Are You Exceptional?

Well, are you? It's a question you should ask yourself sooner rather than later, before you do though you should check your ego at the door and be honest with yourself. I ask because it's the difference between what's expected and the service given that will decide whether or not you are worth doing business with again. We live in a time when just meeting expectations wont earn you repeat business. You must make it a policy to continually strive to go above and beyond and do the things that your customers DON'T expect, of course that just the beginning...

Your Personal Brand

Your brand is who you are, it's about building an identity that will resonate with your customers and keep them coming back to you even when there are no other incentives, besides their relationship with you, to do so. Building your online brand starts with who you actually are, what makes you unique, what can you offer that others will be drawn too? In the auto industry its relatively easy to stand out from the stereotypical auto dealership or automotive sales person.

Being incongruent with what people think about our industry, without you actively saying you are different, will go a long way to increasing the worth of your personal brand. If you keep in mind that people will sometimes believe what they are told, but will always believe what you conclude you will start to see that it's better to show that you are different by your actions, not your words.

If you want to generate leads, increase your repeats and referrals, then you need to recognize that online branding needs to be a priority because it can help you to reach your goals by driving incremental business your way. Simply put, if you want to build more online business (the new networking) then you must first build your online brand or identity.

It all starts with...

Listening

Managing your reputation is as important as marketing your reputation. Word of mouth can spread like wildfire and it's in your own best interest to listen to what others are saying about you or your dealership. While you can spend money on professional social monitoring tools (such as Radian6 and Brandseye) there are some free ways to get nearly the same results.

Setting Up Social Monitoring

1. Sign up for Google Reader, it's easy, free and a great way to manage all your reputation management feeds.

2. Go to Google Alerts and put in keywords that relate to you and your dealership. Make sure "Type:" say's "Everything" and "Deliver to:" says "Feed." Preview your results before you click create alert, make sure that you stay away from broad terms such as Ford or Toyota because they will send a ton of results that don't relate to you or your dealership. After clicking create alert it will automatically go to Google Reader.

3. Go to SocialMention.com and once again put in the keywords that relate to you and your dealership. After clicking search you will see an icon and next to it you will see "RSS Feed." Click on that link and save the feed to Google Reader. You may have to change the drop down to Google before clicking subscribe.

4. Go to IceRocket.com and put in your keywords and click search. Keep in mind that doing all of this may give you duplicate results but will also let you know when somebody says something about you online. After performing the search, grab the feed from the bottom left.

5. Go to YackTrack.com and once gain perform a search and grab the feed.

6. Go to BoardReader.com , search out your keywords and grab the feed.

While there are many others, this is a good start and is very thorough, remember that there will be dupes and some things that aren't relevant but that's just the name of the game.

Where To Start Building

Home Base

Your home base is your website or blog, while building you personal online brand you want it to be your blog. Your blog is your hub, it's your home, its where you send everybody to find out more about who you are. You home base should have a nice about me section, a contact me page and should be easy to make comments on. It will have links to your outposts (we will talk about "outposts" next) and will have a nice "clean" look.

Outposts

Outposts are accounts, profiles or pages on other social networks and social media platforms. It's a way to extend your personal brand outside of your home base. Create a profile on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and actively grow and engage your connections.

Passports

Passports are spaces that you post information on such as posts and newsletters and could even be other social networks that you send your RSS feed to but don't actively engage on. Passports can turn into Outposts if you start to use those spaces to be social and to engage others.

The idea behind segmenting your personal branding channels into home bases, outposts and passports is to allow you to better understand your flow of information and to allow for maximum influence.

Content Creation

Create content on a regular basis. This could include videos, podcasts or blog posts. Remember that you can repurpose your content if you run out of ideas. Remember that the less you pitch the more you sell. Be humble and remember that the only thing you should be selling is you. When creating content don't forget to include a call to action, that call to action could be to sign up for your newsletter or to leave a comment, but every video you create, podcast you record or blog post you write should have some sort of call to action in it.

When somebody comments, respond. Ask questions to further the conversation along. The more valuable your comments the more it reflects on your brand, on your personality. Create content that is pertinent to the people that you are looking to attract. As an auto dealership you can write posts on detailing tips, how to replace wiper blades, how to set the clock or work the navigation system. The ideas are endless!

