What is the goal of your brand’s social media pages? The thing most automotive dealerships might say would be ‘getting our message out there.’ The easiest way to do that would be to get likes, shares, views, etc, and to do that you must give them premium content that they’ll want to share with their friends!

Acquity Group conducted a study of people ages 18-69+ to get a feel for their social habits. Some of the results are shocking while some are expected but all of them are insightful for marketers. Let us take you through some of the most riveting results.

First of all, this study brought some good and bad news for brands. The good news? Facebook is the most trusted channel for brand content. The other choices included Newspaper, Instagram, YouTube and TV among others. The least trusted, as you can see, was a company blog, which was a surprise for us. Here at iFrog Digital Marketing, we write content for our client’s blogs and we try to make them as trustworthy and informative as possible in hopes that we are seen as the authority on that topic.

The study also proved something we may or may not have already known: young people are easily influenced. The numbers show that of people 50 years and younger, 43.68% of them have tried a new product or service as a result of an advertisement on social media. That is a very impressionable group and one that many auto dealerships choose to target. You can probably see the opportunity there, but if not then picture this: Our iFrog Graphics Department creates you a brilliant Facebook ad of a new car or service special for your dealership, our content writers give it a gripping headline and caption, we post it on your dealership’s page and nearly 50% of people purchase that car or service. Now a 50% return on investment (ROI) would be ridiculous, and while that is an exaggeration, it is still a good representation of how the process works with Facebook ads created by iFrog. Just as a side note, this study showed that YouTube ads affect the buying habits of the 18-22 year old demographic the most at 27.51%.

Videos shared on a friend or family member’s wall were far and away the most shared content at over 75%. How do you get your dealership’s content shared on that original family members wall? Give them something useful, informative or even funny. That first share is what could enable your post to snowball into something that gets a much wider reach. We’ve seen that first hand for our Preston Auto Group clients with their King of the Plex competition videos in September. This is a funny video which quickly snowballed to reach over 5,000 people and 20+ shares.

The study also showed that a post by a brand that has been shared multiple times in my network was shared at a rate 46.44%. People feel comfortable sharing something that someone else has already shared. This goes along with the same notion that supports clothing trends: once you get one person or group to do it the rest will follow. Some disappointing news for brands was the dismal 4.91% of people in the study that said they would share a post by a favorite brand. Meaning that even if Mazda is their absolute favorite car brand they won’t share a post from a Mazda Dealer over 95% of the time. This statistic is disheartening, but that just means brands have to try harder to earn that elusive “share”.

Finally, we would like to leave you with another graph illustrating more findings of the study. Notice that a funny video is the most likely piece of content to get shared. Another client that is doing great with their funny videos — and they’re doing it completely on their own — is Boulevard Ford, part of the Preston Auto Group. Check out their daily videos that are getting great traction on social media, such as this Automotive Edition of Bat Dad. The fact is funny videos may not directly sell your product but they may sell the experience. An article revealing new findings in an industry you’re interested in had a great share rate as well, which is what we aim to do through our iFrog Blog and client’s blogs.

Take this information and use it in your social media execution. Or you could get in contact with iFrog about optimizing your digital media for you! Either way, follow these best practices and your content shall be shared.

Source: Acquity Group’s 2015 Next Generation of Commerce Study as interpreted by adweek.com

In this marketing world, businesses are typically always 5-7 years behind (sometimes 10) implementation of new technologies or marketing strategies. I don’t say that to be insulting; it’s just a reality. If it’s big in marketing today… it will be catching on typically 5-7 years later in smaller markets.

There are many reasons that small businesses are slower to adopt changing technology and marketing opportunities.  Those reasons can be a) not enough manpower/resources to devote to it, b) too busy running the business themselves (often small businesses are solo entrepreneurs) or c) don't understand it - so they ignore it.  There can be countless others, but these 3 are the most often ones I’ve heard.  What small to mid-size business owners need to embrace, understand, commit to and realize today is: you need to be thinking and executing a Digital Marketing Strategy - NOW.  

