People often ask me how I'm able to stay up on the millions of things that are happening in the world of automotive internet marketing on a daily basis. There are tons of blogs, social networks, and industry websites with enough posts to fill a full day if you plugged them all into an RSS reader. How does an automotive professional with limited time during the day stay ahead and not miss out on the important things?

#AutoMarketing

It's one of the keys to success.

There are content producers galore in the industry. Everyone has an opinion on what to do with search, social, websites, analytics, CRM, classifieds, PPC, banner ads, and every other aspect of internet sales. Throw in the best practices and tips on how to actually work with customers and you have a huge mess. It's not that it's bad. It's that it needs to be curated.

The Twitter hashtag #automarketing is the easiest way to do it. Sure, there's going to be poor content that makes its way into the hashtag. That's inevitable. Many use it as a marketing tool to get their message out regardless of quality. However, the majority of what gets into the hashtag and stays at the top is high-quality.

Here's how it works. People read the blogs, social networks, and industry websites. They find content they like. They share this content on social networks like Twitter. Those who are very active on the internet side of the industry realize that certain hashtags like #AutoMarketing and #CarDealers get fed into Twitter chatter monitor widgets everywhere on the web. Thus, they put in the hashtag whenever they find something of interest.

The more that people curate and share the best content, the more powerful the hashtag becomes. It's not just the industry sites that get posted. Marketing sites that have content pertinent to car dealers often find their content shared with the hashtag as well.

If you want to stay ahead of the curve, this is one of the easiest ways to do it. Just do a search in Twitter for "#AutoMarketing" and you'll find content that curators have enjoyed. You can become a curator yourself by adding it to tweets of important industry posts. The more people that do it, the better the hashtag can become.

We need curation. You can save time by taking advantage of it. You can help by participating.

Despite the rise of social signals and the continued prominence of content as primary search engine optimization tools, high-quality inbound links remain one of the three big components in improving rankings. The automated processes have been devalued; low-quality posts, footer links, and sidebar links are a thing of the past and in excess can actually hurt a website.

Strong, contextual links are still valid. In fact, some have shown that they're more important than ever.

In this infographic by Digital Net Agency, they examine the two different types of link-acquisition strategies. They talk about the six major bad strategies to avoid and then highlight five techniques that work. One in particular, "contributing", should be fleshed out a bit. The idea is that by creating and sharing content that brings value to others, it's possible to generate high-quality contextual links by the sheer merits of the content and its promotion. In essence, if you're bringing value, you'll get value in return.

Click to enlarge.

"Links" image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Last month I had a conversation with a potential client who was describing their content marketing strategy. They had a strong understanding of the theories of posting content that people will share and mixing in promotional content from time to time. It's a basic and effective way to build a community and a following while still getting the benefits of exposure for their business-focused messages. Post what they like, then post what you want them to see.

Fast forward to earlier this week and I finally had a chance to examine their content. What I found disappointed me. The way they were handling "content that people will share" was to post two types of content - entertaining content and content that could be a valuable resource. The challenge I found was that they drew an extremely clear line between entertaining posts and resource posts. The line was so clear that their entertaining posts brought zero value to the reader while the resource posts were as enjoyable as eating chalk.

Content marketing is quickly becoming the cornerstone to both search and social strategies. It is a best practice to try to make sure that what your posting has both entertainment and resource value. Each post can definitely lean in one direction or another, but your entertaining posts should be interesting as well while your resource posts shouldn't put the reader to sleep.

Here's an example of an entertaining post that is also mildly useful. It's a list of the top 5 most searched Dodge Chargers on Google. The entertainment value is clear - classic Dodge Chargers are loved by many drivers and high-resolution images of mint condition Chargers can appeal the target audience (in this case, a Dodge dealer's visitors). However, rather than just making a picture gallery of some cool cars and calling it "5 Epic Pictures of Classic Dodge Chargers", they inserted some resource value. First, the title itself shows that it has resource value: "The 5 Most Searched Dodge Chargers in History". There's not a ton of resource value floating through the page - it's mostly just trivia. However, a resource doesn't have to be a case study or a thesis. The two or three bits of trivial information that the reader can learn from this page are enough to give it value. Remember, this page is primary for entertaining.