Actively Engage

Spend the bulk of your time engaging the people on your home base and outposts. Get to know them, find out who the influencers are and spend more time engaging them. Use a service such as Klout.com to find your own influence score as well as the scores of those in your networks.

When engaging people there are 4 distinct "personality types" that make up your network:

• Consumers read but don't comment, watch videos but don't share, they listen but don't add. Consumers make up about 96% of the people in your network and while they are influenced, they are not influencers.
• Engagers will comment on your posts and make up about 2% of the total number of people in your online community. While they do comment they don't influence others to join the community.
• Influencers equal about 2% of your community and are a lot like engagers but they will actively help to grow the community by inviting others to be part of it.
• Brand Ambassadors equal only 1% of your online community but are golden, when you can find them use them to help grow your community. There are the people that create blog posts and videos about you or your dealership. They tell others, offline, about you, your dealership or your service department.

Give Your Brand A Voice

Based on your research (ask your customers!) determine what your audience wants to hear and what messages you want to put forth, that will build the foundation of your personal brand. Keep The following in mind:

• Be consistent. It's hard to be consistent when the person you are trying to be is not who you really are.
• Speak to your audience not at them, don't use industry terms and always remember to speak in a conversational tone, even when you are writing.
• Have an open mind, remember it's what your customers want and it won't always coincide with what you think.

Inviting Your Customers

Create business cards that has links to your home base and outposts and invite your customers to join you. When you sell your customer a vehicle take a picture of them and ask if you can tag them in it on Facebook. Once you have connected with them check out their profile and learn more about them. Engage them, converse with them and get to know them on a deeper level than just customer/ salesperson.

In Conclusion

While it won't happen overnight, developing your own personal brand will go a long ways to generating you more business. Think about all the big brands out there and how much clout they have. By building your own brand, your own referral network you make yourself harder so no to, so what are you waiting for, get out there and build and if you have an questions, comments or concerns along the way I'm just an email or comment away.

Speaking of comments what would you like to add to this post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

David Johnson is the Social Media Strategist for Next Generation Dealer Services and PersuasiveConcepts.com.

Are You Exceptional?

Well, are you? It's a question you should ask yourself sooner rather than later, before you do though you should check your ego at the door and be honest with yourself. I ask because it's the difference between what's expected and the service given that will decide whether or not you are worth doing business with again. We live in a time when just meeting expectations wont earn you repeat business. You must make it a policy to continually strive to go above and beyond and do the things that your customers DON'T expect, of course that just the beginning...

Your Personal Brand

Your brand is who you are, it's about building an identity that will resonate with your customers and keep them coming back to you even when there are no other incentives, besides their relationship with you, to do so. Building your online brand starts with who you actually are, what makes you unique, what can you offer that others will be drawn too? In the auto industry its relatively easy to stand out from the stereotypical auto dealership or automotive sales person.

Being incongruent with what people think about our industry, without you actively saying you are different, will go a long way to increasing the worth of your personal brand. If you keep in mind that people will sometimes believe what they are told, but will always believe what you conclude you will start to see that it's better to show that you are different by your actions, not your words.

If you want to generate leads, increase your repeats and referrals, then you need to recognize that online branding needs to be a priority because it can help you to reach your goals by driving incremental business your way. Simply put, if you want to build more online business (the new networking) then you must first build your online brand or identity.

It all starts with...

Listening

Managing your reputation is as important as marketing your reputation. Word of mouth can spread like wildfire and it's in your own best interest to listen to what others are saying about you or your dealership. While you can spend money on professional social monitoring tools (such as Radian6 and Brandseye) there are some free ways to get nearly the same results.

Setting Up Social Monitoring

1. Sign up for Google Reader, it's easy, free and a great way to manage all your reputation management feeds.

2. Go to Google Alerts and put in keywords that relate to you and your dealership. Make sure "Type:" say's "Everything" and "Deliver to:" says "Feed." Preview your results before you click create alert, make sure that you stay away from broad terms such as Ford or Toyota because they will send a ton of results that don't relate to you or your dealership. After clicking create alert it will automatically go to Google Reader.

