In an earlier post, I discussed why dealerships should seek out consumer generated content. So hopefully now it’s more clear why it’s a good idea to seek out consumer generated content, but how do you make that content work for you? I have three easy steps to help you harness consumer generated content and have it help your brand.

1. 

   Make dealership reviews easily accessible on your site.

   If people are talking about your dealership, brag about it! It’s important to have reviews that are easy to find. Showing this content prominently identifies that you have good reviews, and maybe even reviews that aren’t so good that are taking care of and willing to talk about. It’s also important to respond to negative reviews and try to make them right, so people can see you are always working to improve. This kind of content uses the real language of consumers, and makes people trust the review, and you, even more. Bazaarvoice finds that using consumer generated content helps dealerships get a 15% increase in natural search traffic.

2. Include vehicle reviews on your website as well.

   Giving people the option to really find out what people do and don’t like about specific cars can really help them trust you, and enjoy the buying experience even more. Transparency and honesty coupled with the real wording and details of actual reviews will help customers want to use your site, and shop at your dealership. Bazaarvoice has found that leveraging this kind of consumer content can increase time on site by 143%, as well as can get 90% more page views.

3. Use social media to your advantage!

   Many consumers are talking about your manufacturer or dealership on social media, so it’s time to take advantage! Respond to negative statements and help get people happy, share social media posts and interact with people online. Doing this will help other consumers, and the consumer posting, understand that you’re real people behind the dealership, and that you want them to be successful. Spending time and energy working with consumers removes purchasing barriers, and Bazaarvoice finds that there can be as much as a 50% increase in high-value conversion events.

Making consumer generated content work for your brand and dealership doesn’t have to be difficult! By just simply showing off what people are saying, making sure that your dealership is honest and transparent, and interaction with people online, you can increase your traffic and gain the trust of the customer.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY MARKETINGPROFS.COM

Consumers are spending six hours per week, on average, watching video content on social networks, according to recent research from Brightcove.

The report was based on data from a survey of 5,500 consumers age 18 and older in Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

More than two-thirds (67%) of respondents say the amount of video they watch on social networks has increased in the past year; 60% expect to watch more video on social networks next year.

Consumers in the United States say they watch an hour of video per day on social networks, on average.

The most popular video content types on social networks are music videos (56% of consumers say they watch), user-generated pieces (53%), and movie trailers (52%).

Some 62% of respondents say they discover videos on social media when they appear in their news feed; 49% see videos when others post them; and 46% say they actively look for videos on social media.

Consumers say half of their social video views take place on YouTube, 36% on Facebook, and the remaining 14% on other networks, such as Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram.

Most consumers (85%) say they interact with brands on social media; 45% say they watch brand videos on social media.

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of 5,500 consumers age 18 and older in Australia, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Industry-First Initiative is Latest Development in Beverage Alcohol Leader’s Continued Push to Combat Drunk Driving and Promote Responsible Drinking

NORWALK, Conn. – Diageo, a global leader in beverage alcohol, today introduced “Decisions,” a first-of-its-kind virtual reality (VR) experience that puts consumers of legal drinking age in the middle of a fatal drunk driving crash. This launch represents the company’s latest innovative approach to educate and meaningfully impact consumers about the importance of responsible decision-making when drinking.

Diageo has brought Johnnie Walker, the number one blended Scotch whisky in the world, to the forefront for the rollout of this new initiative, given the brand’s work globally launching the Join the Pact program. Through Join the Pact, Johnnie Walker in key markets across the globe has urged consumers to stop drunk driving by having them take a pledge to never get behind the wheel while intoxicated, and encouraging their friends, family members and loved ones to do the same. Johnnie Walker has been an early pioneer in this space by paving the way with Join the Pact and now presenting this virtual reality experience to further reinforce responsible drinking. To date, Join the Pact has received 2.6 million commitments globally and has delivered roughly 630,000 miles of safe rides home. Additionally, Johnnie Walker continues to innovate and make strides in the digital space, as the new “Decisions” experience comes on the heels of the brand’s recently launched Digital Mentorship program, which offers two unique digital experiences for consumers across Amazon Alexa and Bots for Facebook Messenger.

With the purpose of showing the repercussions of getting behind the wheel after a night of excessive drinking, “Decisions” follows the journeys of three different vehicles and their passengers. The stories of each individual group – all unrelated at the outset – unfold as the viewer discovers the different motivations that led to each group’s night out. In one vehicle, three friends are heading to a party. Filled with laughter and excitement, their story shows the carefree spirit fueled by the many possibilities that may lie ahead. In another vehicle, the story focuses on an adult woman celebrating a breakthrough in her career. The third and final vehicle explores the touching relationship of a husband and wife during their first date night since the birth of their new baby. All three storylines, and vehicles, ultimately converge in a tragedy that the viewer will be able to see, hear and feel.

