"Social Media Marketing", "Social Networking" catchy buzzwords used to push new platforms and for dated industry "experts" to claim a newfound mastery.

Opinions on proper use of popular platforms vary immensely. 

• From one tweet a week to many per day.
• Website providers putting Digg and Delicious buttons on Inventory?
• Ning sites for car dealers?

The real question is what are you using different social media platforms for and what are the methods you are using to promote awareness?

The image above comes from a viral event as a result of an idea on Facebook.com.  Users in the UK plotted to reproduce this commercial by T-Mobile in real life and effectively closed down Liverpool Street Station in London.  (<also source of the image)

Think of the cheap marketing that T-Mobile got, even if the whole thing was plotted by a social media marketing firm or happened "organically".

To be effective using social media to drive awareness and sales it requires GREAT CONTENT and a network that will respond. 

Effective Social Media Content

The quality of your content is the most important factor, the better it is the more it will be passed around to create a viral effect.  Without content that has the potential to go viral it's usually a waste of bandwidth and spam.  (Don't even get me started on using social media spam as a "SEO tool", that's a series of posts)  Others will link to it and get people talking about you, your company, your products and interacting and viewing your content. 

"Direct marketing will reduce the chances of a piece of web content going viral. People do not want to be sold to, the initial social media marketing push should be more about the conversation than the sale. A more aggresive sales angle can be added later, once the social media push has ended." - Wordtracker.com

Building a Social Media Network

To effectively promote content via Social Media and Social networking you have to be networked.  A twitter account that follows noone, a digg account that only self promotes, a facebook profile in the name of a dealership, linkedn profiles for corporate mascots, ning sites for car dealers that only consultant participate in really serve no purpose other than to republish content and has zero Social Media value.

To make sites like digg, facebook, stumbleupon and twitter work you have to work them or find some someone to work them for you in concert with yours and others GREAT CONTENT.  Each site has it's own rules written and understood. Promoting your own content on twitter is completely acceptable and doing it on digg may get you and your domain banned plus have negative effects on your web rep. 

Each site offers levels of connection with other users and those friends make using these destinations not only easier but profitable as well. 

Want a car story to go popular on digg.com? Get a high end user to submit it for you.  It got us national press and we sold cars because of it!

Want to test out the drivingsales servers on traffic from twitter?  Tweet a story that others will retweet.

Want your commercial to get over 300,00 views from youtube.com?  Make it worth watching over and over again.

Cuban Gynecologist: Local Car Commercial

Automotive Content can get noticed and drive traffic. Just remember what the users of the sites want to see and build your network in each location and connect with other users who can help your drive traffic to your content.

Here are some easily identified noneffective uses of social media and networking sites.  Coming from someone who has built thier entire business from networking and inbound marketing.

• Bouncing JPEGs of used car inventory on video hosting sites.
• Having delicious and digg button on inventory.
• Feeding your your inventory to twitter.
• Stumbling and digging your new microsite.
• Fictitious zip based twtitter accounts.
• Ning Sites and facebook profiles for Car Dealerships
• Scrapping email addresses to send spam to from social networks.  (Sorry couldn't resist)

As networking tools these sites are great resources, they can build your brand, protect your reputation and help you maintain contact with current customers -or- do more harm than good in those same areas.

The purpose of these sites is to interact with others and that requires personal interaction and that is who people want to connect with not spam profiles whose only purpose is to pitch links.  To create profiles in the name of a dealership to do this with is as bad as sending bulk emails to bought leads who have not opted in to receive them.

My friend JD Rucker did a post about links being indexed at twitter, unfortunately it will probably cause more dealers and consultants to say this is the proper way to use these mediums because of the malaligned thought that it will help drive traffic and SEO value.

Fortunately for the users of these mediums they do not have to interact or connect with spam profiles.  If induced to do so they will not maintain that connection if all you are doing is pitching products.

These sites rely on community moderation to identify profiles that bring little value to their platforms and waste their resources.  Eventually they will have algorithms in place that will do it automatically.

People on facebook do not want to connect with a dealership profile and twitter users already have a hard enough time to cut through the noise and a ning site without value added content, not just promotional pitches, for your customer base is pointless.