3. Go to SocialMention.com and once again put in the keywords that relate to you and your dealership. After clicking search you will see an icon and next to it you will see "RSS Feed." Click on that link and save the feed to Google Reader. You may have to change the drop down to Google before clicking subscribe.

4. Go to IceRocket.com and put in your keywords and click search. Keep in mind that doing all of this may give you duplicate results but will also let you know when somebody says something about you online. After performing the search, grab the feed from the bottom left.

5. Go to YackTrack.com and once gain perform a search and grab the feed.

6. Go to BoardReader.com , search out your keywords and grab the feed.

While there are many others, this is a good start and is very thorough, remember that there will be dupes and some things that aren't relevant but that's just the name of the game.

Where To Start Building

Home Base

Your home base is your website or blog, while building you personal online brand you want it to be your blog. Your blog is your hub, it's your home, its where you send everybody to find out more about who you are. You home base should have a nice about me section, a contact me page and should be easy to make comments on. It will have links to your outposts (we will talk about "outposts" next) and will have a nice "clean" look.

Outposts

Outposts are accounts, profiles or pages on other social networks and social media platforms. It's a way to extend your personal brand outside of your home base. Create a profile on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and actively grow and engage your connections.

Passports

Passports are spaces that you post information on such as posts and newsletters and could even be other social networks that you send your RSS feed to but don't actively engage on. Passports can turn into Outposts if you start to use those spaces to be social and to engage others.

The idea behind segmenting your personal branding channels into home bases, outposts and passports is to allow you to better understand your flow of information and to allow for maximum influence.

Content Creation

Create content on a regular basis. This could include videos, podcasts or blog posts. Remember that you can repurpose your content if you run out of ideas. Remember that the less you pitch the more you sell. Be humble and remember that the only thing you should be selling is you. When creating content don't forget to include a call to action, that call to action could be to sign up for your newsletter or to leave a comment, but every video you create, podcast you record or blog post you write should have some sort of call to action in it.

When somebody comments, respond. Ask questions to further the conversation along. The more valuable your comments the more it reflects on your brand, on your personality. Create content that is pertinent to the people that you are looking to attract. As an auto dealership you can write posts on detailing tips, how to replace wiper blades, how to set the clock or work the navigation system. The ideas are endless!

Actively Engage

Spend the bulk of your time engaging the people on your home base and outposts. Get to know them, find out who the influencers are and spend more time engaging them. Use a service such as Klout.com to find your own influence score as well as the scores of those in your networks.

When engaging people there are 4 distinct "personality types" that make up your network:

• Consumers read but don't comment, watch videos but don't share, they listen but don't add. Consumers make up about 96% of the people in your network and while they are influenced, they are not influencers.
• Engagers will comment on your posts and make up about 2% of the total number of people in your online community. While they do comment they don't influence others to join the community.
• Influencers equal about 2% of your community and are a lot like engagers but they will actively help to grow the community by inviting others to be part of it.
• Brand Ambassadors equal only 1% of your online community but are golden, when you can find them use them to help grow your community. There are the people that create blog posts and videos about you or your dealership. They tell others, offline, about you, your dealership or your service department.

Give Your Brand A Voice

Based on your research (ask your customers!) determine what your audience wants to hear and what messages you want to put forth, that will build the foundation of your personal brand. Keep The following in mind:

• Be consistent. It's hard to be consistent when the person you are trying to be is not who you really are.
• Speak to your audience not at them, don't use industry terms and always remember to speak in a conversational tone, even when you are writing.
• Have an open mind, remember it's what your customers want and it won't always coincide with what you think.

Inviting Your Customers

Create business cards that has links to your home base and outposts and invite your customers to join you. When you sell your customer a vehicle take a picture of them and ask if you can tag them in it on Facebook. Once you have connected with them check out their profile and learn more about them. Engage them, converse with them and get to know them on a deeper level than just customer/ salesperson.

In Conclusion

While it won't happen overnight, developing your own personal brand will go a long ways to generating you more business. Think about all the big brands out there and how much clout they have. By building your own brand, your own referral network you make yourself harder so no to, so what are you waiting for, get out there and build and if you have an questions, comments or concerns along the way I'm just an email or comment away.