Through the use of immersive VR technology to share this story, Diageo powerfully highlights the negative impact that one bad decision can have on multiple lives. With consumer interest in VR continuing to grow, Diageo is using it as a way to bring consumers closer to an important issue facing many communities across the U.S.

“With Thanksgiving and the holiday season right around the corner, the dangers of drunk driving should be on all of our minds as we celebrate with friends and family. Although drunk driving fatalities are at an all-time low*, every single drinking and driving death can and should be avoided. It carries additional weight this time of year. On average, 728 people are injured or killed in drunk-driving crashes each day during the holiday season**, and this issue will continue to be incredibly important to Diageo,” said James Thompson, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer, Diageo North America. “With VR technology on the rise both in consumer interest and utilization, we believe this is the ideal method to directly and emotionally impact consumers. It was a natural fit for Johnnie Walker to lead given the brand’s work with their ongoing Join the Pact initiative. Through Join the Pact, Johnnie Walker continues to encourage consumers around the world to commit to not drive drunk, and now with ‘Decisions’ aims to continually raise awareness for the cause.  These days, it’s easy for us to be desensitized to certain issues unless we live them out firsthand. Our hope is that this will be truly jarring for people and will help inform responsible decision-making while enlisting their advocacy in the ongoing fight against repeat, hardcore drunk drivers.”

The VR program is being spearheaded by Diageo’s Digital and Culture & Partnerships teams, who have engaged partners such as Facebook, YouTube and The New York Times to help drive support and distribution for this project. Joining Diageo behind the scenes is digital agency VaynerMedia, who is helping the company with the creative vision, production, development and distribution.

Consumer interest in VR continues to grow rapidly, with the number of active users set to reach 171 million by 2018***. 

Diageo is making a long-term commitment to the technology and over time will develop additional user experiences that will address the many issues around decision-making when you’re drinking. Recognized globally for setting the standard in social responsibility and responsible marketing, this is the latest pacesetting initiative from Diageo to remind adults to drink sensibly. Whether it’s pioneering “Safe Rides Home” designated driver activations or leveraging apps such as Uber to remind consumers there are alternatives to getting home if they’ve been drinking, Diageo is continually looking for new and inventive ways to reach consumers via emerging platforms and technologies.

The release of “Decisions” comes on the heels of Diageo’s recently announced two-year partnership agreement with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, entitled “Road Safety Initiative for Cities,” which involves a collaboration to build institutional and individual capacity to reduce traffic deaths and injuries, and to improve road safety globally. Training runs in 15 countries across Africa, Asia, Latin and Central America, with a focus on countries with the highest death rates related to road traffic accidents. More than 60 countries have been invited to participate. The training activities will reach approximately 6,000 participants who will be a mix of government officials, young people, and other relevant stakeholders, through training workshops for government officials at the national and local levels, awareness-raising road shows for young people and high-level conferences on the issue.

Consumers of legal drinking age can access “Decisions” through Facebook 360, YouTube 360 and NYT VR. It is also compatible with all VR headsets, including Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Rift, and Google Daydream.

About Diageo

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan’s whiskies, Smirnoff, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo’s global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Follow us on Twitter for news and information about Diageo North America: @Diageo_NA.

Celebrating life, every day, everywhere.

###

*Drunk driving fatalities have decreased 53% since 1982.  Source: 2014 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation, 2015.

**National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, 2015

***(Statista, “Statistics and facts about Virtual Reality (VR)”, 4/6/16) 

 MANAMA, Bahrain, Dec. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Leading automaker GAC Motor has released its best-selling GS4 in Bahrain at the grand new car launching ceremony from December 9 to 10 at Bahrain International Exhibition & Convention Centre. The company exhibited eight GS4, eight GA6, two GS8 and one GA8 at the two-day launch event, which attracted more than 20,000 people attending.

Experience the interactive Multimedia News Release here: http://www.multivu.com/players/English/8000551-gac-motor-gs4-bahrain

"This was the largest new car release event in the history of Bahrain and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)," said Adel Hubail, CEO of Bahrain Commercial Facilities Company. "The GS4 launch gained wide attention from the Bahrain public and the local customers spoke very highly of the flagship SUV and GAC Motor. As a local dealer, I have great confidence in GS4's future performances in the Bahrain market."

Released worldwide at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in 2015, GS4 represented a new era for SUVs. The advanced GS4 has the 200T engine which puts fuel consumption at 6.3L/100km, the lowest of cars in the same class, the peak torque is 202N.m/1500rpm and it has the 7-speed G-DCT transmission which guarantees 0.2s extremely quick gearshift.

