The image above shows the last four Facebook activities by a major car dealership in a metro area. Over three months ago, they abandoned their page. This could easily be a very long post where I go into details about how this is wrong on so many levels, but I'll keep it short because if you're reading this, chances are very strong that you're a savvy dealership that would never let this happen.

For the sake of education, I'll at least put a partial list together in case you're not absolutely sure why you shouldn't do this:

• This page appears in the searches for the dealership by name on Google.
• This is the page presented to people when they search on Facebook, Bing, and other search engines as well.
• Abandoned pages can be easily spammed. If a spammer were to find this page, they could start posting links to their teeth whitening or adult-content gateway websites and have it appear at the top of the dealers' activity public activity feed. This is becoming a more common technique by spammers because they know that the business is not paying attention so the chances of them being reported to Facebook are slim.
• A feed could be setup if absolutely necessary (I'll cover this more below).
• Customers are posting on the page. Huge opportunities are being missed.

Let's cover the bottom two in a little more detail.

Last Resort: Feeds

If your dealership has no bandwidth to cover your social media and no budget to hire an automotive social media service, the absolute worst case scenario is to set up a feed to the page. This is something that I don't recommend to anyone who wants to be successful, but it's still better than abandonment.

You can use RSS Graffiti, Hootsuite, or any number of other services to pull in a feed and post on a regular basis to Facebook. This is a very poor strategy, but it's better than nothing.

Customers Can Post

This is the most disheartening part about the page above. Happy customers are talking. I've recently written five blog posts about the importance of developing brand ambassadors. This dealership has ambassadors waiting to be contacted. It's such a waste.

Here are those posts:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

Happy customers that take the time to promote your dealership through their own Facebook profile should not be ignored. There's no excuse for this.

Don't Delete Them

There's a good chance that you'll have a Facebook presence whether you want to or not. Just because you delete your page doesn't mean that someone else can't toss one up for you. "Fan pages" are very common and if you don't have a page of your own that is outranking the fan pages, you risk letting others control what people see when they check you out on Facebook. Bad move.

Social media is about communication, so the ideas of using RSS feeds is not a good option. Every dealership needs to be watching, even if it's in the form of having the Internet Manager, GM, or owner receive an email when someone posts on the page. For most, this isn't a problem. The industry is realizing the importance of social. If you're not one of those, at least do the bare minimum to not completely fail. It takes no time. To turn your presence into an orphan is a big mistake.

The image above shows the last four Facebook activities by a major car dealership in a metro area. Over three months ago, they abandoned their page. This could easily be a very long post where I go into details about how this is wrong on so many levels, but I'll keep it short because if you're reading this, chances are very strong that you're a savvy dealership that would never let this happen.

For the sake of education, I'll at least put a partial list together in case you're not absolutely sure why you shouldn't do this:

• This page appears in the searches for the dealership by name on Google.
• This is the page presented to people when they search on Facebook, Bing, and other search engines as well.
• Abandoned pages can be easily spammed. If a spammer were to find this page, they could start posting links to their teeth whitening or adult-content gateway websites and have it appear at the top of the dealers' activity public activity feed. This is becoming a more common technique by spammers because they know that the business is not paying attention so the chances of them being reported to Facebook are slim.
• A feed could be setup if absolutely necessary (I'll cover this more below).
• Customers are posting on the page. Huge opportunities are being missed.

Let's cover the bottom two in a little more detail.

Last Resort: Feeds

If your dealership has no bandwidth to cover your social media and no budget to hire an automotive social media service, the absolute worst case scenario is to set up a feed to the page. This is something that I don't recommend to anyone who wants to be successful, but it's still better than abandonment.

You can use RSS Graffiti, Hootsuite, or any number of other services to pull in a feed and post on a regular basis to Facebook. This is a very poor strategy, but it's better than nothing.

Customers Can Post

This is the most disheartening part about the page above. Happy customers are talking. I've recently written five blog posts about the importance of developing brand ambassadors. This dealership has ambassadors waiting to be contacted. It's such a waste.