Speaking of comments what would you like to add to this post? I'd love to hear what you have to say.

David Johnson is the Social Media Strategist for Next Generation Dealer Services and PersuasiveConcepts.com.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool to connect with super influence in your community, are you using it? Welcome to the 4th episode of Automotive Social Media – The Podcast! In this episode I will share with you the tips and tricks of LinkedIn and how you can connect with the super influencers in your market. If you’re not using LinkedIn with you Automotive Social Marketing then you are missing out. Keep in mind that if you are a sales person, you don’t have to wait till your dealership says its mandatory, start now, take your future into your own hands!

If you would like to listen to the rest of the "Automotive Social Media - The Podcast" you can do so at Persuasive Concepts.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool to connect with super influence in your community, are you using it? Welcome to the 4th episode of Automotive Social Media – The Podcast! In this episode I will share with you the tips and tricks of LinkedIn and how you can connect with the super influencers in your market. If you’re not using LinkedIn with you Automotive Social Marketing then you are missing out. Keep in mind that if you are a sales person, you don’t have to wait till your dealership says its mandatory, start now, take your future into your own hands!

If you would like to listen to the rest of the "Automotive Social Media - The Podcast" you can do so at Persuasive Concepts.

If you want to take advantange of social media and relationship marketing then you have to understand the Village Mindset and how you can use it to create influence.

Welcome to the second ever Automotive Social Media – The Podcast. In this podcast I will discuss with you how you can tap into the referral mindset of your customers and why we are putting more and more emphasis on what other people are saying. Did you know that we trust only 14% of the advertisement we see or hear each and every single day? 14%!!! What that means is lost dollars and a decrease on ROI, have you watched your cost per car sold skyrocket? There is a reason and I will discuss it in the podcast.

If you would like to lsten to my other podcasts feel free to check them out on my blog at PersuasiveConcepts.com

If you want to take advantange of social media and relationship marketing then you have to understand the Village Mindset and how you can use it to create influence.

Welcome to the second ever Automotive Social Media – The Podcast. In this podcast I will discuss with you how you can tap into the referral mindset of your customers and why we are putting more and more emphasis on what other people are saying. Did you know that we trust only 14% of the advertisement we see or hear each and every single day? 14%!!! What that means is lost dollars and a decrease on ROI, have you watched your cost per car sold skyrocket? There is a reason and I will discuss it in the podcast.

If you would like to lsten to my other podcasts feel free to check them out on my blog at PersuasiveConcepts.com

If you want to gain market share in these turbulent times, you must first adopt a new way of thinking. The old way of thinking about marketing, your customers, selling cars, acquiring service and even financing has to go by the wayside or your dealership will shrivel up and die.

I know those seem like harsh words because they are and it’s my hope that you don’t take them lightly, I sure didn’t when I wrote them. In order to change your way of thinking, your old bad habits so to speak, you must replace it with a new way of thinking because that’s the ONLY way you’re going to be able to survive.

We’re in the beginning stages of a revolution, an uprising that if you choose to stand against it, will crush you. The revolution I’m talking about is the customer revolution. For so long they had no voice, they were like an infant trying to say their first words, and now that they have a way to get their voices heard, they will never be silenced again.

You’re old way of thinking, that the end justifies the means, should be tossed away because now each and everyone of your customers has a soap box and other people are waiting (and wanting) to hear what they have to say. In fact, you don’t even have to be present, these conversations are going on without you and they will continue to do so. It’s up to you, do you want to know what they are saying or do you feel that if you didn’t hear it or see it that it never happened? I’m here to tell you now that if a tree falls in the woods it still makes a sound, even if nobody is around to hear it.

It’s time to change your perspective; it’s time to adopt what Robert Green calls a “strategy in depth.” I’m not referring to what most people think about when they think about strategy, which is often confused with planning and thinking ahead. No, I’m talking about strategic thinking that includes a higher level of perspective.

Right now you are on the ground seeing things on a level playing field, you are reacting to the changing times by holding on to the past because it’s real, or was real, you lived through it, you conquered it and became its victor and nothing is going to take that from you, not even this so called uprising.

