We are close to having enough questions in to do a two-part "Ask Me Anything" now. Keep the questions coming!

Surely there's something that you've always wanted to know about automotive internet marketing. There are plenty of experts out there - I'm nobody special. I will do two things:

1. Give an honest, unbiased answer that has nothing to do with my company. I represent KPA professionally, but for this AMA I'll be answering the questions from the perspective of representing Driving Sales and the automotive industry in general.
2. Apply knowledge accumulated from nearly two decades in the automotive industry - 11 years at dealerships and 6 years on the vendor side. When I was 19, I was selling ads for a newspaper. I was in school and about to be a dad. One of my clients was a car dealership who told me about the real money I could make if I went to work for them. The rest is history.

It doesn't matter what you want to ask. Send your questions to eric@drivingsales.com and I'll answer some of the questions this week and the rest of them next week. If enough come in, we'll even do a trilogy.

I’m always hesitant to talk to people about the wonders of Facebook advertising. It’s the most cost-effective way to get the word out to the right people. The targeting capabilities make Google envious and the effectiveness, when done right, is nothing short of a work of art for driving business.

The hesitation comes with the major caveat that surrounds Facebook advertising. It can be both a wonderful thing and a terrible thing because, unlike Adwords or other forms of digital advertising, you can actually do harm to your page and your future posts.

Facebook is governed by one of the most fickle algorithms ever created. It works in real time and has a long memory, making it like walking on eggshells when trying to promote a business. There are strategies for content posting that are specifically designed to play up to the algorithm just as there are strategies for playing properly with search algorithms. The difference is that there’s no attachment between paid and organic in search while paid and organic promoted posts on Facebook are connected at the hip.

Here is an example of the “Boost” options on a Facebook page that we manage for a client. It has around 1500 fans and thankfully we were able to build it nearly from scratch – they had 26 fans when we took the page over 4 months ago.

The numbers represented here show the estimated reach for the different numerical values available to be spent. These are stereotypical numbers of a well-managed page of this size with a history of posting strong content. It’s lower than what a fresh page can expect; Facebook gives first-time advertisers a wide range of people who can like their posts before reducing it down based upon successes and failures. The reduction is inevitable because as people see posts in their news feeds and do not interact with them, they become less likely to see the next post you put up. Unless you’re posting Shakespeare-quality unique content that is driving your audience to become mad fans, you will certainly see a major dip in reach potential.

The numbers go up and down, but as long as you can keep them reaching the total number of fans you have on the page with the lowest denomination of spend, you’re in a good place in the eyes of the Facebook algorithm.

Now, here’s an example of a different page. Same industry. More fans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have nearly the reach potential.

Sometime in the past, they burned enough people who saw their posts that they’re having challenges reaching them a second time. It could have just been poor content, but a scan of the page doesn’t lend to this theory.

The only other explanation is that they’ve used Facebook ads in the past and butchered them. They posted content that was deemed spammy and then promoted it to a ton of people.

It would be like picking up a bullhorn and screaming fowl language at people as they walked by the store.

The damage is done. It’s reversible, but we have a pretty long road ahead with this much damage to correct. If the offending post or posts was so bad that a lot of people reported or made their posts hidden, it might turn out to be a better idea to start over from scratch.

Facebook is an extremely powerful advertising tool, but there are right ways and wrong ways to harness that power. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t use it for business-relevant posts. It just means that you cannot use it to spam the wrong messages. Before posting or promoting anything, ask yourself if you would want to see something like it on your news feed if it was from a different industry. In other words, if you run a car dealership, before posting this week’s newspaper ad and promoting it to 50,000 people, ask yourself if you would enjoy seeing a newspaper ad selling furniture popping up in your news feed between posts of little Timmy sliding into third base and your hilarious co-worker’s hilarious rant of the day.

