If there's one thing that dealers shouldn't pass up, it's an easy button.

There are so many complicated things in the marketing world online today that when something presents itself that is easy, fast, and has a return on investment, we can't let it go. That's why I have been so surprised lately (even at the DSES) when so many dealers have told me that they've abandoned Twitter altogether.

Does it have the same value as Facebook? No. Is it loaded with noise and spam? Yes. I covered these and other reasons that Twitter is getting abandoned at Soshable.

Still, there's one very compelling reason why dealers should not abandon Twitter: it simply doesn't take a lot of time. An internet manager or marketing manager (or better yet, the owner or GM) can run an extremely successful dealership Twitter account by spending less than 10 minutes a day. Here are some tips on how to do it:

Monitoring Takes 1 Minute a Day (Literally) - Hop into your account, check Direct Messages and @replies. You may have none. You may have 5. You may have 20. No matter how many you have (unless you're really, really popular, in which case you defintely shouldn't be abandoning Twitter and are likely not even reading this article), it should take you a quick peek to know exactly what people are saying to or about you.

Post Daily - It doesn't take much to come up with 140 characters. Just as email has become part of our "first thing in the morning" routine, so too should Twitter. Hop in, write up something, anything, and move on until tomorrow. You can post a link to some OEM news. You can simply say, "It's a beautiful day in Philly!" You can schedule it ahead of time. As long as you're posting something daily, at least you're in there engaging.

Sales Should Be Helping - It's an easy question that they should be asking their sold customers before they drive off. "Are you on Twiter?" If they say yes, the salesperson should ask if they mind us mentioning them on the dealership Twitter account. Most will say yes. They write down the person's Twitter handle and get it to whoever is running the account. It makes for nice, quick, no-thinking-required Tweets that are both engaging and give the dealership a human personality on Twitter. "Congratulations to @0boy for buying his 3rd vehicle from Scott Robinson Honda in the last 7 years."

Twitter is not Facebook. It isn't Google. It doesn't yield the same results of some of the other bigger sites. It also requires much, much less time to run effectively and should not be abandoned. Granted, a strong Twitter presence requires more time, but it's better to put in 5-10 minutes a day than to let it go altogether.

While we're on the subject, be sure to follow me, KPA, and TK Carsites on Twitter!

As we prepare for the biggest Driving Sales Executive Summit in history, 3 things are clear:

• The future can be bright for advanced-thinking dealers.
• There is a shift happening in the way that dealers think and compete.
• Search and social are converging into a single strategy.

When I speak in Las Vegas about "Search and Social for the Next Year" I will be trying to squeeze 3 hours worth of material into 30 minutes. It can be done and will not require extra-fast speaking. What it WILL require is a little prep- and post-work for the dealers.

I will be going over some of the big changes that are happening now and the ones that are coming up, particularly for Google and Facebook. I will be doing something that I've never really done before at an event - recommending strategies that include other vendors (some of which are active here on Driving Sales). As always, there will be no pitching involved; anyone who has heard me speak knows that I sometimes forget to even mention that I work for TK Carsites.

First and foremost, I like to educate.

Over the last few months, I have been "traveling" across the internet world outside of the automotive industry. It's been my "trek to Tibet" that I take every now and then using our non-automotive marketing arm, Hasai, as a launching point to get me access to people, companies, and concepts not available to the automotive industry.

At Driving Sales Executive Summit, I will be discussing what I've learned. There are amazing things happening right now. There are even more incredible things coming down the road. Never before have we been better positioned and prepared as an industry to take advantage of these changes.

IF you are having challenges getting tickets to the event, please contact me. I would be happy to help. Never before has an automotive event been so important to attend. It's not your average "hear some speakers, see some booths, drink some beer" events that we're used to. DSES promises to be the must-see event of the year.

For my part, the things we'll be discussing the 30-minutes I'll be on stage can change the direction of your internet marketing for 2012 and beyond.

We are big fans of "recreational reading" here at Driving Sales. The automotive industry can envelope us in ways that prevent us from having the proper perspective on things. Sometimes, it's best to take a step back and see things the way the rest of the world sees it.

Every now and then, we all take a big step back. Whether through vacations, quick trips to the movies, or relaxing with a fishing pole or golf club, we need recharge our minds and prepare for what the automotive industry throws at us next. Sometimes, however, staying on point but with a slightly different spin is in order.

