There is doom and gloom in the statistics. Fewer people are staying loyal to a single brand of vehicle. Fewer people are staying loyal to a particular dealership. We've been hearing about it since the rise of the digital age and it can push dealers to focus on generating new sales and service customers at all costs.

Since we're a vendor that specializes in search and social marketing, one might think that this is the type of shift in the industry that we would embrace. The reality is that our roots as car people and our focus on being a partner for our dealers supersedes the benefits we receive from the trend. We want our clients to succeed and the lowest hanging fruit - customer retention - is the one measure that we see slipping through the fingers of so many dealers out there.

One of the things that we've been investigating is the (seemingly) lost art of turning the one-time sales mentality that has been growing in our industry into the good ol' "customer for life" paradigm that has helped some of the most successful dealers we know to stay on top despite the trends. We know it's possible. We've seen some decent results. Now, it's time to learn how to improve on them, consolidate, collaborate, and enhance the strategies.

We Need Your Help, Dealers and Vendors

Over the last couple of months I've had a couple of research side projects that I took on myself. I didn't include my team nor did I ask for assistance from the community. I explored dealership chat and I am finishing up my investigation into gift card incentive programs. This new project is beyond me. I need help. I've gotten my team involved - Subi Ghosh has given me a world of insight from her recent work at her last dealership that has been outstanding. I need more.

What is out there? We need to get a better understanding of:

• Loyalty-building strategies at the dealership
• Current and past customer communication techniques
• Services that harness data to drive loyalty
• Products that give customers incentives to work with a single dealer
• Software (stand-alone or embedded) that can assist dealers bring past customers back

This is important and we need your input.

We are going to put effort into bringing all of the best practices, products, and strategies together to present to dealers here. Our CEO pointed out that we are biting off quite a bit more than we have in previous explorations but he's on board with the concept because, again, our focus is on improving the overall experience for our clients even if it's not directly through our own products.

What You Can Do

Dealers, please let us know in the comments what has worked for your dealership. Vendors, please let us know what products or services you have that can improve customer loyalty. This is a very broad topic but one that can be consolidated with the help of the ADM community.

I saw a statistic yesterday that at most dealers, less than 30% of the vehicles in their service drive were purchased at the dealership. This would have been an absurd statistic to comprehend a decade ago but the numbers don't lie. We already know that so many customers are "dealership hopping" when it comes to sales, demonstrating no loyalty to the dealership that sold them their last vehicle.

The internet and the general shift in consumer sentiment has made this a reality in recent years but there's also blame that can be turned to dealers and vendors. Are we so focused on expensive conquest sales that we're missing out on retention? I believe the answer is "yes" and that needs to change. We can find the right solutions. We simply need your help.

There is doom and gloom in the statistics. Fewer people are staying loyal to a single brand of vehicle. Fewer people are staying loyal to a particular dealership. We've been hearing about it since the rise of the digital age and it can push dealers to focus on generating new sales and service customers at all costs.

Since we're a vendor that specializes in search and social marketing, one might think that this is the type of shift in the industry that we would embrace. The reality is that our roots as car people and our focus on being a partner for our dealers supersedes the benefits we receive from the trend. We want our clients to succeed and the lowest hanging fruit - customer retention - is the one measure that we see slipping through the fingers of so many dealers out there.

One of the things that we've been investigating is the (seemingly) lost art of turning the one-time sales mentality that has been growing in our industry into the good ol' "customer for life" paradigm that has helped some of the most successful dealers we know to stay on top despite the trends. We know it's possible. We've seen some decent results. Now, it's time to learn how to improve on them, consolidate, collaborate, and enhance the strategies.

We Need Your Help, Dealers and Vendors

Over the last couple of months I've had a couple of research side projects that I took on myself. I didn't include my team nor did I ask for assistance from the community. I explored dealership chat and I am finishing up my investigation into gift card incentive programs. This new project is beyond me. I need help. I've gotten my team involved - Subi Ghosh has given me a world of insight from her recent work at her last dealership that has been outstanding. I need more.