Bill the Butcher was one of the greatest characters in movie history, but Bob the Butcher (you know, your Facebook ad guy) isn’t going to win you an Oscar for best Facebook post if he’s promoting content that doesn’t belong on Facebook.

I’m always hesitant to talk to people about the wonders of Facebook advertising. It’s the most cost-effective way to get the word out to the right people. The targeting capabilities make Google envious and the effectiveness, when done right, is nothing short of a work of art for driving business.

The hesitation comes with the major caveat that surrounds Facebook advertising. It can be both a wonderful thing and a terrible thing because, unlike Adwords or other forms of digital advertising, you can actually do harm to your page and your future posts.

Facebook is governed by one of the most fickle algorithms ever created. It works in real time and has a long memory, making it like walking on eggshells when trying to promote a business. There are strategies for content posting that are specifically designed to play up to the algorithm just as there are strategies for playing properly with search algorithms. The difference is that there’s no attachment between paid and organic in search while paid and organic promoted posts on Facebook are connected at the hip.

Here is an example of the “Boost” options on a Facebook page that we manage for a client. It has around 1500 fans and thankfully we were able to build it nearly from scratch – they had 26 fans when we took the page over 4 months ago.

The numbers represented here show the estimated reach for the different numerical values available to be spent. These are stereotypical numbers of a well-managed page of this size with a history of posting strong content. It’s lower than what a fresh page can expect; Facebook gives first-time advertisers a wide range of people who can like their posts before reducing it down based upon successes and failures. The reduction is inevitable because as people see posts in their news feeds and do not interact with them, they become less likely to see the next post you put up. Unless you’re posting Shakespeare-quality unique content that is driving your audience to become mad fans, you will certainly see a major dip in reach potential.

The numbers go up and down, but as long as you can keep them reaching the total number of fans you have on the page with the lowest denomination of spend, you’re in a good place in the eyes of the Facebook algorithm.

Now, here’s an example of a different page. Same industry. More fans. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have nearly the reach potential.

Sometime in the past, they burned enough people who saw their posts that they’re having challenges reaching them a second time. It could have just been poor content, but a scan of the page doesn’t lend to this theory.

The only other explanation is that they’ve used Facebook ads in the past and butchered them. They posted content that was deemed spammy and then promoted it to a ton of people.

It would be like picking up a bullhorn and screaming fowl language at people as they walked by the store.

The damage is done. It’s reversible, but we have a pretty long road ahead with this much damage to correct. If the offending post or posts was so bad that a lot of people reported or made their posts hidden, it might turn out to be a better idea to start over from scratch.

Facebook is an extremely powerful advertising tool, but there are right ways and wrong ways to harness that power. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t use it for business-relevant posts. It just means that you cannot use it to spam the wrong messages. Before posting or promoting anything, ask yourself if you would want to see something like it on your news feed if it was from a different industry. In other words, if you run a car dealership, before posting this week’s newspaper ad and promoting it to 50,000 people, ask yourself if you would enjoy seeing a newspaper ad selling furniture popping up in your news feed between posts of little Timmy sliding into third base and your hilarious co-worker’s hilarious rant of the day.

Bill the Butcher was one of the greatest characters in movie history, but Bob the Butcher (you know, your Facebook ad guy) isn’t going to win you an Oscar for best Facebook post if he’s promoting content that doesn’t belong on Facebook.

We all get our oil change. It’s a relatively constant thing. Most people are comfortable with getting their oil changed regularly. Some cars tell you when it’s time. Most people have a sticker on their windshield that tells them when it’s time. Heck, our internal clock often reminds us.

Now, imagine that you don’t know when it’s time to change. Instead of the 3000-5000 miles, your car doesn’t have a set time. It just decides that it needs to be changed. Imagine that your car doesn’t tell you, that you have to check it every now and then.

What if the type of oil changed regularly. You might need 5W-30 this time. Next time, your car requires 15W-40. Then, you hear that your car actually wanted the 5W-30 this time and the 14W-40 needs to be drained immediate – that doesn’t start working until next month.