Here are those posts:

• Turn Social Media into a Brand Ambassador Factory
• The Importance of Brand Ambassadors
• How to Identify Potential Brand Ambassadors
• How to Approach a Potential Brand Ambassador About Social Media
• The Actions Needed to Build True Brand Ambassadors

Happy customers that take the time to promote your dealership through their own Facebook profile should not be ignored. There's no excuse for this.

Don't Delete Them

There's a good chance that you'll have a Facebook presence whether you want to or not. Just because you delete your page doesn't mean that someone else can't toss one up for you. "Fan pages" are very common and if you don't have a page of your own that is outranking the fan pages, you risk letting others control what people see when they check you out on Facebook. Bad move.

Social media is about communication, so the ideas of using RSS feeds is not a good option. Every dealership needs to be watching, even if it's in the form of having the Internet Manager, GM, or owner receive an email when someone posts on the page. For most, this isn't a problem. The industry is realizing the importance of social. If you're not one of those, at least do the bare minimum to not completely fail. It takes no time. To turn your presence into an orphan is a big mistake.

We all want to be popular, whether it is to make up for the many times we were picked last in elementary school gym class, to make up for all those embarrassing school photos or for that one glamor shot we took in the 90’s. All joking aside, we all want to be popular because it is human nature to want to be liked and accepted by our peers and this does not have an age limit. However, there comes a choice in Social Media that needs to be made, which is whether you want to simply be popular or truly connected with other like-minded people.

This can be a daunting choice for some and for many they would prefer to have their cake and eat it too but we all know that reality is much different. Of course we would all like to be popular on our social networks and in a way you can be without your numbers being the only proof of popularity.

Twitter is a perfect social network to highlight as an example as to why your following count should never be the same number as your followers as it is a site we willingly share publically. In the early days of Twitter people would pay money to inflate their follower count and some may still, but as many of us have learned this was/is the wrong way to use Twitter.

There is certainly no need to inflate your numbers since the only thing you are doing is ruining your Twitter experience, and popularity is not always number based. Unfortunately, although most Twitter users have moved past the inflation phase many are still clinging to the #followback trend.

Truth is not always in the numbers as you can learn from this example, if you have a high volume of followers that you have decided to match with your following count you are not properly using the social site. Instead you are merely using the site as a popularity contest. Your time would be better spent finding quality content that ranges from pictures, links, quotes and video and honing in on the demographic of your audience.

Since Twitter moves in a real-time fashion your choice in who you decide to follow back should matter to you, it should not be because they followed you. There needs to be more of a criterion if you actually want to begin using Twitter as it was intended instead of just having a profile exist.

Bring your account to life by being selective and choosing only to follow people back that share some sort of interest as you. Their tweets should be likable to you. Never follow anyone who doesn’t have a profile pic or a bio filled out, that is always a sign of indifference and Twitter is a social network after all.

Anyone can find a reason to follow someone else and perhaps they are in it to just be, preferably you are not one of those people. Your presence on Twitter needs not only attention to your demographic and type of content sharing but it is important to care as to who your profile chooses to follow and therefore your following count should not mimic that of your following.

Whether for business or personal use this form of using Twitter is the best way to connect, and embrace others as your reasoning behind using the site. You can become popular amongst those who are like-minded as you if you yearn for popularity, but don’t let it simply be based upon a number. Let there be depth.

[Twitter Popularity image via desdevweb]

We all want to be popular, whether it is to make up for the many times we were picked last in elementary school gym class, to make up for all those embarrassing school photos or for that one glamor shot we took in the 90’s. All joking aside, we all want to be popular because it is human nature to want to be liked and accepted by our peers and this does not have an age limit. However, there comes a choice in Social Media that needs to be made, which is whether you want to simply be popular or truly connected with other like-minded people.

This can be a daunting choice for some and for many they would prefer to have their cake and eat it too but we all know that reality is much different. Of course we would all like to be popular on our social networks and in a way you can be without your numbers being the only proof of popularity.

Twitter is a perfect social network to highlight as an example as to why your following count should never be the same number as your followers as it is a site we willingly share publically. In the early days of Twitter people would pay money to inflate their follower count and some may still, but as many of us have learned this was/is the wrong way to use Twitter.