This infographic from Mashable, Fast Company, and Techi breaks down the way that America uses and is influenced by social media. Understanding the way that people use social media is a key best practice to finding success in using it as a marketing and branding tool. Our social media services focus on sales, but sometimes it's good to simply use social media to be fun and engaging.

Click to enlarge.

As in industry, automotive has had a history of being behind the times when it comes to internet adoption. That has seemed to change in the last couple of years as dealers and manufacturers have launched full-force into embracing search and social in ways that surpassed other industries.

There's still a ways to go, especially in social media,. While most are taking on Facebook and YouTube and a good amount are embracing Twitter and blogging, there are platforms that all but the most forward-thinking have failed to embrace. We have often recommended to dealers that they should focus on "the big four" and leave everything else to the side, but that's only for sake of focus. It's easier to stay on target with less distractions.

Those who have embraced social fully have either been met with failure or success. It sounds like an obvious statement, but the difference between social and other areas such as search or classifieds is that in those areas there is much gray. Those who do a full-court press in social either win or lose - very little gray.

As more jump in the deep side of the pool and begin exploring other social media options, they should be looking at things beyond sheer marketing and outreach. This infographic sheds some light on 4 types of social media platforms that are, for the most part, not being used by the automotive industry.

Yet.

Click to enlarge.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make when comparing search engines and social media for their marketing is assuming that since many of the basic activities are the same that the same strategies will work on both. While a unified approach to managing campaigns on search and social is recommended, one must understand the distinctions in not only the platforms but also the mindset of the people using them.

The fishing analogy works well, here. I don't believe in calling potential customers "fish" but for the sake of understanding, it's easier that way for now.

The Similarities Between Search and Social

The fact that they're both almost entirely defined by how the real world interacts with people online means that some similarities are clear. Both are used to:

• Gather information and have questions answered
• Learn more about companies and other people
• Find alternative perspectives other than a company's website

When we want a specific piece of information, search or social can be used. We might search for "Mustang vs Camaro Reviews" on Google, or we may go to Twitter and ask, "Which is better, Mustang or Camaro?" We search for companies by name on search engines to find their blog, their social networks, and articles or press releases about the company. Conversely, we may visit that company's Facebook page to see what they're doing and how they're communicating.

Reviews - the alternate perspective - are growing on both search and social. We trust our peers more than we trust advertisements or marketing pieces. Those are the basic similarities. It's easy to see why we recommend consistency in theme and message, but the differences in a person's mindset when they use search or use social are often completely different. It's like fishing in a pond versus fishing in a stream.

Search Engine Marketing - Fishing in a Stream

For most businesses, search engines contribute a large portion of the traffic to their websites (at least it should). Consumers go to the search engines to find stores, services, pricing, and inventory. They do so with a purpose - rarely do people do random searches in hopes of landing on something that interests them.

Like fishing in a stream, marketing on search engines is based upon location. As the fish go about their business traveling down the stream, a good fisherman will be positioned well along or in the river so that their bate is found. In many forms such as fly fishing, the bait as cast and brought back in constantly. You don't normally keep your bait dangling in a single spot. Similarly, you don't focus on a single keyword and accept it as the only traffic driver.

Social Media Marketing - Fishing in a Pond

Lakes are serene. They are confined. A good fishing pond does not see new fish coming into it naturally. Instead, they are born in the lake. New fish don't find their way in unless humans put them there.

Social media acts in much the same manner. Your Facebook likes and Twitter followers are the fish in your lake. They can create more fish or we can add more fish to the lake. The bait is subtle and meant to attract. You cast it and wait patiently for it to attract attention (but not too much attention) and get a nibble or a bite.

The Bottom Line

Understanding the difference between search and social from a strategy perspective is a key. Those successful at both know when to get aggressive (search) and when to be patient (social). They know that in search, you find the spot where the fish are swimming. They know that in social, you bring more fish to your spot.

The differences are subtle, but as long as you can understand the mindset of people when they're searching versus the mindset of people when they're social networking, you have the opportunity to craft your messages and create your style appropriately.

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Originally posted on Soshable.

This post is part of a series titled 10 Ways to Use Social Media for Day-to-Day Business. Every day we will be expanding upon a new tip until the list is complete.