For those mechanically minded, imagine that the configuration of your engine itself moves between oil changes. This time, you have to do it like normal but next time you may have to put it on a lift and change it from the bottom, or your car spontaneously develops a way for you to change the oil from the cabin of the car, but it must be moving at over 30 miles per hour at the time for it to work right.

This is the world of social media. I’m not trying to scare anybody. It’s just a statement of the way things are. What worked yesterday may not work today but may work again tomorrow. Today, text posts work best on Facebook. Two months ago, it was images. There are those who say that they’re seeing an increase in the engagement on images again and a decline in text post engagement.

Pinterest was nowhere to be seen a year ago in automotive social media. Today, it’s a big thing. Tomorrow, it could be dead again, replaced by Scoop.it or Overblog or any of the up-and-comers in social media. It could be replaced by something we haven’t even seen yet.

Instagram was a neat app a year ago. Once Facebook bought them, they became more of a thing. Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and even Apple are constantly in the market for social products of some sort (though Apple hasn’t pulled the trigger just yet). When they buy them, what happens? Do they improve? Become more relevant? Get ruined?

Techniques, strategies, best practices – they all change constantly in social media. Again, I’m definitely not trying to use fear tactics to tell can’t do it on their own. You can. It doesn’t take a lot of time or energy to come up with the right strategies, to track the changes, and to play with the various dynamics involved in a strong automotive social media presence. I’m simply saying this: if you’re going to do social media for your dealership, be sure to stay on top of things. Make it a priority to read, study, and test.

I was asked by a peer why I hadn’t written an automotive social media book yet. I told him that by the time I made it to chapter 6, chapter 2 and 3 would be obsolete. Social is moving. It always has and it always will. Keep that in mind when pursuing your own strategy. If the scariest part about social media is change, the worst thing that you can do is get complacent.

We all get our oil change. It’s a relatively constant thing. Most people are comfortable with getting their oil changed regularly. Some cars tell you when it’s time. Most people have a sticker on their windshield that tells them when it’s time. Heck, our internal clock often reminds us.

Now, imagine that you don’t know when it’s time to change. Instead of the 3000-5000 miles, your car doesn’t have a set time. It just decides that it needs to be changed. Imagine that your car doesn’t tell you, that you have to check it every now and then.

What if the type of oil changed regularly. You might need 5W-30 this time. Next time, your car requires 15W-40. Then, you hear that your car actually wanted the 5W-30 this time and the 14W-40 needs to be drained immediate – that doesn’t start working until next month.

For those mechanically minded, imagine that the configuration of your engine itself moves between oil changes. This time, you have to do it like normal but next time you may have to put it on a lift and change it from the bottom, or your car spontaneously develops a way for you to change the oil from the cabin of the car, but it must be moving at over 30 miles per hour at the time for it to work right.

This is the world of social media. I’m not trying to scare anybody. It’s just a statement of the way things are. What worked yesterday may not work today but may work again tomorrow. Today, text posts work best on Facebook. Two months ago, it was images. There are those who say that they’re seeing an increase in the engagement on images again and a decline in text post engagement.

Pinterest was nowhere to be seen a year ago in automotive social media. Today, it’s a big thing. Tomorrow, it could be dead again, replaced by Scoop.it or Overblog or any of the up-and-comers in social media. It could be replaced by something we haven’t even seen yet.

Instagram was a neat app a year ago. Once Facebook bought them, they became more of a thing. Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and even Apple are constantly in the market for social products of some sort (though Apple hasn’t pulled the trigger just yet). When they buy them, what happens? Do they improve? Become more relevant? Get ruined?

Techniques, strategies, best practices – they all change constantly in social media. Again, I’m definitely not trying to use fear tactics to tell can’t do it on their own. You can. It doesn’t take a lot of time or energy to come up with the right strategies, to track the changes, and to play with the various dynamics involved in a strong automotive social media presence. I’m simply saying this: if you’re going to do social media for your dealership, be sure to stay on top of things. Make it a priority to read, study, and test.