The best way for dealerships to maximize the use of these platforms is to not try to maximize them, but instead encourage their people to participate and add value to their connections as an employee of the store.  That is the best way to generate word of mouth referrals and business from social networking/social media.

You trust your employees to conduct themselves away from work in such a way as to not hurt your reputation in the community now rely on them to build your reputation online before you establish a digital foot print that is counter productive.

Examples of counter productive social media/networking digital footprints and some alternatives.

• Facebook profiles in the name of the store - Better - "A facebook page, controlled by an agency or the dealer principle, that all of your employees join and encourage their customers to join."
• Twitter profiles that push links and updates that are easily identified as automated.  - Better - "Employees adding valuable updates to help people in the car buying or servicing arena as well as their personal time line as a representative of your store."
• Multiple blogs on a free hosting sites such as www.blogspot.com, vox.com, or wordpress.com - Better- "1. A self hosted blog could cost less than $100 per year and exudes professionalism versus an easily identified free hosting service.  2. Model / Brand / Geo specific microsites for seo value and lead generation.  3. Individual dealer websites for each department / brand."
• A ning site for a dealership really has no value.  - Better - "Use available plug and play technology to build networking into your main website"

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or use the comment form below.

Shortly after assuring this dealer that a 10% click through rate (ctr) would be an extraordinarily, highly, unbelievably successful campaign and that the 10% ctr was probably an error in his recall of the pitch, I received a phone call from another dealer asking me about the same claim. Later that afternoon I reached out to some of my other clients and they also verified that they were given the same "tall tale". Three of the dealers I spoke with also said that a rep from a major search engine was also in tow.

Below are the stats from one of my online properties the content and banner relationship are in sync, as would be expected with a banner that is behavioral and geographically targeted, all traffic comes from the search engines.

Over one half of a million impressions I am personally happy with the .7 of 1% ctr of this offer. The content also contains a strong call to action to encourage a click through, not found on classified portals and search engine banner advertising. The chances that a dealer will even experience a 1% ctr is a highly unlikely, an optimistic expectation would be .5 of 1% with reality coming in at .1 of 1% and anything greater than that being a bonus.

The average CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions) for large sites, over 100,000,000 page views per month, a search engine, in 4th quarter 2008 was $0.17 CPM and the CPM for medium sized sites, between 1 million and 100 million page, classified portal, views per month was $0.30 according the the 4th quarter 2008 Ad Price Index.

Those numbers do not take into geo targeting or a tightly defined niche site such as an automotive classified web property.  I was told that that the banners would also appear on the search engine network as well.  The highest CPM was given to Business and Finance at $0.83 and the lowest social networking sites $0.10.

The quotes dealers were given on this new push was $25.00 cpm.  While a higher rate should be expected on the smaller buys being offered to dealers and due to enhanced targeting, I could not find a way to recommend this type of spend based on current economic conditions, market pricing and anticipated ROI.

Using the numbers given by the rep at the unfathomable 10% ctr that would equate to a $0.25 cpc (cost per click) for what would be considered a content network display ad is still out of round based on the current state of the click.  Using an overly optimistic ctr of 1% it drives that cost up to $2.50 cpc for a banner ad, an unrealistic cost value proposition.

I hope that I have miscalled this offering and several dealers are wrong in their recollection of what they were pitched both in cost of the offer and results claimed. 

If not there are better opportunities out there for their marketing dollars.

The "Automotive SEO Exposition" held this year in Washington DC was a huge success. Top level automotive seo practitioners from all over the country came together for two days of powerful round table style discussions.

The topics discussed exceeded expectations and delved into a level of knowledge beyond that of basic seo offerings available to car dealers today. While many website providers do offer basic services the discussions delved much deeper.

Some of the topics covered were:

• Changes in search that are becoming a reality such as universal search and the Google search wiki.
• Why tag and keyword stuffing are a waste of bandwidth and the negative implications to be expected from these practices.
• Website analytics and why independent third party site performance measurement trumps vendor provided tracking.
• Building search engine trust and the importance of outbound links and linking partners.
• Techniques for ranking for competitors names.
• Inbound linking strategies and internal linking strategies.
• The importance of updated content and the challenges dealers face.
• Pros and cons of website provider platforms.
• Blogging for car dealers and effective use to help build search engine relevance.
• Search engine saturation and how to eliminate third party lead providers from dealers "money term" searches.