If there's one medium to bet on for the future, it's video. Tweeting may someday fall out of favor. Thousands of new blogs are popping up every day, making it hard to get in through the noise. Even Facebook, as gigantic as it is today, could collapse under its own weight from a couple of wrong moves.

Video, on the other hand, is going to be around in one form or another for a long, long time on the internet. We, as humans, love the sit-back-and-enjoy style of information consumption. It's what made the television such a gargantuan medium and it will continue to drive the internet for decades to come.

Your business must be using video to promote an enhance your day-to-day business. Period. End of st... well, not quite the end of the story. There's more:

Frequency by Personality

How often you post is based upon two criteria: how much time you have and the personality of your dealership. "Amount of content available" is not a criteria. It doesn't matter if you have a single client and you talk to 1 customer a month. You should be able to get your creative juices flowing in a way that brings video ideas to mind.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of seeing what others are doing. Here are some ideas from the automotive industry...

Monthly Video Marketing

(3-10 hour time investment, $0-$10,000 financial investment)

If your business is driven by customers, creating high-quality videos of your customers is one of the best ways to integrate it into your day-to-day business. A single video done monthly with focus and the ability to allow viewers to associate with the subject can make an impact every day.

Here is an example of a testimonial video that took time to create. It wasn't a matter of whipping out a flip camera and asking questions (though there is definitely a place for those types of videos as mention below) but with some simple staging and a candid customer followed by some good video editing, the result was something that can help this business grab more customers today.

Other ideas for monthly videos include:

• * In-depth tips pertaining to your niche such as "How to change the spark plugs on a Honda Civic"
• * Explanation of services. For example, a steak house might make a video that demonstrates "Our Ribeyes, From the Cow to Your Plate" that follows the "path" your steak travels, including shots from the farm where you buy your meat, the cutting process, the aging process, time spent on the grill and finally how it's served to customers.
• * A "dozens of happy customers" video that takes your testimonials from the month (that you collect for daily or weekly videos) and forms a compilation of short comments they made. To be truly effective, remember the movie review videos that we see all the time. They usually do not focus on a single review, but instead they flash several quotes from noted reviewers. If you have 15 reviews, for example, you should take 2-5 second snippets from each and compile them into a rapid-paced, short video with a lot of smiling faces accompanied by gentle music and a strong intro and outro clip.

Weekly Video Marketing

(30-minutes to 1-hour time investment, $0-$1000 financial investment)

Above, we mentioned that you could do compilations of happy clients in a strong monthly video. This is also a good weekly video, though it shouldn't necessarily be as time-consuming. Longer scenes can be put together for a longer video that can have strong results.

This may go against our logic, but it's actually easier to make a longer compilation video with longer clips than it is to make a shorter one. Shorter ones with rapid-fire clips can be more challenging to make coherently.

Here's an example of a longer video that was easier to make (took 15 minutes of filming and 30 minutes of editing) than a strong, professionally-done rapid-fire piece.

It's not the best made video in the world but it gets the point across.

Other ideas for weekly videos include:

• * Product usage ideas. Spark some ideas in your customers by showing them creative ways to use the products or services they purchased from you.
• * Employee interviews. Keep them short - under 3 minutes - but get clips of happy employees enjoying their jobs. People like to do business with those who enjoy what they're doing. Having pride and putting a little love into your job fills potential customers with confidence.
• * Random rants. I know, YouTube is already loaded with too many people ranting about too many things, but if you have employees with strong personalities that translate well on camera, use them. Record them discussing issues in or out of your industry and add the human touch to your business.

Daily Video Marketing

(5-minutes to 15-hour time investment, $0 financial investment)

This is the easiest one. It takes the formation of a habit to do it right because consistency is the key. Testimonials are the "low-hanging fruit" in this segment. If you have happy customers, ask them if they'd do a 30-second video testimonial for you. Get one good snippet of them talking about your business, then post it with a quick intro and outro (one that you build and save for all of your daily videos).

On days where testimonials are not available, have a library of employee videos ready to post. You can spend a few hours one day grabbing your employees and having them say something short about their departments, the company, and themselves. Save these up and post them on days that you don't have testimonials.

The most important part of daily video marketing is to be consistent. If you can set a time when the videos are posted and subsequently promoted on Facebook, Twitter, and your blog, that's ideal. Even if you can't be sure to post every day no matter what.

You can always take weekends off, of course, and you can skip days that you're posting weekly or monthly videos, of course, but be sure that you're posting on regular intervals.