As humans, when we are faced with a novel situation, we tend to react in one of two different ways. The first way, the way most dealers are handling the customer revolution, is to deny the reality of it, to say that it just ain’t so. And of course, since they tell themselves that it isn’t they hold on to the old way. In other words we interpret the world in the ways we WANT to see them, not necessarily the way they are. How are you seeing the world?

The second way, which most definitely is the road less traveled, is to accept the new rules by throwing the old ones out the window. By doing that we move above the playing field and gain new perspective, in other words we have elevated our position and instead of looking both our competition and customers in the eyes, thus limiting our strategic vision, we can look down at the playing field and adjust our position on the fly.

Imagine with me if you will, that you were playing chess but you were limited to looking at the board, while standing on the board. In this position you could only see the pieces next to you which would make it very difficult to protect your king. Now, elevate your position to just above the pieces, true you have a better view but still you would have trouble seeing your opponent advance. Lastly imagine yourself with a birds eye view, not only could you see what your opponent’s moves are but you could see beyond the board, past your opponent and into the horizon. Your perspective would give you a more in depth strategic vision, you would be able to see what’s coming and adjust accordingly.

Most auto dealers are playing the game while standing on the chessboard; they react to only what’s going on around them. I’m here to tell you right now, stop it. Raise up, pay attention to what’s coming and protect your king, if not there is more than a check mate in your future.

If you want to survive then adopt a social marketing attitude, humanize your dealership and give your employees a voice, it’s in the relationships your people can create with your local market that is going to determine your market share. The choice truly is yours to make. I hope you make the right one and when you do I’m here to guide you through it.

What’s Beyond My Field Of Strategic Vision Anyway?

The promise land, the land of milk and honey, the land of increased market share, increased repeats and increased referrals. Don’t you see it? Do you want to see it?

For those of you that do it’s a beautiful thing to behold when the people in your community stop going to Google looking for a vehicle, instead they come to you because you have built the reputation of being one of them. Instead of the traditional advertising monologue you have begun to dialogue with the people in your market. Because of that you are in a the unique position of permission marketing, a term coined by Seth Godin, which means that people are giving you their permission to market to them.

So, elevate your position, take in the whole battlefield and pay particular attention to what’s coming. If not, you could be wiped off the battlefield all together.

David Johnson is the Digital Marketing Strategist for Next Generation Dealer Services, you can listen to his daily Automotive Social Media podcast at PersuasiveConcepts.com.

If you want to gain market share in these turbulent times, you must first adopt a new way of thinking. The old way of thinking about marketing, your customers, selling cars, acquiring service and even financing has to go by the wayside or your dealership will shrivel up and die.

I know those seem like harsh words because they are and it’s my hope that you don’t take them lightly, I sure didn’t when I wrote them. In order to change your way of thinking, your old bad habits so to speak, you must replace it with a new way of thinking because that’s the ONLY way you’re going to be able to survive.

We’re in the beginning stages of a revolution, an uprising that if you choose to stand against it, will crush you. The revolution I’m talking about is the customer revolution. For so long they had no voice, they were like an infant trying to say their first words, and now that they have a way to get their voices heard, they will never be silenced again.

You’re old way of thinking, that the end justifies the means, should be tossed away because now each and everyone of your customers has a soap box and other people are waiting (and wanting) to hear what they have to say. In fact, you don’t even have to be present, these conversations are going on without you and they will continue to do so. It’s up to you, do you want to know what they are saying or do you feel that if you didn’t hear it or see it that it never happened? I’m here to tell you now that if a tree falls in the woods it still makes a sound, even if nobody is around to hear it.

It’s time to change your perspective; it’s time to adopt what Robert Green calls a “strategy in depth.” I’m not referring to what most people think about when they think about strategy, which is often confused with planning and thinking ahead. No, I’m talking about strategic thinking that includes a higher level of perspective.

Right now you are on the ground seeing things on a level playing field, you are reacting to the changing times by holding on to the past because it’s real, or was real, you lived through it, you conquered it and became its victor and nothing is going to take that from you, not even this so called uprising.

