for those that aren’t, this is a good story to consider.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should not expect results from your efforts using social media, just that matching it to the number of cars you sell as a result is not the right metric to go by. That’s what lead-to-show and show-to-close ratios do. But that is a whole other topic. I just wanted to draw attention to this important example you can refer to when put under the gun at your dealership for your efforts on the social web.

What are some things you can share from your experience with people at your dealership who are not embracing social media as a viable means for branding your dealership?

Paper.li can be described as a tool that gives individuals the ability to almost effortlessly create an online magazine. Paper.li organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy to read newspaper-style format. Newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, list or #tag. For details about this process read their FAQ.

Before blogging as we know it came about, which was sometime in 1999, we had newspapers and magazines that gave us editorialized content in a journalistic fashion, printed daily or weekly usually. As blogging became mainstream, these publications were forced to change. Some fell to the wayside. Others adapted to the times. New sites also came about such as digg, Mashable, and Huffington Post.

Then along came Twitter and Facebook, which forever defined the term micro-blogging, the ability to broadcast smaller doses of information in a more sporadic fashion, still living up to the attraction to blogging for its SEO benefits and networking possibilities. The nice thing about micro-blogging is that you don’t always have to produce original content. You can link people to existing content, essentially spread the word.

Now, with paper.li, instead of doing either you can effortlessly filter tweets you like to create your own daily magazine soup. It’s like you don’t even have to think about it anymore. Just set it and leave, maybe make a few adjustments here and there.

If you start following these, you will likely see some of the same information you see when you log on to TweetDeck or HootSuite. If you do not use a micro-blogging application like this then following these magazines, or “dailies”, should provide an efficient way to keep a bigger eye on a lot of the same information, or even more.

The project is a culmination of things. It is meant to offer auto shoppers a more private way of obtaining purchase information from local auto dealers and retailers. The site also offers dealers and retailers a social networking platform to promote their specials and cultivate high-quality prospects.

AC features a marketplace similar to Craigslist but rather than having dealers and merchants post ads in a market, shoppers are expected to post requests to which dealers and merchants may respond. The service is free for everyone.

AutoConverse.com supports communication in the format of a blog or forum which is visible to the public or in the form of private messaging which is only visible to the designated members. In either case, the Shopper is not forced to give up his or her phone number and email address in order to have a conversation with dealers and merchants. This is how the site provides a more private way of communicating.

This is how the site provides a more private way of communicating.

The site offers four different member types for people to distinguish one another – Shopper, Dealer, Merchant, or Agent, each containing its own unique set of links that can appear on the member’s profile. An Agent would be someone who represents multiple dealers or merchants, or a webmaster using the site to promote his own automotive sites and interests.

Members can optionally link to their Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare profiles along with links to their blog and website. Dealers have the ability to link people to dealer review sites like Carfolks.com or their dealership page on DealerRater.com.

Dealers, Merchants, and Agents can then create Merchant Sites which are WordPress-based microsites meant to promote a dealership or other brick and mortar storefront, or a website. These members can create as many merchant sites as they like and whatever content they publish to their merchant sites also appears on the AutoConverse.com activity stream.

This is an abridged version of the original press release which has further detail and quotes.

a.) Twitter users are actively discussing products and services
b.) Twitter is growing rapidly and driving consumer awareness

Because of this, B2C and B2B marketers continue to incorporate Twitter into their digital marketing strategies and as a marketing tool you want to maximize its potential. But in its simplest form Twitter, which is a lot like SMS text-messaging from your mobile phone, can be limited and time-consuming.

So what are some ways to better leverage the power of Twitter?

One option is with the use of lists. Twitter lists are a feature that enables you to create lists under your account and add other Twitter users to them. By doing this, you essentially create filtered views of messages being published to Twitter which helps you keep a watchful eye on people important to you, be it personally or professionally.

In March we explored ways to utilize the software TweetDeck to manage multiple accounts on Twitter. Our guest presenter for this session was Ryan Taft of Catalyst Marketers who is back with us this week to show us how to create and manage lists on Twitter. In this live web cast, Taft will be covering:

• What is a twitter list?
• Examples of Twitter Lists
• How to create a Twitter List
• How to use a Twitter List

To attend this webinar you must be registered with the AC List Builder series which you can do by clicking button below. By registering you will receive an email notification from GoToWebinar reminding you of each webinar within that series. If you are not able to or are not interested in attending a specific webinar within that series then there is no obligation to attend. You can disregard the notification.

Likewise if you have an interest in attending webinars from another series we run then you can register with those from the training page too. By subscribing to our website then we can notify you of our upcoming events and webinars plus we can share information like this that you can utilize on your own time.

Fortunately there are ways to make your Twitter efforts more efficient. One of these ways is with the use of TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is a browser for select social media networking sites allowing you to manage information on Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. In fact with TweetDeck you can even manage multiplate Twitter accounts, plus any facebook pages to which you are an admin can be managed from TweetDeck too.