Now, let's take a look at a resource page. This one is a historical look at the once-famous Willys Jeep. It has a graphic and information that is informative as well as a couple of images of the iconic vehicle. However, it's not presented in a way that makes it sound like it came out of a history textbook or even Wikipedia. The graphic is fun. The images are high-resolution and interesting. The text focuses on some little-known facts about the vehicle that help it to fall into both the resource and entertainment categories. It may be a resource piece, but there's nothing boring about it.

Posts that are exclusively resources or exclusively entertaining bring value to the table, but not nearly as much as doing both at the same time. People go to the internet for many reasons, but the three primary ones are communication, education, and entertainment. If you want them to do the first thing - communicate - then you have to master the second and third things first. When you can consolidate and kill two birds with one stone, the other bird will fall nicely into your trap.

There are times when you're going to post a piece of content that is too good to post in just one place. It could be extremely informative, very timely, majorly entertaining, or perhaps you just really liked it and want to post it in other places. There are times when you can syndicate the content, but when it's your own site, you'll want to "reblog" it.

This is different from syndicating. If you have places where you can post and it makes sense to let the original content stand on its own, then simply copying, pasting, and reformatting is just fine. There are three instances when you won't want to do this:

1. If you're posting on another one of your own sites where you control all of the content, reblogging can give you a reason for your visitors to one site to explore your other site.
2. If you're posting on one of your domains that is not "aged and weathered" - in other words, it's either a newer domain or does not index very well in the search engines - then reblogging like this will allow you to make sure the content is unique without having to start from scratch on the same topic.
3. If you have a topic that is extremely important and deserves more than one article to highlight it, reblogging is a fast way to write one long-form piece of content and then support it with other websites.

By reblogging, you'll want to do what is posted in the image above. We took a piece of content about Facebook pictures that we posted on Dealer Bar, then reblogged it onto the KPA Internet Marketing Blog. The original story showed five types of Facebook customer picture posts. The reblog focused on the reasons this is important. We put out three short paragraphs of original content, took an important excerpt from the original, and linked to it.

The easiest way to understand it is to start from the reblog and then follow it to the original post. You'll be able to get more mileage out of your content without having to come up with as many fresh ideas. You'll also be exposing your content to different sets of readers. It's a win-win.

One of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding social media is that it's a distant cousin of search engine marketing or that it's goals are similar to other forms of internet marketing. This isn't quite true. There are definitely tie-ins; social media can help improve search rankings, it is a valid follow-up component to email marketing, and it can be used as a direct lead generator for certain products and services. However, real success on social media often comes down to knowing the frame of mind of the people on it and realizing that the messaging style is much more akin to television advertising than any of the traditional online marketing formats.

Think about it like this: when someone wants to buy a car, they go to the search engines. They might go to AutoTrader or Craigslist. They may just go straight to a dealership website. They don't think, "Let's turn on the television and hope we see an ad."

They also don't think, "Hmm, I need to get a new car. Let's see what Facebook has to say about that."

Just as dealers have learned that television advertising works even if you can't demonstrate a clear ROI, they're learning that social media marketing and advertising work as well. When people are in television or social media mode, they are in an entertainment frame of mind. They are not fearful. They are not worried. They are not concentrating. They are open to what the two different mediums are about to show them. Nobody wants to see commercials, but they watch them anyway if only passively. Nobody wants to see marketing messages on Facebook, but they see them anyway even if they don't like or comment on them.

Television and social media both help to keep the business branding and messaging in mind, even if it only registers at a subconscious level. If they are in the market for a vehicle at the time, they might react. If they aren't, that's okay. The brand is being presented. When it comes time to buy a car, their subconscious has an opportunity to move them towards the familiar. Both television and social media help businesses become part of the "subconscious familiar" brands when the time comes to act.