As humans, when we are faced with a novel situation, we tend to react in one of two different ways. The first way, the way most dealers are handling the customer revolution, is to deny the reality of it, to say that it just ain’t so. And of course, since they tell themselves that it isn’t they hold on to the old way. In other words we interpret the world in the ways we WANT to see them, not necessarily the way they are. How are you seeing the world?

The second way, which most definitely is the road less traveled, is to accept the new rules by throwing the old ones out the window. By doing that we move above the playing field and gain new perspective, in other words we have elevated our position and instead of looking both our competition and customers in the eyes, thus limiting our strategic vision, we can look down at the playing field and adjust our position on the fly.

Imagine with me if you will, that you were playing chess but you were limited to looking at the board, while standing on the board. In this position you could only see the pieces next to you which would make it very difficult to protect your king. Now, elevate your position to just above the pieces, true you have a better view but still you would have trouble seeing your opponent advance. Lastly imagine yourself with a birds eye view, not only could you see what your opponent’s moves are but you could see beyond the board, past your opponent and into the horizon. Your perspective would give you a more in depth strategic vision, you would be able to see what’s coming and adjust accordingly.

Most auto dealers are playing the game while standing on the chessboard; they react to only what’s going on around them. I’m here to tell you right now, stop it. Raise up, pay attention to what’s coming and protect your king, if not there is more than a check mate in your future.

If you want to survive then adopt a social marketing attitude, humanize your dealership and give your employees a voice, it’s in the relationships your people can create with your local market that is going to determine your market share. The choice truly is yours to make. I hope you make the right one and when you do I’m here to guide you through it.

What’s Beyond My Field Of Strategic Vision Anyway?

The promise land, the land of milk and honey, the land of increased market share, increased repeats and increased referrals. Don’t you see it? Do you want to see it?

For those of you that do it’s a beautiful thing to behold when the people in your community stop going to Google looking for a vehicle, instead they come to you because you have built the reputation of being one of them. Instead of the traditional advertising monologue you have begun to dialogue with the people in your market. Because of that you are in a the unique position of permission marketing, a term coined by Seth Godin, which means that people are giving you their permission to market to them.

So, elevate your position, take in the whole battlefield and pay particular attention to what’s coming. If not, you could be wiped off the battlefield all together.

David Johnson is the Digital Marketing Strategist for Next Generation Dealer Services, you can listen to his daily Automotive Social Media podcast at PersuasiveConcepts.com.

It's not the end all be all, that's for sure. What? But David I've been to one of your seminars, I've seen all your webinars and have read your blog posts, you're a social media guy... aren't you? In a sense you could make the argument that I am, I do preach it, I'm passionate about it and I feel that every dealership in the country can benefit from it to one degree or another but I would argue that I'm more than just a social media guy, allow me to explain.

Wikipedia says the social media is media for social interactions, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. It goes on to say that social media uses web based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.

Wha?

Basically social media is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. And just like any tool there are both wrong ways and right ways to use it. So in other words I'm saying that the "tool" is not the end all be all, it's what that tool can help you accomplish that's the end all be all. Think about it, what's worth more, the hammer or the house it built? Rhetorical I know, but you get my meaning.

So What Does The Social Media Tool Build?

It builds the platform on which social interactions can be built. It's the coffee table we sit around as we get to know each other, it's the telephone held to our ears as we talk about the day's events, it's a communication channel. What are you using that channel for?

Some would say that it's used to sell, that it's another channel to get your vehicle seen. I would say the first part is closer than the second part but the kind of selling that should be done with the social media tool is much different than the kind of selling you're used to. Social media purists would argue that you don't sell on social networks and I would say that they are wrong... in a way. True were not selling products or services but what we are selling is ourselves. We are selling the fact that we are human, that we are more than car people, that we have thoughts outside of selling cars and that we want nothing more than to build positive, win-win relationships with our clients.

I talk to a lot of dealer principals, general managers and sales managers who don't seem to get what social media can do for them, they call it a fad. Fad you say? Networking has been around since the dawn of time, in fact the fancy word I used a few paragraphs up (social interactions) is just another word for networking, is networking a fad?