Those in attendance were top level website providers, automotive marketing consultants, inventory distribution partners, micro site providers, analytic providers and search marketing providers and consultants.

This years conference was by invitation only and the next one is scheduled for September 18th-21st of this year in Las Vegas. Make sure you subscribe to ISMinTraining.com to receive details on the next automotive seo conference and for tips and opinion of online automotive marketing.

While I see errors almost daily in dealer pay per click marketing initiatives such as buying terms for the dealer (running the campaign) name and city, brand and city dealer combos.  If your directory and map listings are well optimized then you are spending money unnecessarily.  Of course exceptions abound with the biggest being that your competitors are buying your name and keyword combos.  If your campaign is set up properly and your site content is optimized properly you should be able to take the top spot for these basic terms.

I have been told by dealers that their SEM provider actually suggested buying these terms and after reviewing the campaigns it was a waste for the dealer(s).  Due to the fact that there was no competition in place for their primary terms and they were well optimized for these searches already.

For example:

Someone wanting to buy a Ford F150 will not be typing in terms such as Boston Ford dealer they will probably be typing in terms such as "Ford F150 rebates", "Ford F150leasing programs", "Ford F150 finance specials", "Ford F150 prices", "Ford F150 inventory Boston" or "down payment needed to buy a Ford F150".  Buying the broad match "Ford" in your pay per click campaign will bring traffic for these terms but it can also bring traffic for "used ford truck bumper", "model T Ford", "Henry Ford" and "Harrison Ford".  Buying "Ford F150" can further complicate the problem and raise your cost as well.  It can potentially bring in traffic for "towing capacity for 1987 Ford F150", "what is the coffee can under the hood of a Ford F150 for", "used Ford F150 parts" all terms you do not need to waste search budget on and will increase your expenses as your bounce rate rises because your quality score goes into the tank for not delivering content relative to the search and your time on site drops.

Consumers may think that a dealers website should have this information and it probably should, but if it does not have the requested info and a great call to action to opt in for follow up then it is a waste of a dealers marketing budget.

The longtails are cheaper clicks and easier to optimize for quality score.  Thus driving down cost or expanding reach on the same budget.  From a search engine optimization point of view longtail searches traffic will increase traffic exponentially over a period of time.  High converting traffic comes from longer tail searches, because people using longer search phrases are generally looking for the answer to a very specific question or need.

The problem lies in identifying these "long tail" searches as Jared mentioned in the comments of this post.  He asked for some resources for keyword research sand here is the short list of some of the tools I use when working with clients and my own properties.

Word Tracker for identifying keywords and search phrases with low competion and enough search engine volume to justify encorporating them into a search engine optimization or search engine marketing plan.  They give some great videos and have a 7 day free trial.

Keyword Spy for exploring the sem efforts of my competition it will also help you track your competitions search positions and keywords in the organic listings.

SEMRush is a little less pricey than Keyord Spy and has a free option but the depth of reporting in my opinion is not as robust.

Adwords has some built in research tools, but if you are only using adwords for PPC you are missing a universe of low cost promotion tools.  Their tool is structured to help them sell a larger spend.

Becareful if you visit any of those links above and seek enhanced knowledge it will open your eyes to a whole new universe of search engine marketing.

Feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions about your search engine campaigns.

"There's a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hands,"It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high-hat and tuxedo. . . . I mean, couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here?" Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.)

That is like begging for food as you open a fresh pack of cigarettes It just does not appear to be genuine.

Sure the media is talking it up, in and out of the auto industry. Why? Because you are participating. It sells advertising and even worse it distracts you from looking for ways to better your business.

The big three did not get in the shape they are in overnight. Now with all of the press the begging is getting it cannot possibly help consumer confidence or lend any credence to their products. How reliable is the Chrysler "Lifetime Warranty" now? For that matter how about the 12 month / 12,000 mile adjustment warranties?

We can blame the press all we want, but the problem lies with the ones who choose to participate. The ones who are glued to all of the updates, from all sources, and the ones who fly in corporate jets.