Other ideas for daily videos include:

• * Response videos. In certain niches such as computer technology, there are hundreds of good videos posted every day by others. Posting your take on these videos as responses fills your channel as well as helps to expose your channel through others.
• * Daily deals. Groupon may be having challenges, but the concept is there. Restaurants that serve daily specials are perfect examples of businesses that can take advantage of this. Get a video of the featured dish of the day with you or someone else describing it in a succulent manner, then post it in your channel. This can be particularly effective when combined with Twitter and Facebook.
• * Product focus videos. If you have several different products or services, take some time to describe them. A car dealership could take a quick look at the fresh trade-ins of the day. "Before they hit the lot" videos can draw in business, particularly from bargain-hunters who like things that are fresh.

The possibilities through video marketing are endless. You must be consistent, attentive, creative, and willing to make the commitment, but once the ball gets rolling it can be a fun and effective way of increasing business by giving you tools that you and your staff can use over and over again.

* * * Read more social media marketing tips on Soshable.

There has been much debate over the past couple of years over the value of social media to business. Most agree that it's effective for some business types, but few would say that it has an effect on the majority of business, particularly local ones such as car dealers.

In reality, social media has a place in nearly every business in the world that relies on such things as online advertising, customer reviews, and word-of-mouth word-of-click marketing. Even local businesses are able to draw tremendous benefits when they utilize social networks in the right manner.

This graphic by our friends at GetSatisfaction breaks down "The Network Effect." Some will see this and still dismiss social media as a something that doesn't apply to them. Before you make those sort of judgments, ask youself something. What drove you to this article in the first place?

Click to enlarge.

Which way is better? This is a question for vendors, dealers, and just about everyone else.

It seems that there are distinct advantages and disadvantages to working with large, multi-focus vendors who are able to unify and consolidate both efforts as well as billing. On the flip side, there are those who believe that "specialist" style vendors are better to work with, holding them accountable for their own space rather than many.

Which do you prefer? What are the pros and cons as you see it? We have put up a poll on Facebook that asks the question. Please, either leave a comment here with your preference and why, vote on the issue at Facebook, or both. There's nothing better at DrivingSales than good, strong feedback.

It's been hard. We know it. We've all been there. The last 3 or 4 years have posed challenges that the automotive industry hasn't seen before. Thankfully, things seem to have turned for the better in the last year or so. Much of it can be attributed to proper automotive marketing.

People are buying. In many cases, we don't have enough vehicles to service them properly. This infographic by TK shows us the ins and outs of the past few years, pointing to a trend that gives hope for brighter days ahead.

With the trends turning, it's time to get aggressive. Your competitors are getting aggressive. Third party lead vendors are getting aggressive. Even review sites are making money on terms that never used to harm you such as your name. If you ever needed more motivation to "rock" your market's world, this is the infographic for you.

Click to enlarge. Embed it on your own sites with the code below.

There are advantages and disadvantages to building proprietary, unique automotive internet marketing software. When TK started building Connect, we knew what we were getting into and thankfully the development and testing have fallen directly in line with our expectations.

Is it really better to build? The other options - white label and partnerships - have advantages of their own. As we move forward with our next batch of projects, I wanted to tap into the Driving Sales community and find out what dealers and other vendors prefer and why.

Building a platform, whether it's for websites, SEO, PPC, social media, or whatever, allows for complete control and fully automotive integration. It can be expensive and time-consuming, but having control gives vendors the ability to customize as they see fit.

Using white labeled products is the most common technique used by vendors. Granted, very few people know this - that's the point of white labeling. To take a pre-existing product, wrap it in a shell that hides the origin, and sell it as its own product is the way that most vendors go with at least half of their offerings. We have avoided this over the years, but if there are advantages, I would love to hear them.

Building partnerships with niche-leaders is our preferred way of doing things with anything that we do not build ourselves. Raven Tools, for example, is the best in the industry when it comes to SEO and social integration, and we proudly partner with them. Janrain is another rising star in social media and we will (hopefully) be bringing their high-dollar product to dealers at a much more affordable cost.

With these things in mind, where do you stand? What do you want your vendors to do? Build? White label? Partner? The advantages and disadvantages are numerous for each style, but in the end it really comes down to delivery. Which method brings the best products at the right price to car dealers?

Thoughs?