With social media tools you now have the option to networking with hundreds and thousands, even millions, whereas before you were lucky to network with 2 or 3 at a time. If you're one of those people that stay away from hype for the sake of it being hype then think of it this way: Social media is the tool used to humanize and build relationships with the people in my community, much like the newspaper, way back in the day, was used to sell cars.

Relationship Marketing Is The True Hero

If you haven't had a chance to read last week's blog post please take a moment to do so, it's titled "Harnessing The "Human" Mindset." In that post I go into the mindset behind why social networks are so popular and if you are able to harness the basic desires behind it you are well on your way to increasing your social capital.

Again we can go back to Wikipedia for the definition of relationship marketing: a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on sales transactions. As a practice, Relationship Marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages.

Isn't that refreshing! With relationship marketing the pressure of the sale isn't even there, in fact we are doing what we're are hard wired to do, be social! With the onset of social media it's easier than ever to build relationships with our clients and indirectly relationships sell. Relationships get people to talk about your dealership and your sales people, isn't that what you want, word of mouth?

So I'll say it again, social media isn't the end all be all, but what it can help you accomplish...whoa! So, what are you waiting for, go forth and multiply... your networking that is.

It's not the end all be all, that's for sure. What? But David I've been to one of your seminars, I've seen all your webinars and have read your blog posts, you're a social media guy... aren't you? In a sense you could make the argument that I am, I do preach it, I'm passionate about it and I feel that every dealership in the country can benefit from it to one degree or another but I would argue that I'm more than just a social media guy, allow me to explain.

Wikipedia says the social media is media for social interactions, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. It goes on to say that social media uses web based technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.

Wha?

Basically social media is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. And just like any tool there are both wrong ways and right ways to use it. So in other words I'm saying that the "tool" is not the end all be all, it's what that tool can help you accomplish that's the end all be all. Think about it, what's worth more, the hammer or the house it built? Rhetorical I know, but you get my meaning.

So What Does The Social Media Tool Build?

It builds the platform on which social interactions can be built. It's the coffee table we sit around as we get to know each other, it's the telephone held to our ears as we talk about the day's events, it's a communication channel. What are you using that channel for?

Some would say that it's used to sell, that it's another channel to get your vehicle seen. I would say the first part is closer than the second part but the kind of selling that should be done with the social media tool is much different than the kind of selling you're used to. Social media purists would argue that you don't sell on social networks and I would say that they are wrong... in a way. True were not selling products or services but what we are selling is ourselves. We are selling the fact that we are human, that we are more than car people, that we have thoughts outside of selling cars and that we want nothing more than to build positive, win-win relationships with our clients.

I talk to a lot of dealer principals, general managers and sales managers who don't seem to get what social media can do for them, they call it a fad. Fad you say? Networking has been around since the dawn of time, in fact the fancy word I used a few paragraphs up (social interactions) is just another word for networking, is networking a fad?

With social media tools you now have the option to networking with hundreds and thousands, even millions, whereas before you were lucky to network with 2 or 3 at a time. If you're one of those people that stay away from hype for the sake of it being hype then think of it this way: Social media is the tool used to humanize and build relationships with the people in my community, much like the newspaper, way back in the day, was used to sell cars.

Relationship Marketing Is The True Hero

If you haven't had a chance to read last week's blog post please take a moment to do so, it's titled "Harnessing The "Human" Mindset." In that post I go into the mindset behind why social networks are so popular and if you are able to harness the basic desires behind it you are well on your way to increasing your social capital.

Again we can go back to Wikipedia for the definition of relationship marketing: a form of marketing developed from direct response marketing campaigns which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on sales transactions. As a practice, Relationship Marketing differs from other forms of marketing in that it recognizes the long term value of customer relationships and extends communication beyond intrusive advertising and sales promotional messages.

Isn't that refreshing! With relationship marketing the pressure of the sale isn't even there, in fact we are doing what we're are hard wired to do, be social! With the onset of social media it's easier than ever to build relationships with our clients and indirectly relationships sell. Relationships get people to talk about your dealership and your sales people, isn't that what you want, word of mouth?

So I'll say it again, social media isn't the end all be all, but what it can help you accomplish...whoa! So, what are you waiting for, go forth and multiply... your networking that is.