What is out there? We need to get a better understanding of:

• Loyalty-building strategies at the dealership
• Current and past customer communication techniques
• Services that harness data to drive loyalty
• Products that give customers incentives to work with a single dealer
• Software (stand-alone or embedded) that can assist dealers bring past customers back

This is important and we need your input.

We are going to put effort into bringing all of the best practices, products, and strategies together to present to dealers here. Our CEO pointed out that we are biting off quite a bit more than we have in previous explorations but he's on board with the concept because, again, our focus is on improving the overall experience for our clients even if it's not directly through our own products.

What You Can Do

Dealers, please let us know in the comments what has worked for your dealership. Vendors, please let us know what products or services you have that can improve customer loyalty. This is a very broad topic but one that can be consolidated with the help of the ADM community.

I saw a statistic yesterday that at most dealers, less than 30% of the vehicles in their service drive were purchased at the dealership. This would have been an absurd statistic to comprehend a decade ago but the numbers don't lie. We already know that so many customers are "dealership hopping" when it comes to sales, demonstrating no loyalty to the dealership that sold them their last vehicle.

The internet and the general shift in consumer sentiment has made this a reality in recent years but there's also blame that can be turned to dealers and vendors. Are we so focused on expensive conquest sales that we're missing out on retention? I believe the answer is "yes" and that needs to change. We can find the right solutions. We simply need your help.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Twitter is growing up. With more consumers turning to the microblogging site to discuss brands, it’s important that social engagement on Twitter be part of your dealership's marketing strategy. Setting up the account is easy, but making your Twitter account stand head and shoulders above the rest takes more than just scheduling tweets. Here are five ways to ensure Twitter becomes a valued tool in your marketing arsenal.

5. Have a Game Plan
Once you're in the swing of things on Twitter, having a game plan for how you'll promote products and services as well as how you'll respond to incoming tweets is key. Your game plan should clearly lay out roles and responsibilities, the "voice" of your twitter account and the type of responses acceptable for inbound tweets. Will your account be playful? serious? Will you answer customer service queries directly on twitter? These are all decisions you need to make before you start engaging with the public.

4. Don’t Forget the Hashtag
Do you use hashtags in your tweets? If not, you may want to consider incorporating them. Tweets that contain one or more hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted than those that don't, according to a recent study conducted by Dan Zarrella of HubSpot.

Zarella examined more than a million random tweets to find correlations between the use of non-alphanumerical characters and retweets. His analysis found that hashtags greatly increase the chance of a retweet.

3. Can We Quote You on That?

Hashtags aren't the only characters that boost retweets. Quotations, while not quite as strong as hashtags, can definitely pack a punch when used on Twitter.
In the same study, Zarrella also found that quotes had a positive effect on social sharing. Tweets including quotation marks were 30% more likely to be ReTweeted than those that did not.

2. Not All Images Are Created Equal

Posting images on Twitter is a great way to garner more ReTweets. You might be surprised to learn that there's more too it than finding cool pictures to post. Where the images originate also plays a role. In a separate study, Zarella examined randomly selected tweets to see how popular ways to post images affected Twitter sharing. The study found Tweets with images uploaded to pic.Twitter.com were nearly twice as likely to be retweeted while the use of Twitpic increased the odds by just over 60%.  However, Tweets using Facebook or Instagram links were less likely to be retweeted.

1. Consider a Separate Twitter Account for Customer Service

If your dealership gets its fair share of customer service inquiries on Twitter, it may be worthwhile to divert these issues to a separate feed. Creating a separate account focused on customer support issues has the added benefit of moving potentially negative discussions away from the main account. While this may require a bit more manpower and strategic planning, a second account for hot button issues will pay off in the long run.