What is a digital marketing strategy?  A digital marketing strategy is the sum of all your digital footprints online & what you need to focus on with each: your website, your blog pages, your business listings, map locations, social media pages, review sites, videos, photos… this doesn't include all the countless opportunities and outlets you have in advertising online (which is another post altogether).  A digital marketing strategy is something every business owner today needs to immediately address.  What is your presence online?  What can you fix, what needs to be fixed, what trends are currently happening, what is relevant for your business now (in your market), what areas would you like to investigate and learn more about for next year?  

Today, people's lives are centered around the digital world.  Yes, this may be a sad statement, but it’s true and will only become more so as more things we use on a day to day basis are born “connected” to the internet (think smart cars, Fitbit's, smart phones, tablets, Amazon Echo).  There is an entire generation now being born into connected technology - it’s all they will know.  We watch shows On Demand, on DVR, listen to Spotify, Pandora or Satellite Radio, read news through RSS feeds or news apps, book flights or reservations with our phones, video chat with people around the world, virtual and augmented reality is coming and more.

Businesses, no matter the size of the market they are in, can no longer dismiss anything related to digital as an afterthought.  The time to recognize and address your digital presence is now.  What will people find when they reach you in the digital world?  What have others been saying about you that the world can see, that you have not addressed?  Most businesses will consider digital marketing strategies for next year but will cite one of the reasons above as to why they didn’t achieve that goal.  As next year comes to a close, they will look back and see they continued the same traditional marketing tactics as the previous year (with maybe some slight changes). 

This time of year, small and mid-size businesses will start planning their annual marketing budgets, and all the traditional media vendors they’ve used over the previous year will start putting their presentations together in hopes to renew their contracts.  Today, these vendors have their own “digital platforms” that they additionally bundle with or sell separately from their main services.  Simply “buying time” from these vendors is often a “waste of time” as without the business owner realizing “I need to address the digital side of my business,” they are simply putting a band-aid on the issue, and wasting marketing dollars.

Over the past 20 years, I’ve seen digital creep into the traditional marketing world & the digital world is here to stay.  Businesses need to look at how they are spending their traditional marketing dollars to reach customers in their market & designate a significant portion of that budget now, to their digital presence.  Seems scary and intimidating - saying “we can’t cut that, or we can’t go dark there.”  The digital reality is, you have to do something… and now.  Make bringing your business up to date in the digital world a top priority.  Change is never easy, but the change to understanding the importance of digitalis essential to moving your business forward.
 

You hear the talk within our industry as well as hear it about others. “If you are not taking advantage of the opportunities presented by ‘Digital Media’ you are losing out.” This has been proven numerous times and in numerous ways through surveys and statistics showing your customers are doing their research not only about your products or services but your particular business online. They are doing this research before you even know they have an interest. Therefore, if you do not have a Digital Media Strategy already in place when they show up, it’s tough to catch up on the spot. Unfortunately, in many cases, they have already begun a relationship with the business that was ready to help them through that investigative process. Opportunity lost, period.

Business owners tell us all the time that it is hard for them to devote full-time employees to develop and execute their digital media campaigns due to uncertain ROI. That is a valid conversation. It is also why we do it for them. Digital Media is not just about Social Sites; it is about designing Sales Campaigns from a Social Perspective. Instead of yelling your message at your customers, you educate them. First with awareness, suggestions, and proof of your expertise in their area of need. Rather than relying solely on Social Sites to accomplish this, you should start with your website, carefully consider and track the effectiveness of your keywords, test the crawlability of your site by Google and other search engines, and many other factors. That is the reason to hire a Digital Media Company to handle your Online Marketing Campaigns. It just isn’t cost effective for most dealers to handle all this “in house”.

Believe it or not, not doing anything with your Digital Identity is better than doing it wrong.  When dealers send messages that are inconsistent, unprofessional or create any other negative impression, it is very hard to fix. Digital Media only compounds your mistakes due to its ability to easily reach so many people, so very quickly.
When you look at the sales process, your salespeople use to sell cars you can see the logic to it. You know certain steps have to be taken (and taken correctly) to close that sale at a profit. Digital Media is no different. It is just another strategy to attract customers and close sales, and it is just as important as the strategy you are using on your sales floor.

So, the only question is; do you have a Digital Strategy in place that effectively leads prospects to your store? If not, we can help! iFrog Digital Marketing offers Reputation Management strategy and training for you and your staff. Let us show you why the lack of a cohesive Digital Strategy is the #1 problem overlooked by dealerships.