GAC Motor signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Bahraini dealer National Motor Company (NMC) in April 2015 and officially debuted in the market in October 2015. Now there is one main showroom and 13 secondary distributors in Bahrain.

The Middle East market is a key region in GAC Motor's international strategy, according to Yu Jun, general manager of GAC Motor. The company has achieved strong accomplishments in the Bahrain market, tripling the sales in the one year since entering the market and became the best-selling Chinese auto brand in Bahrain with 1 percent of the market share. At the grand GS4 launch, GAC Motor's distributors in Bahrain also received new orders of GS4.

Bahrain has no automobile manufacturing industry, hence the intense competition among international brands. The overall auto market in Bahrain saw a decline this year due to the removal of fuel subsidies, GAC Motor is able to achieve the sales breakthrough in Bahrain and Middle East with our best quality products and services, surpassing other companies who have entered the Bahrain market much earlier.

This year GAC Motor has developed two distributors in Nigeria and won the government official vehicle orders over other Japanese and South Korean brands. With strong product quality and positive brand image, GAC Motor has launched the SKD project in Nigeria and assembled the first batch of GS4 successfully, laying a solid foundation for GS4's release in the Middle East.

Both GAC Motor and their partners in Bahrain will reinforce the future investments to further increase the car sales in Bahrain next year, changing people's previous impressions with Chinese auto brands and make history in the global market.

About GAC Motor

A subsidiary of GAC Group, GAC Motor develops and manufactures premium quality vehicles, engines, components and auto accessories, achieving a year-on-year growth rate of 111% until November, 2016, the highest among all Chinese brands in the corresponding period. GAC Motor ranked 5th, among all brands in J.D. Power Asia Pacific's 2016 China Initial Quality Study, the highest of all Chinese brands for the fourth consecutive year.

Congratulations to Richard Rikess for his top November blog, Which Language Can Close Leads. We caught up with Richard to learn a little bit more about how to close leads, while balancing not being overly pushy. Thanks Richard, and congratulations! 

Originally published by Leisure Jobs.

Our ultimate Linkedin cheat sheet will help you quickly create the best possible Linkedin profile, maximise your online visibility, build your contact list or get contacted about a new job. Whether you're looking to find out the best Linkedin profile picture size, how to get the most secure password or simply starting from the beginning we've got you covered!

Unless you've been living under a rock it's quite obvious that Linkedin is the place to be seen online when it comes to jobs and new careers. Did you know a person with a fully optimised Linkedin profile is 40 times more likely to receive job opportunities via Linkedin?! It's probably a good idea to get a sneaky head start over the job market by checking out our Linkedin Cheat Sheet. After all you are competing against over 350 million users...

Leisurejobs.com

Driverless cars are the subject of chatter from many people. Tech and car experts agree: It isn’t so much whether driverless cars will happen, but when.

But with more connected cars comes concerns for hacking: Driverless cars need the internet, and the internet is full of bullies and thieves. Those people could take over a car, subjecting it to dangerous behavior. They could also steal the data that helps a car function, or they might even be able to hack into electronically controlled roadway systems.

As these cars approach reality for everyone, you need to arm yourself with knowledge about what they do and what the risks are. This graphic from Vound-Software can help.

CENTREVILLE, Va. (December 13, 2016) – Carfax welcomed a ruling by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York concluding that a lawsuit filed against Carfax by Maxon Hyundai Mazda should be dismissed. The judge found no basis to let the case go forward. In her decision, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan reviewed the evidence collected to that point and found that plaintiffs’ claims that Carfax’s activities improperly foreclosed competition for the sale of vehicle history reports failed as a matter of law. For that reason, the Judge dismissed the case and granted judgment to Carfax.

Founded in 1986, Carfax provides trusted information that helps millions of people shop, buy, own and sell used cars with more confidence. Starting with the Carfax Vehicle History Report – the most comprehensive collection of used vehicle information ever assembled – the company has been pioneering innovative products for consumers and dealers for more than 30 years.

“We are gratified that the court agreed with our position that this lawsuit was unfounded,” said Dick Raines, president of Carfax. “We’re already hard at work creating the next generation of products and services to help our dealer customers and millions of consumers.”

The company’s commitment to innovation continues with the launch of new services to help consumers and dealers buy, shop, and own used cars with more confidence. In 2012, myCarfax, a brand new way for consumers to reduce the headache of servicing their car, was introduced. This new app delivers timely reminders when service is due, contains valuable offers to help consumers maintain their car, and alerts drivers about safety recalls. And in 2014, the company launched Carfax Used Car Listings. Used car shoppers now can shop millions of used cars, all with free Carfax Reports, at the all-new carfax.com. Consumers can find the cars they want, with the history they need, with just a couple of clicks.