For example, we recently launched a new Twitter account for BlogPro Automotive and are using to TweetDeck to manage it along with other Twitter accounts we have in addition to customer Twitter accounts.

This week we are holding a webinar dedicated to the use of TweetDeck and Twitter as part of our AC Social Webinar Series. Our guest presenter will be Ryan Taft from Catalyst Marketers who assists us in managing information on Twitter and facebook for some of our customers. Taft posted to his blog recently offering some extended uses of Twitter and TweetDeck in the post No time for Twitter? Use TweetDeck to save time, but you can benefit from this information first hand by attending this week’s Webinar at 11:30 am EST on Thursday April 1.

In this webinar Taft will be exploring the following topics:

• Quick Twitter for Business Intro
• TweetDeck Overview
• Download for computer & mobile phone
• Add Twitter account
• Add Facebook account
• TweetDeck helps maximize your time on Twitter
• TweetDeck helps show activity at a glance
• TweetDeck recap & summary

As with all our webinars we aim to make them useful and applicable in the real world, this way you can walk away with new skills that can be applied to your endeavours on the web right away.

To attend this webinar you must be registered with the AC Social Webinar series which you can do by clicking here or the button below. By registering you will receive an email notification from GoToWebinar reminding you of each webinar within that series. If you are not able to or are not interested in attending a specific webinar witin that series then there is no obligation to attend. You can disregard the notification.

Likewise if you have an interest in attending webinars from another series we run then you can register with those from the AC Webinar Series page too. Additionally, by becoming a fan of our facebook page or by subscribing to our website then we can notify you of our upcoming events and webinars plus we can share information like this that you can utlize on your own time.

It’s not the name foursqaure but rather what foursquare brings to the playing field – a way for consumers to express their interest in local businesses by sharing daily lives.

See, facebook has limitations when it comes to marketing your business. Facebook was not built to serve as a business marketing tool. It was meant to be a place for young people to connect. Only as these folks became working professionals in the business world did facebook evolve to serve the needs of businesses and individuals. The underlying architecture is flawed from the get-go as a business marketing tool, and so businesses are forced to work around that.

foursquare on the other hand sprouted from a different seed. It is based on the readiness and handiness of the Internet, mobile technology, consumer interests, and business possibilities. With foursquare, consumers can choose to give your business credibility by sharing their association with your business. And unlike in facebook where the business can manage its persona, on foursquare, businesses have no weight. The popularity and interests of its patrons do.

So for car dealers, where does foursquare fit it? Well, try this for starts…

1. Go to foursquare.com and create a profile for yourself. This takes about 5 minutes.
2. Then do a search for your dealership. If you can not locate your dealership on foursquare then add it as a new venue.
3. Now, each time you go to work (at that dealership), check in. By checking in, you are taking the first steps towards becoming Mayor of your dealership, unless of course someone else at your dealership has already begin doing this. (No worry. If you can’t become Mayor there are other awards available.)
4. Remember to “check in” each time you go to work at the dealership.
5. Now, in your dealings with people, be it on your blog, on Twitter, on facebook, wherever, let the people you know see that you are on foursquare. Do everything you can to get people checking in to your dealership on foursquare. This can be done by including a link to your foursquare account in your email signature, displaying it online, in your phone conversations, etc. Probably the most important place to do this is in a text message you send customers. Point is, advertise the fact that you use foursquare.

Here is what you can expect. The Internet-savvy prospects and customers you come in to contact with will connect with you on foursquare, Twitter, and on facebook. All three of these will come in handy through time on Google Search. More importantly, if you engage with these folks via Twitter you can establish a more useful communication with them than you can on facebook. But on facebook you can have a more entertaining and multi media experience with these folks.

On foursquare, you can help them earn savings and incentives by getting them to check in, create to-do lists such getting their vehicle serviced, and adding tips such as, “Talk to Davey Jones he will take care of you”.

Unless you are on foursquare, facebook, and Twitter now it will be difficult to see the value in these simple yet essential acts. But as you learn to embrace these communication tools you will find that cultivating and driving leads onto your desktop is truly attainable even with such new technologies as these.

Earlier this week we posted a video about this to our blog which you may want to watch as well. It’s in the post labeled A Big Bang for SEO and Social Media.

For the webinar we will start by going through a slide show that was put together by Peter Caputa over at HubSpot. It’s a short slide show so we will also journey through his commentary of the subject on the HubSpot blog. All-in-all we expect our webinar to last about 20-30 minutes but we may open it up for discussion if there are not too many people attending.

To register for this webinar, click here (or the button below) for the AC List Builder series, fill in the required information and then expect to receive instructions for connecting to the webinar at 11:30 am EST on Thursday November 12. By registering you will automatically be included on all future AC List Builder/Social webinars (once a month) plus you will receive access to our webinars archive where you can watch and listen to past webinars at your leisure.

Click here to view the embedded video.