There's no question your marketing strategy needs to take advantage of all the power those 140 characters can wield. Like any social site, Twitter is constantly evolving. Incorporating the above methods will help you stay ahead of the curve.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Twitter is growing up. With more consumers turning to the microblogging site to discuss brands, it’s important that social engagement on Twitter be part of your dealership's marketing strategy. Setting up the account is easy, but making your Twitter account stand head and shoulders above the rest takes more than just scheduling tweets. Here are five ways to ensure Twitter becomes a valued tool in your marketing arsenal.

5. Have a Game Plan
Once you're in the swing of things on Twitter, having a game plan for how you'll promote products and services as well as how you'll respond to incoming tweets is key. Your game plan should clearly lay out roles and responsibilities, the "voice" of your twitter account and the type of responses acceptable for inbound tweets. Will your account be playful? serious? Will you answer customer service queries directly on twitter? These are all decisions you need to make before you start engaging with the public.

4. Don’t Forget the Hashtag
Do you use hashtags in your tweets? If not, you may want to consider incorporating them. Tweets that contain one or more hashtags are 55% more likely to be retweeted than those that don't, according to a recent study conducted by Dan Zarrella of HubSpot.

Zarella examined more than a million random tweets to find correlations between the use of non-alphanumerical characters and retweets. His analysis found that hashtags greatly increase the chance of a retweet.

3. Can We Quote You on That?

Hashtags aren't the only characters that boost retweets. Quotations, while not quite as strong as hashtags, can definitely pack a punch when used on Twitter.
In the same study, Zarrella also found that quotes had a positive effect on social sharing. Tweets including quotation marks were 30% more likely to be ReTweeted than those that did not.

2. Not All Images Are Created Equal

Posting images on Twitter is a great way to garner more ReTweets. You might be surprised to learn that there's more too it than finding cool pictures to post. Where the images originate also plays a role. In a separate study, Zarella examined randomly selected tweets to see how popular ways to post images affected Twitter sharing. The study found Tweets with images uploaded to pic.Twitter.com were nearly twice as likely to be retweeted while the use of Twitpic increased the odds by just over 60%.  However, Tweets using Facebook or Instagram links were less likely to be retweeted.

1. Consider a Separate Twitter Account for Customer Service

If your dealership gets its fair share of customer service inquiries on Twitter, it may be worthwhile to divert these issues to a separate feed. Creating a separate account focused on customer support issues has the added benefit of moving potentially negative discussions away from the main account. While this may require a bit more manpower and strategic planning, a second account for hot button issues will pay off in the long run.

There's no question your marketing strategy needs to take advantage of all the power those 140 characters can wield. Like any social site, Twitter is constantly evolving. Incorporating the above methods will help you stay ahead of the curve.

After watching an amazing video that a client had prepared for their business, I asked how she was going to promote it. She said she already had it set to get blasted out to all of the social networks and posted on all of the video sites. I buried my head in my hands.

There's a big difference between automated video promotion and manual promotion. For those creating massive numbers of videos of items such as inventory, it makes sense to automate the bulk. When it comes to high-quality videos that took time to create, it should be done by hand. Here's how:

Start with YouTube

Some would say that it's best to put videos on proprietary players or other video sites like Vimeo. For the most exposure possible, it's best to start with YouTube. Get it up there. Do the right research and craft the title, description, and tags appropriately. Make it the best possible YouTube video you can.

After it's up and running on YouTube, wait a day or two before uploading it to other sites or other venues (including Facebook). The more plays and likes a YouTube video gets, the more visible it will be in the important places such as YouTube search and on the search engines themselves. Focus all efforts on the original upload first.

Blast it on social

There are two phases to this part. First, get it out on Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and Pinterest. If it's a truly important video that has some social sharing legs to it (i.e., not an ad for your store), invest in getting it exposed.

Once it's up on the important networks, set your calendar or put it in your social scheduling tools to post again in the future - a month or so is fine - as long as it's something that's not too timely.

Blog about it

This isn't just a matter of getting it out there on a stand-alone blog post with a quick caption. If it's an important video, talk about it. Write a story surrounding it. Encourage your readers to watch AND share it.

The blog post can then be promoted a week or so later on the social media sites similar to how you promoted it as a direct video in the first place.