About Carfax (www.carfax.com)

Carfax, a unit of IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO), is the vehicle history expert for used car buyers, sellers and the automotive industry. Carfax created the Vehicle History Report in 1986 and continues to develop innovative services – like Carfax Used Car Listings and myCarfax – that make it easier to buy, sell and own a used car. The company maintains a database comprising over 17 billion vehicle history records from more than 100,000 sources worldwide. Get a free Carfax® Vehicle History Report from dealers with every used car for sale on Carfax.com or look for Carfax Advantage™ dealers in your area and say ‘Show Me the Carfax™’. Based in London, IHS Markit is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions.

Originally Published By Digital Trends

Buying cars online seems simple, but what if you could do it as quickly and easily at a dealership, and still get a test drive? Stanford StartX accelerator graduate Prodigy wants to give auto dealerships a tool set to modernize selling cars on the lot.

According to a Prodigy release, “More than ever, this industry key to our economy is being threatened by increased regulation, changes in car buying habits, and car buying startups such as Beepi and Carvana. Prodigy is giving dealers a chance to fight back and adapt to rapidly changing car buying habits.”

The tablet-based Prodigy sales platform, is designed to streamline the customer buying experience from “Hi, how can I help you?” to closing the deal. Major elements of the Prodigy platform include “predictive inventory filters” to narrow the inventory search quickly based on customer preferences, mobile driver’s license scanning to speed up moving from the greeting to a test drive, and access to OEM specifications and third party info sites such as Edmunds.com and Kelly Blue Book to answer questions on the spot.

Once you’ve decided on the car you want, the Prodigy platform gives the sales person “penny perfect” payment options to present based on the customer’s credit, current OEM promotions and offers, and dealer margins. You won’t have to wait for a sales manager to approve the deal or sit in a finance manager’s office endlessly — real-time communication from the tablet will speed both of those steps.

Finally, digital signature capture on the tablet and a full credit application connect the dealer with more than 1,300 lenders. Theoretically, you could do the entire deal on the lot and drive off, never having to acquiesce to a request to “Let’s go back to my desk and see what we can work out.” The aim of the platform is to get the deal done on the lot, if it’s right for the dealer, the lender, and the buyer.

“Car buying habits have been rapidly changing over the last few years, but technology within a dealership has remained stagnant,” said Michia Rohrssen, Prodigy founder and CEO. “Our mission is to equip dealers with the technology needed to serve the modern car buyer in the most efficient and streamlined manner possible. With our new platform, dealerships can offer an entirely unprecedented customer experience from a single platform.”

You may be saying to yourself right now, “Influencer marketing? What is that?” It’s really not as complicated as it seems. Basically it’s marketing that focuses on a single individual, or a group of individuals, and leveraging their influence. Influencer marketing is basically you controlling word-of-mouth marketing. I’m a paid influencer for a company called BlogHer.com, where I post about products from Target and Kids R Us on my social media account. Influencer marketing can be specific, with given hashtag requirements, or it can be as simple as “please write a review or post on your social media about your experience.”

So here’s what happened with influencer marketing this past year:

1. It grew in popularity. Influencer marketing is often tied to social media marketing, and as social media grew, so did influencer marketing. Outside of the auto industry, influencer marketing became a gigantic player. Within the industry, influencer marketing is smaller, but don’t underestimate its power for a second.
2. Marketers are spending more money in influencer marketing. As the quarterly budgets of 2016 changed, influencer marketing took a larger chunk of the change. A recent “60 Minutes” report shows that influencer marketing is becoming familiar to average consumers. Brands are finding lots of success with this tactic as well.
3. Influencer identification is key. Marketers are learning they can only get authentic content if they do their homework about influencers. They want enthusiastic participants who will create content that is real and meaningful. Finding influencers who enjoy your brand and might have posted about it on their own generates real success.
4. Authenticity, authenticity, authenticity! As with influencer identification, it’s important to make sure their message is as authentic as they are! Asking them to fabricate an experience or talk about something they aren’t familiar with isn’t helpful. It’s great to invite influencers to come for an oil change or a test drive, or pick influencers from those who have already been in your dealership.
5.  Room to create. The highly successful industry influencer campaigns of 2016 allowed the influencers to create their own content. We saw this with Ken Garff Automotive Group using a local videographer and allowing her to create content on her own level. The result is an authentic, creative movie that is uniquely the creators. This makes the content authentic, and allowed the creator to really say what they wanted and stay within their own personal brand. Audiences of these influencers enjoy when the content they see seems on brand with the person creating it, even more so than being on brand with the product or service.

So if you didn't get involved with influencer marketing in 2016, it might be a good idea to start in the coming year! Stay tuned for best practices for influencer marketing in 2017 in another post.