I was asked by a peer why I hadn’t written an automotive social media book yet. I told him that by the time I made it to chapter 6, chapter 2 and 3 would be obsolete. Social is moving. It always has and it always will. Keep that in mind when pursuing your own strategy. If the scariest part about social media is change, the worst thing that you can do is get complacent.

Yesterday, I found myself utterly mortified. I caught a Pinterest page that my team was managing uploading images to Pinterest. After several deep breaths, I talked to my teammate and corrected this for the future.

Pinterest has an image upload feature. I wish they didn’t. There’s absolutely no reason to pin an image directly to Pinterest. I won’t even use the mobile app for this reason.

As a traffic-driving social force, Pinterest is close to the top. As a social signal for search engines, it’s an important component. When you upload an image directly to Pinterest, you lose both opportunities. It’s not like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or Tumblr where direct uploads have benefits over linked posts. There’s zero difference between uploading directly to Pinterest or pinning an image from another site other than the loss of the two benefits the social network offers.

If you have an image that you want to Pin, put it somewhere else first. Post it to your blog. Put it on Tumblr, Upload it to Google+. Do something, anything other than uploading it to Pinterest itself. It’s an extra few seconds of work but yields an actual benefit other than simple exposure of that great image of the Ferrari you saw at dinner last night. When you pin from a different source, you’re getting the full value from Pinterest.

Yesterday, I found myself utterly mortified. I caught a Pinterest page that my team was managing uploading images to Pinterest. After several deep breaths, I talked to my teammate and corrected this for the future.

Pinterest has an image upload feature. I wish they didn’t. There’s absolutely no reason to pin an image directly to Pinterest. I won’t even use the mobile app for this reason.

As a traffic-driving social force, Pinterest is close to the top. As a social signal for search engines, it’s an important component. When you upload an image directly to Pinterest, you lose both opportunities. It’s not like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or Tumblr where direct uploads have benefits over linked posts. There’s zero difference between uploading directly to Pinterest or pinning an image from another site other than the loss of the two benefits the social network offers.

If you have an image that you want to Pin, put it somewhere else first. Post it to your blog. Put it on Tumblr, Upload it to Google+. Do something, anything other than uploading it to Pinterest itself. It’s an extra few seconds of work but yields an actual benefit other than simple exposure of that great image of the Ferrari you saw at dinner last night. When you pin from a different source, you’re getting the full value from Pinterest.

It's a topic that I hope to cover in detail at Driving Sales Executive Summit this year in Vegas and one that is very close to my professional heart. The reason that I'm so passionate about it is that the conceptual copout of branding for social media is spreading more in our industry instead of being debunked the way it should be.

Branding is not a proper goal of social media. It's one of the things that happens if you're doing social media the right way, but to call it a goal is like saying that you take ups at the dealership for the exercise. Sure, you're getting more exercise walking around the lot than you do when sitting at your desk, but that's not why you do it. You take ups and walk around the lot with customers in hopes of selling them a car.

Social media has been reduced during the time when it should be expanded. There are techniques, campaigns, and strategies that have been proven to drive more foot traffic to the dealership and more visitors to websites. Done right, social media can increase leads and drive more sales. It can bring people to the service bay who otherwise would never have visited the dealership if it weren't for social media. The examples keep mounting, but unfortunately it's only for an extremely small percentage of dealers who have cut ties with malformed strategies and processes.

I was once part of the problem. It wasn't much more than two years ago when I was preaching the power of branding through social media. Thankfully, I came to my sense as I watched social media evolve, witnessed an expansion of the medium's capabilities, and learned from some bold dealers ways that helped them to truly succeed on social media.

That's it for my late night rant. I hope to talk more about this extremely important topic October 13th-15th at the Bellagio.