Here's a video I made several months ago that discusses the concept.

There's a big, fat lie in the automotive industry that has been circulating for years. The idea that many hold onto is that conversion rate is the most important number when trying to determine the quality of a website. This couldn't be further from the truth.

Here's a fact - the worse your search marketing is, both for SEO and PPC, the higher your conversion rate is going to be. This cannot be disputed. If buyers are only able to find your dealership on search if they're typing in your name, that means that the only people visiting your website are already inclined to consider doing business with you. Searches for you by name will always yield the highest conversion rates from the visitors.

As your search marketing expands and you start bringing in people from a more diverse range of searches, the traffic goes up, the total number of leads go up, but the conversion rate drops. Total number of leads, however, go up. It's very simple once you understand the dynamic.

Let's say you're currently getting the majority of your search traffic from a variation of your name. Look at your analytics to see if this is the case. With the majority of your traffic coming from searches for your name, the math may look like this:

• * Traffic from Search: 5,000
• * Conversion Rate: 10%
• * Total Leads: 500

Now, as you improve your search marketing and expand your reach, your traffic can go up. Let's say you improve your SEO and start ranking in not just your city and for you name, but in other cities as well. Let's say you're outside of a metro area and through proper search marketing you're able to reach into this market and expose your inventory to a wider range of buyers. Your traffic will go up, but because these visitors didn't find you by name and since they're probably further away from your dealership, the rate for these visitors drops in half. You may get 1000 extra visitors at a 5% conversion rate, yielding 50 more leads. You haven't hurt your ranking for searches of your name, so the original 5,000 visitors are still intact. Now, the numbers look like this:

• * Traffic from Search: 6,000
• * Conversion Rate: 9.2%
• * Total Leads: 550

Many would have you believe that the drop from 10% conversion rate to 9.2% conversion rate is a bad thing, but the important number to note is that the total number of leads went up as a result.

Your goal as a dealer is to sell more cars. It's mathematically inefficient to extend your search reach and as a result your conversion rate goes down. However, the number to focus upon for your website is total conversions. How many leads are you getting? How many sales are you generating from these leads? This is the bottom line that truly affects the success of your website and your business.

Conversion rate is a great indicator that can help you make tweaks and adjustments to your current site, but look at your traffic trends when considering conversion rate fluctuations. Improved conversion rate can be good, but if it's associated with a drop in traffic, you should look at your search rankings and the keywords driving traffic to determine if there's an underlying negative that's making the numbers look good. Conversely, if your rate goes down, see if there's a correlating increase in traffic.

Get more leads that convert to more sales. That's the end goal. Don't get lost in the numbers that some are throwing out at you.

There are plenty of articles out there telling you when to post. This is designed to point out the times when not to post.

The goals of most businesses on social media normally fall into two categories: marketing and communication. Many use social media strictly as a marketing tool to get their message out and to encourage others to help them do the same. Others use it for outreach, as a way to talk directly to their customers and prospects, and to collaborate on needs. Most do a little of both.

These types of activities are fine the majority of the time, but there are instances when it's best to let the messages fall to the side and focus on what's happening in the world.

The recent elections were a perfect example. Social media was flooded as results started coming in. People were Tweeting their opinions or taking pictures of their "I Voted" stickers. They were debating about who would win what, how the country was heading in this direction or that direction, and even discussing how there was too much being posted about politics on the social media channels.

This was a bad time to try to put out a marketing message or a to communicate with the audience.

The best post that an American company could have made yesterday was something to encourage people to vote. It's neutral; normally I encourage businesses to be opinionated but this was one election to stay out of altogether. It was not the time to launch a product or discuss a coming event.

There are other times like this. When there are national or worldwide crises, some companies try idiotically to latch on to the trend. This works out badly the vast majority of the time. Again, opinions, thoughts, and prayers can be expressed but the moments when Sandy was hitting the northeast was an inappropriate time to push product messages.