There is certainly no need to inflate your numbers since the only thing you are doing is ruining your Twitter experience, and popularity is not always number based. Unfortunately, although most Twitter users have moved past the inflation phase many are still clinging to the #followback trend.

Truth is not always in the numbers as you can learn from this example, if you have a high volume of followers that you have decided to match with your following count you are not properly using the social site. Instead you are merely using the site as a popularity contest. Your time would be better spent finding quality content that ranges from pictures, links, quotes and video and honing in on the demographic of your audience.

Since Twitter moves in a real-time fashion your choice in who you decide to follow back should matter to you, it should not be because they followed you. There needs to be more of a criterion if you actually want to begin using Twitter as it was intended instead of just having a profile exist.

Bring your account to life by being selective and choosing only to follow people back that share some sort of interest as you. Their tweets should be likable to you. Never follow anyone who doesn’t have a profile pic or a bio filled out, that is always a sign of indifference and Twitter is a social network after all.

Anyone can find a reason to follow someone else and perhaps they are in it to just be, preferably you are not one of those people. Your presence on Twitter needs not only attention to your demographic and type of content sharing but it is important to care as to who your profile chooses to follow and therefore your following count should not mimic that of your following.

Whether for business or personal use this form of using Twitter is the best way to connect, and embrace others as your reasoning behind using the site. You can become popular amongst those who are like-minded as you if you yearn for popularity, but don’t let it simply be based upon a number. Let there be depth.

[Twitter Popularity image via desdevweb]

Last year, SXSW was relatively laid back. We had a couple of executives there, but for the most part it was our search and social team that was in attendance, catching tidbits of information here or there but really we were there to meet with some people outside of our core business in the automotive industry. Then, something happened. Matt Cutts from Google and Duane Forrester of Bing dropped a bombshell on the audience. They both declared that quality was moving up in he search algorithms, that quantity was going to be a bad thing, and that spammers would be roughed up in the coming weeks.

The result a month later was the Penguin algorithm as well as Bing’s unnamed variation and search engine marketing was changed forever. Some companies shut down. Others had to make dramatic changes in order to survive. We were put into a better position than ever before thanks to the change, but it still took a lot of research and testing to get it to the point that it’s at today.

This year, we’re going in heavy – the CEO, CFO, VP of Marketing, VP of Internet Marketing Products, and  the Director of New Media of new media are heading down to Austin to pay close attention to everything from Facebook to Google to whatever new things are coming down the pipe. A recent operation will put me on the sidelines for this one, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be watching from afar.

What does Google have planned? This year, the same trio of Cutts, Forrester, and SEO genius Danny Sullivan are participating in the panel called “How to Rank Better in Google and Bing”. We anticipate that there will be another bomb dropped, possibly the prelude to the mythical Zebra algorithm. Regardless of what it is, it’s important for everyone in search and social to be paying very close attention to what’s happening down there. Both Google and Bing have had success using the more casual SXSW atmosphere to spark questions and launch changes because it’s not as “dangerous” as revealing things at SES, SMX, or any of the marketing-heavy conferences. SXSW is a party as much as it is a convention; the festival roots make it a safe venue to drop bombs.

What’s coming down the pipe for 2013? We’ll find out this coming week.

Last year, SXSW was relatively laid back. We had a couple of executives there, but for the most part it was our search and social team that was in attendance, catching tidbits of information here or there but really we were there to meet with some people outside of our core business in the automotive industry. Then, something happened. Matt Cutts from Google and Duane Forrester of Bing dropped a bombshell on the audience. They both declared that quality was moving up in he search algorithms, that quantity was going to be a bad thing, and that spammers would be roughed up in the coming weeks.

The result a month later was the Penguin algorithm as well as Bing’s unnamed variation and search engine marketing was changed forever. Some companies shut down. Others had to make dramatic changes in order to survive. We were put into a better position than ever before thanks to the change, but it still took a lot of research and testing to get it to the point that it’s at today.

This year, we’re going in heavy – the CEO, CFO, VP of Marketing, VP of Internet Marketing Products, and  the Director of New Media of new media are heading down to Austin to pay close attention to everything from Facebook to Google to whatever new things are coming down the pipe. A recent operation will put me on the sidelines for this one, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be watching from afar.

