Social Media is not about hugging people. Some people are just jerks. So goes one of the most famous quotes from the Social Fresh Conference, and those of us who tweet for food know exactly what it means. There’s a myth in social media that being a maven is like being sort of a glorified online flight attendant. You roam the corridors with your cheery cart of auto-responses, address grouchy customer complaints with a perky smile, and try not to bump anyone in the knee. This is wrong. Social media has traditionally been pure brand management; but it can be more if you make it more. It can be sales. It should be sales. Relational. Educational. Soft. But still sales. The way to change your social media game from a sideline cheer show to a strategic conversion machine is to start where all sound sales processes start: set up a funnel. In this case, a content marketing funnel. Here’s an example of an automotive content marketing funnel in action: Monday: Run a &ldquo...

One of the hottest topics in social media right now is how to integrate social media efforts into the larger marketing strategy for maximum ROI oomph. This was a sizzling topic at industry conference Social Fresh East, as well as a lively issue here at Cobalt where we are attempting to bring our social media efforts under the marketing fold. There are many reasons why this “integration revelation” needs to happen:     Don’t Feed the Mavens. People tend to treat social media as an exotic animal, but at the end of the day, social media is just marketing, and all the same tenets apply. As Jay Baer, Social Fresh Speaker and Founder of Convince and Convert brilliantly put it:   “Email Subscribes equal Facebook likes. Email Unsubscribes equal Facebook Hides. Email Forwards equal Facebook shares.”   True, true, and true. Once we start to understand that social media fits into the same maxims we use to define marketing, we s...

A Maverick (VJ) Says, Maven (Jade) Says Edition Maverick Says: Customer service has been around since the lemonade stand, but many business innovators are elevating the definition to all-out rockstar levels. We approve!  From DSES Keynote Speaker Gary Vaynerchuk’s “thank you economy” to Bob Burg’s and John David Mann’s“The Go Giver,” today’s hot and  up-to-date  thought leaders are reexamining customer service and thinking “outside the ballpoint pen” on how to really  rock their customer’s world. The cool thing about this trend is that it is completely accessible to the automotive digital marketing community. Anyone can take an innovative approach to treating customers like royalty and give them a unique Red Carpet Event (and no, I am not referring to Ford and Lincoln’s Red Carpet Lease event). Let’s get you on the A-List and provide you with a peek behind the velvet rope to see how...

A "Maven Says, Maverick Says" Edition   Maven says: Throughout automotive conference season, one message rang clear: the days of having a single person to handle your company’s social media are over.  When you think about it, this makes sense. After all, social media is just brand management with better icons, and brand management is and always has been a company-wide job. After all, a single person cannot possibly know the in’s and out’s of every department, and to expect them to act as a single liaison creates an operational bottleneck that won’t do in the social media real-time world. Instead, the future of social media will be about cultivating an A-team of “brand advocates” across all departments, each of whom is trained to engage in social media interaction. For those of you dealers who are shaking your heads because you’ve heard so much about the importance of a dedicated social media specialist; don’t g...

Cobalt One of Elite Automotive Marketing Vendors Selected for Google Distinction Today, Google announced that Cobalt has been selected as a Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner. Cobalt is one of the few automotive marketing providers to receive this distinction. “We are excited to launch the Google AdWords Premier SMB Partner program with hand-picked, highly qualified companies like Cobalt/ADP,” said Ben Wood, Head of Google’s Americas channel sales partnership in a press announcement, “Automotive dealers will not only benefit from Cobalt’s in-depth training, but from their years of relationship in the local market.” The Google partnership is the latest testament to Cobalt’s sophisticated digital advertising capabilities. Cobalt’s unique automotive paid search program is driven by a Bid Optimization System (BOS) which drives the very best monthly performance for an individual dealer or across a network of dealerships. It is the only...

By Volker Jaeckel, Cobalt/ADP Digital Marketing Ambassador and Jade Makana, Cobalt/ADP Digital Marketing Social Media Maven   “What we upload about ourselves is our digital footprint. What other people upload about us is our digital shadow. What do you want your digital legacy to be? ” Erik Qualman, Digital Dealer 2011 Keynote Speaker and Founder of Socialnomics  “The first time that Tier I, Tier II and Tier III joined forces in their marketing message and broke through the noise; that is why Chevy and dealers were so successful with the Cruze launch,” John Holt, Driving Sales Executive Summit 2011 Special Panelist and CEO of ADP Digital Marketing/Cobalt. “Twitter is like my Speedos I wear….if you don’t like it, don’t look at it,” Dennis Galbraith, Driving Sales Executive Summit 2011 Breakout Speaker and Owner of Revenue Guru. “Buying a car should be fun.” Rich Rikess, Performance Improvem...