Be mindful of what's going on. Participate. The one thing that these events allow a company to do is to express empathy, to be a resource that shows people how they can participate or help, and to add a touch of humanity to the business entity. When you have posts talking about your products or services that are hitting social media when everyone's attention is on something else, it's not only futile. It can be damaging as well.

This is Part 3 in a 5 part series. Read Part 2 here on Driving Sales.

By now, you should have an understanding of the importance of having an individual - preferably the owner, general manager, or someone else of authority at the dealership - as the "face" and "voice" of the dealership on social media. People like to talk to people, not brands, and when you can develop a true personality that is both professional and completely human, you have the opportunity to start making real strides in using social media as a true marketing tool. It isn't just for social; the search engines are putting a lot of faith in social signals, so whether you believe in social media as a tool for your dealership or not, you have to admit that search engines clearly drive traffic that can turn into leads and sales. For this reason alone, social media is extremely important for moving well beyond your competitors in 2013.

Once the right person has been established to be the brand's identity, it's time to get turn that person into a powerful account on social media. There are several strategies that work - the tips below are the ones that we've used. In many cases, the majority of our strategy has been developed from what we've seen successful dealers do. This particular part of the series is the most challenging for me to describe because I am part of the subject as well as the observer. It's a little uncomfortable describing the techniques that I use, but for better or for worse, I am part of our own brand's identity and the techniques that we've employed to promote it can be applied easily by dealers.

Attach the Person to the Brand

The power account's face and name should be displayed often and attached to the brand. Forgive the quality of the image we used above - I didn't have access to the design team when I was posting this tip so I winged it. The end result is still easy to understand. We were posting a tip for dealers to our Facebook page and used an image that I built that will be used whenever we're posting SEO tips.

At the dealership level, this could be quick tips on SYNC, winter preparedness, getting their trade-in ready for inspection, or anything else that can fit into a paragraph or two. Make sure that in the attached image or in the text itself that the name of the power account is included. It should be a tip from the owner, not just a tip from ABC Motors.

Develop the Right Personality

One of the biggest mistakes that dealers make when using social media is that they don't want to be frivolous or get off topic. This is debatable. Some would say that there's no reason to talk about anything other than dealership business or cars in general. Even if you subscribe to this way of thinking, that doesn't mean that you can't insert personality into the posts.

Whether you're willing to let your dealership power account go off topic from time to time or not, you must make sure that there is a real personality portrayed in some (perhaps all) of the posts. Let their opinions be known. Personally, I'm a Christian and I often assert this in my posts. That doesn't mean that my company is strictly Christian and people know this. Religion and politics are often dangerous bedfellows with professional social media accounts. You must make sure your dealership is 100% on board with it before heading down that road.

Regardless, having an opinion (even if you avoid politics and religion) is an essential piece to the puzzle. If you want to avoid the potential controversies, you can post things that are still opinionated without being risky:

In this example, my personality is expressed through an opinion without risking controversy. It's extremely humanizing to talk about things that the individual behind the power account truly feels. If it's the owner, for example, you will hear them say things from time to time that strike you. If it strikes you in real life, it has a chance to come across well on social media. Let them know, "That's great - I'm tweeting that for you." I know of one dealership in particular where the owner is such a great personality in real life that the internet manager who's running his account often follows him around just to get social media ideas. The owner loves it and the internet manager has said that her job is easier as a result.

Clever is Better than Smart

It's easy to sound smart on social media. Unfortunately, it often doesn't translate into a lot of likes or shares. Clever, on the other hand, has the opportunity to go viral.

Whether you're finding content on the internet to post or if you're out there generating and capturing content yourself in the real world, look for opportunities to entertain. When you're making people laugh or smile with your social media profiles, they are much more likely to help you spread the word (and as a result, your brand). Look for "cleverness opportunities" and get them posted through your power accounts often.