Upload it

You should already have it out on the other video sites and possibly on your website's internal video player. Now, it's time to get it uploaded directly to Facebook. Don't spam it - if you posted it to Facebook from YouTube one week then followed up the next week by promoting your blog post, wait another week before uploading it to Facebook.

There's nothing wrong with repeating a message, but do it in a way that doesn't seem spammy. When you upload it to Facebook, don't do it with the same exact title and description that you put on YouTube or in your blog post.

Rinse, repeat

Unless it's a timely video, you can do the same thing (other than re-uploading it to the video sites) a month or more later. You can even write a brand new blog post about it. Get it out on Tumblr. Refer to it in other discussions or blog posts that aren't centering around the video itself.

Video promotions are best done manually if you want to maximize the exposure. It takes more time but it can yield exponentially more views if you do it right and have a solid video to promote.

Here's an infographic that discusses video tactics even further:

After watching an amazing video that a client had prepared for their business, I asked how she was going to promote it. She said she already had it set to get blasted out to all of the social networks and posted on all of the video sites. I buried my head in my hands.

There's a big difference between automated video promotion and manual promotion. For those creating massive numbers of videos of items such as inventory, it makes sense to automate the bulk. When it comes to high-quality videos that took time to create, it should be done by hand. Here's how:

Start with YouTube

Some would say that it's best to put videos on proprietary players or other video sites like Vimeo. For the most exposure possible, it's best to start with YouTube. Get it up there. Do the right research and craft the title, description, and tags appropriately. Make it the best possible YouTube video you can.

After it's up and running on YouTube, wait a day or two before uploading it to other sites or other venues (including Facebook). The more plays and likes a YouTube video gets, the more visible it will be in the important places such as YouTube search and on the search engines themselves. Focus all efforts on the original upload first.

Blast it on social

There are two phases to this part. First, get it out on Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and Pinterest. If it's a truly important video that has some social sharing legs to it (i.e., not an ad for your store), invest in getting it exposed.

Once it's up on the important networks, set your calendar or put it in your social scheduling tools to post again in the future - a month or so is fine - as long as it's something that's not too timely.

Blog about it

This isn't just a matter of getting it out there on a stand-alone blog post with a quick caption. If it's an important video, talk about it. Write a story surrounding it. Encourage your readers to watch AND share it.

The blog post can then be promoted a week or so later on the social media sites similar to how you promoted it as a direct video in the first place.

Upload it

You should already have it out on the other video sites and possibly on your website's internal video player. Now, it's time to get it uploaded directly to Facebook. Don't spam it - if you posted it to Facebook from YouTube one week then followed up the next week by promoting your blog post, wait another week before uploading it to Facebook.

There's nothing wrong with repeating a message, but do it in a way that doesn't seem spammy. When you upload it to Facebook, don't do it with the same exact title and description that you put on YouTube or in your blog post.

Rinse, repeat

Unless it's a timely video, you can do the same thing (other than re-uploading it to the video sites) a month or more later. You can even write a brand new blog post about it. Get it out on Tumblr. Refer to it in other discussions or blog posts that aren't centering around the video itself.

Video promotions are best done manually if you want to maximize the exposure. It takes more time but it can yield exponentially more views if you do it right and have a solid video to promote.

Here's an infographic that discusses video tactics even further:

It is always difficult when we have something that can be used for both personal and professional gain. Since many of us began using social media to connect with friends, family and like-minded people, we forget that it is not the same application for business.

Understanding that there needs to be a difference is where your success can begin. Applying the same strategy you have for your personal social media accounts to your business social media accounts is a fail. Let’s talk about the difference.

Personal Social Media

Your personal social networks are constructed of people who either know you, acquaintances or people who share something in common with you. This doesn’t mean you have ever met them offline, but we tend to friend, follow or circle people who have a common interest as us. If we didn’t then we would have useless feeds and inevitably the social site would become meaningless.