What does Google have planned? This year, the same trio of Cutts, Forrester, and SEO genius Danny Sullivan are participating in the panel called “How to Rank Better in Google and Bing”. We anticipate that there will be another bomb dropped, possibly the prelude to the mythical Zebra algorithm. Regardless of what it is, it’s important for everyone in search and social to be paying very close attention to what’s happening down there. Both Google and Bing have had success using the more casual SXSW atmosphere to spark questions and launch changes because it’s not as “dangerous” as revealing things at SES, SMX, or any of the marketing-heavy conferences. SXSW is a party as much as it is a convention; the festival roots make it a safe venue to drop bombs.

What’s coming down the pipe for 2013? We’ll find out this coming week.

Companies tend to be solely focused on their Return on Investment (ROI) when trying out a new tool, marketing strategy, or social network, that the customers ROI (and they do have one) never even enters the picture. Just like most businesses, customers also try to find “what’s in it for them” when investing their time and money into a website, new product, or company. If a business is not customer focused and solely only thinks about what they can gain from an interaction or transaction than they are missing out on the bigger picture, customer satisfaction.

Of course, it is important that companies try to uncover their Return on Investment, but it should never be at the expense of the customer’s ROI.

What is the Customer’s ROI?

Customers want more than a product from your company, they want service too. When choosing to purchase items from a business, there are many factors they consider before investing.

-        Does the company provide great customer service?

-        Are the people who work at the company knowledgeable?

-        How do I benefit from shopping with this company?

-        Do they care about my time?

-        Are they helpful?

-        Is there a better offer out there? – This doesn’t just include prices, but the company as a whole too.

These are only a few factors, but they give you a general idea of what customers want.

For instance, the retail store, Walmart, provides a unique service called, “Price Match” where customers can purchase products that are on-sale elsewhere at Walmart, simply by having customers show the competitors flyer at the check-out with the discounted product.

Another great example of a customer focused company is Fisher Price. They not only sell age-appropriate toys, but they also give parenting advice, which helps their consumers to be a better parent.

By businesses, such as these ones, who give customers helpful tips, advice, educational tidbits, and unique services that go above and beyond just selling products, you are providing benefits to the customer’s investment, which is your business.

Providing customer satisfaction will make customers choose your business above all others and increase your customer loyalty, thus, by investing in the customer’s Return on Investment will ultimately serve the business’ ROI as well.

[Image via: Insurance Quotes]

Companies tend to be solely focused on their Return on Investment (ROI) when trying out a new tool, marketing strategy, or social network, that the customers ROI (and they do have one) never even enters the picture. Just like most businesses, customers also try to find “what’s in it for them” when investing their time and money into a website, new product, or company. If a business is not customer focused and solely only thinks about what they can gain from an interaction or transaction than they are missing out on the bigger picture, customer satisfaction.

Of course, it is important that companies try to uncover their Return on Investment, but it should never be at the expense of the customer’s ROI.

What is the Customer’s ROI?

Customers want more than a product from your company, they want service too. When choosing to purchase items from a business, there are many factors they consider before investing.

-        Does the company provide great customer service?

-        Are the people who work at the company knowledgeable?

-        How do I benefit from shopping with this company?

-        Do they care about my time?

-        Are they helpful?

-        Is there a better offer out there? – This doesn’t just include prices, but the company as a whole too.

These are only a few factors, but they give you a general idea of what customers want.

For instance, the retail store, Walmart, provides a unique service called, “Price Match” where customers can purchase products that are on-sale elsewhere at Walmart, simply by having customers show the competitors flyer at the check-out with the discounted product.

Another great example of a customer focused company is Fisher Price. They not only sell age-appropriate toys, but they also give parenting advice, which helps their consumers to be a better parent.

By businesses, such as these ones, who give customers helpful tips, advice, educational tidbits, and unique services that go above and beyond just selling products, you are providing benefits to the customer’s investment, which is your business.

Providing customer satisfaction will make customers choose your business above all others and increase your customer loyalty, thus, by investing in the customer’s Return on Investment will ultimately serve the business’ ROI as well.

[Image via: Insurance Quotes]