Be Timely Whenever Possible

Talking about the events that either recently happened or that are happening in the future is challenging. On the days leading up to the election, it was hard to get traction for posts surrounding it because there were simply so many other posts out there on the same subject. Finding the balance between timely and still-interesting is hard. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is to find content that isn't saturated yet but that's interesting enough to share.

The image above struck me when I first saw it. The storms the night before in Dallas were absolutely mean and the subsequent images were incredible. I found one that I thought was most impressive and posted it to Google+. Despite the "ghost town" mentality that so many still hold onto when it comes to Google+, this particular image ended up with over 1000 +1s. It was timely and incredible. People love timely and incredible and they're willing to share it.

Link as a Thought Leader

Some say that you should never post links to social media. This is an insane thought to me, but I'm sure there will be naysayers.

For me, it's important to post links that are truly important. In my niche, I must find the best content that circles around automotive social media and automotive SEO. For a dealership, you must find content that circles around your manufacturers, the local area, and your important dealership news. Your power accounts must be the thought leaders when it comes to your topics. Every link that you post should be important and interesting to your target audience, namely potential buyers of your vehicles or fixed ops customers.

* * *

In the next part of this series, we'll go over ways to take advantage of your power accounts once they're built. After all, it's not just about being interesting. You want to get some real demonstrable ROI out of the efforts. We'll discuss how to attach the accounts appropriately to promotions, how to get your customers to be outrageous for the sake of the dealership (I call this "getting them into the social media trunk"), and how to turn liking into sharing for the sake of your marketing. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, you can check my accounts out for Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.

For a while now we've been discussing the concept of posting "sharable" content on your website to support your "money pages" and "SEO pages". Here's a quick breakdown of the three to act as a refresher:

• * Money Pages - These are the pages that are designed to generate leads. Inventory details pages, specials, landing pages, contact pages - the places where leads are formed.
• * SEO Pages - An SEO page is one that is designed specifically to target specific keywords. You may make a page called "Chevy Camaro Milwaukee", for example. They usually have content of some sort to help them rank but are rarely sharable.
• * Sharable Pages - These are the "fun" pages that very few dealers or vendors ever build. They are designed to draw traffic from sources other than search such as social media. The goal is to create content that people will enjoy and that they're willing to share.

We've discussed why these sharable pages are important, but in a nutshell the goal of a sharable page is to support money pages and SEO pages by driving social signals and organic links to your domain. The sharable pages help by linking internally to important pages but they also increase the domain's overall rankings through these social signals and links.

It's all well and good, but people have asked me for an example of the content that a sharable page might have, so here it is. Below is content that was posted on a Dodge dealer's website. It is about classic Dodge Chargers. Most dealers would think that it's useless since they don't have a lineup of 1969 Chargers on their front line, but because of the potential popularity and sharability of such a post, it could help to drive inbound links and social signals in ways that standard dealer website content cannot.

As you look at the content notice a few things:

1. Big images. People love to share large images.
2. Universal appeal. Even non-Dodge people can admire the beauty of this beast.
3. Unique, relevant, but not-too-much content. It doesn't have to be a novel. This is the bare-minimum text content that you would want to post, but it works.
4. Social buttons at the bottom. You want to use the native buttons. Share tools are often ineffective and are not read as easily by the search engines as the native buttons.
5. Embed code. This allows people to quickly and easily share the content on their own site.

Please feel free to ask questions about this content example.

This is Part 2 in a 5 part series. Read Part I here.

As we advance in social media strategies, one of the biggest challenges is getting traction. The rise of social signals in search marketing alone is enough of an incentive to make it happen even if you don't believe in social media itself as a marketing tool. It is one, but now's not the time to make that case. For now, the undisputed truth is that social media can help your dealership rank better in the search engines by sending social signals (Google +1s, Facebook likes, Twitter retweets, etc) to content on your website.