Therefore we share our lives through family photos, images of pets, our outings and update about how we feel, think or if we are in need of answers. We gain responses and activities due to the proper connections we have made and thus we are networking socially.

On your personal social media accounts it is acceptable to be random; a place to share cat photos, random Internet memes, articles that vary and expand on your personal interests.

Though aiming to connect with like-minded people when using social media for business applies, the buck stops there when comparing with what you do with your personal accounts.

Social Media for Business

Since your goal is to connect with like-minded people you need to think of how your particular Industry cannot only find like-minded people to follow, like, or circle, but to have them find you easily as well. The first step is easy; the second part has been a task more difficult since businesses are still applying what they would do on their personal accounts.

In order for you to be found by like-minded people you need to stop being random. Drop the cat photos, random memes, thoughts, opinions and expressions. Narrow your use of social media to two, yes only two main topics; Industry related and Local.

Within those two main topics many sub-topics can arise that are still related to what you do and where you are located. We might want to be friends with people from across the world personally, but for our business that connection is not as valuable as connecting with your neighbor or a person in a neighboring town.

Thus, connecting locally is ideal as well as connecting with people who share the interest of your Industry. This means that you share high quality images, tips, facts, history and how-to’s about your company, Industry and community.

This then allows people to find you since the topics you are sharing places your business in any and many algorithms (search or social) as being an authority. It also builds credibility that you know what you are doing, that you are willing to share knowledge and most importantly, that you care.

Business social media needs to differ from personal social media in order for your business to strive to thrive within the social media world. Just because someone says they know or understand social media does not make them the right candidate for your business social media accounts.

Finding time and/or the right people or person to handle your business social media is dependent on how they can make social media work for you instead of working on social media for you, there is a difference.

It is always difficult when we have something that can be used for both personal and professional gain. Since many of us began using social media to connect with friends, family and like-minded people, we forget that it is not the same application for business.

Understanding that there needs to be a difference is where your success can begin. Applying the same strategy you have for your personal social media accounts to your business social media accounts is a fail. Let’s talk about the difference.

Personal Social Media

Your personal social networks are constructed of people who either know you, acquaintances or people who share something in common with you. This doesn’t mean you have ever met them offline, but we tend to friend, follow or circle people who have a common interest as us. If we didn’t then we would have useless feeds and inevitably the social site would become meaningless.

Therefore we share our lives through family photos, images of pets, our outings and update about how we feel, think or if we are in need of answers. We gain responses and activities due to the proper connections we have made and thus we are networking socially.

On your personal social media accounts it is acceptable to be random; a place to share cat photos, random Internet memes, articles that vary and expand on your personal interests.

Though aiming to connect with like-minded people when using social media for business applies, the buck stops there when comparing with what you do with your personal accounts.

Social Media for Business

Since your goal is to connect with like-minded people you need to think of how your particular Industry cannot only find like-minded people to follow, like, or circle, but to have them find you easily as well. The first step is easy; the second part has been a task more difficult since businesses are still applying what they would do on their personal accounts.

In order for you to be found by like-minded people you need to stop being random. Drop the cat photos, random memes, thoughts, opinions and expressions. Narrow your use of social media to two, yes only two main topics; Industry related and Local.

Within those two main topics many sub-topics can arise that are still related to what you do and where you are located. We might want to be friends with people from across the world personally, but for our business that connection is not as valuable as connecting with your neighbor or a person in a neighboring town.

Thus, connecting locally is ideal as well as connecting with people who share the interest of your Industry. This means that you share high quality images, tips, facts, history and how-to’s about your company, Industry and community.

This then allows people to find you since the topics you are sharing places your business in any and many algorithms (search or social) as being an authority. It also builds credibility that you know what you are doing, that you are willing to share knowledge and most importantly, that you care.

Business social media needs to differ from personal social media in order for your business to strive to thrive within the social media world. Just because someone says they know or understand social media does not make them the right candidate for your business social media accounts.

Finding time and/or the right people or person to handle your business social media is dependent on how they can make social media work for you instead of working on social media for you, there is a difference.