The quality of the content is important and you can check out some tips on quality content on Social Media Today. The challenge isn't with building content. The biggest challenge facing car dealers is having the potent social profiles that are able to get the content blasted out there, to get the social signals flowing. There are companies (including ours) who have spent years developing and growing social media profiles, hiring experts, and enhancing content through the use of social signals. As a dealership, you will not want to rely on vendors (even us) to do all of the work for you. It's your destiny. It's your business. You need to have a hand in your own success. To do this, you need "power accounts".  

Warnings from the Experts

In part one of this series, I mentioned two of the strongest accounts in automotive: Grant Cardone and Louie Baur. I'll be the first to admit that I am an avid fan of learning from industry experts, so I'm going to talk about what I learned from Ralph Paglia. My friend at ADM is the only guy in the car business that I know of who has been hacking around in social media as long as I have. We've had our share of clashes and disagreements but over the years I believe it's a fair assessment to say that we've both been wrong and we've both been right, and at the end of the day our understanding of how social media can work in the automotive industry is fairly close to lockstep.

One of the things that Ralph has excelled at is building up social media profiles for dealerships. He's the master of syndication and knows how to blast out content. Now, for the warning: don't make the mistakes that both of us made early on. It's easy to get lured into the "wide" approach to social, to start focusing on integrating every shiny new social program out there. If you're a full-time social media marketer for your dealership, this isn't a bad approach. If you, like most, are integrating social media into a diverse marketing strategy and can only put in a couple of hours a day at the most into social, stay focused on the networks that matter: Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  

A Dealer, an Internet Manager, and a Mascot Walk Into a Bar...

There's no punchline. It's a decision that needs to be made. If you're going to build up power accounts, first and foremost you have to understand that business pages are not the solution. They are important; having a strong Facebook page for your dealership is a must. However, a business page cannot become a power account. To become a power account, you have to be human. The hardest part is getting the right human to be the power account. That's right - the owner or general manager is the ideal person to be your dealership's power account.

They are (or should be) respected members of the community. Just as their touch is often enough to make a deal go through, their social media touch is more powerful than that of anyone else at the dealership. This holds true across the board. One study showed that a company's CEO could get more engagement on their Twitter account with 1/100th of the followers of the company account itself.

Take a look at Tracy Myers from Frank Myers Auto Maxx. You would be hard pressed to find an owner with more social media power than Tracy. It's not just that he's such an interesting guy (he is, but that's not important). It's that he's the owner. He's the decision maker. He makes things happen at the dealership. If he says it, they make it so. As a result, his social presence is stronger than the presence of the dealership itself.

The hardest part is convincing dealers that they can benefit from this. THAT is another blog post altogether. If he or she is willing, they are the right person to starting building the power account.

If not, you have two options. The internet manager, ecommerce director, or marketing manager could be the face. Jeff Cryder's story at Lebanon Ford has drawn attention across the country. Lindsay Lavery at Lavery Chevy is really starting to make a splash.

Notice something about all three examples: the profiles are named after the dealership but the individual is highlighted each time (note: since this article was written Cryder has changed the profile back to Lebanon Ford). On Twitter.com/lebanonford or /laverychevy, it's the faces of the individuals who are actually controlling the accounts that are getting the attention. Same thing with fb.com/frankmyersauto - Tracy is the account.

People don't follow brands despite what any social media pro will tell you. They follow people. They don't like logos. They like faces. They don't want to talk to an entity. They want to talk to a human. That's all there is to it.

The third option is for the few who simply do not want to participate in this way. If you absolutely do not want to be the face of your dealership, come up with a mascot. It could be a dog. I'm not going to go into details or offer examples because I really don't want you to go down this path, but if you must, you must. Try to get the dealer first. If not, use the manager in charge of the social profiles. Avoid the mascot if possible, but it's better than just pushing out the brand.

In the next part of this series, we'll discuss how to actually build the prominence of your selected power accounts. Until then, get your pitch ready for your owner or GM about why they should be plastering their face all over Facebook and Twitter.