If anything, 5-minutes is overkill. It shouldn't take that long.

Using the network, learning the ins and outs, consolidating the philosophy and strategy to combine nicely with search and other social sites - all may take longer. Here, let's start with the basics. Get your page built.

There are a few things to keep in mind, but first and foremost is that you want it attached to your Google Places account. Eventually there will be some vetting that happens, but unfortunately anybody can make a page for any business. This won't last - they're just getting adoption rates up for now. Once they have the accounts active and working, they'll get into attaching them officially.

That will be a cluster, but we're not there yet. First, let's just get the page built.

Nobody.

If you check your analytics, you'll find that an extremely small portion of your website videos are pushing the buttons you worked so hard to position on your website's homepage. A recent batch of data that I saw (that I, unfortunately, cannot reference yet) shows that those Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social buttons are being completely overlooked by most of your visitors.

By most, you might as well call it "all" of your visitors because it's an activity that occurs normally after someone has already submitted a lead.

Moreover, it's a sign of the "kiss of death" -- once they click away, the chances of them visiting your site again drop dramatically.

Logic, not Alarms

Before anyone freaks out and starts removing those dreaded buttons, think about why this is happening and what it means. People who have purchased a product or submitted a lead are more likely to push those buttons than those who have not filled out a form simply because they have accomplished their mission. They found what they were looking for and are now wanting to see who they may be dealing with in the near future.

People who have not submitted a lead or bought something are still on their mission. They've moved on to a competitor's website or back to search. They're not in social-media-mode yet, so there is no reason to click on them.

Does this make the buttons worthless? Absolutely not.

Warm and Fuzzy

This data tells us that the people visiting your site and putting in a lead are looking for humanity. They're looking for the warm and fuzzy that they hope to find on the other end of the click.

Social media is about driving traffic and forming engagements. The sheer fact that they are not going from your website to the social sites isn't a bad thing. It simply means that the gut-instinct many of us have had for a while is correct, that social media happens away from your website and the value can be found there, not through buttons. People have seen the buttons so often on nearly every site they visit that they've become immune to them. The people who click on them are wanting to find them (and you) and as a result, they hope that they're getting cuddly social stuff once they leave your site and go to the magical realms of Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.

Keep The Buttons, then Do More

When they want to find you on social media, they will. To be proactive, you have to give them a reason to go to your social presence, like/follow/subscribe to it, and still venture back to your site for more. Banners describing events or other benefits of liking/following/subscribing can be very effective - just make sure they open a new tab and do not take the visitors completely away from your site.

There is a book waiting to be written about the roles of social, search, and website marketing and specifically how they are an integrated function of each other rather than separate activities, but that book will not be written today. In lieu, think about how your buttons are positioned and think of new ways to be more aggressive with your social promotions on and OFF of your website.

Twitter is an absolute treasure chest of information about people. If there's one thing Twitter knows well, it's what people are doing and thinking at any given moment. Users often Tweet everything that's happening to them - what they're eating, where they're going, what they plan on doing tomorrow, even what car they intend to buy soon.

Sounds like a longshot, right? No. In reality, Twitter can be harnessed for valuable information about people who are in the market right this very moment in your local area. You just have to know how to find them..

Luckily, Twitter Advanced Search does the trick. We have put together 7 tutorial videos on how to use specific areas of Twitter and posted them on 7 different sites. Watch the video below, then go to the next video in the series over at Automotive Social Network. Or, you can see the complete list of videos and where they're posted on the TK Carsites blog.

Enjoy!

There are always questions that surround social media. For many (those who aren't using TK automotive social media products - shameless plug), it has never delivered the tremendous results that they were promised. Social media was supposed to replace search. It was supposed to replace television. It was supposed to save the industry.

Thankfully, the industry survived and is now thriving, but social media did not have a huge impact for most dealers. It didn't deliver the leads as promised. It's hard to track. It is, for many, something that just doesn't deliver, period.

It doesn't have to be. We were extremely happy to have Kathi Kruse do our weekly automotive marketing webinar last week. She rocked the house!

Listen to her as she demonstrates how getting more leads through social media is not only an achievable goal, but a necessary activity moving forward.

Over the last several months, really since speaking at the Digital Marketing Strategies Conference in Napa Valley earlier this year, one of the themes that we've been focused on is this:

"What happens on your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media pages is not nearly as important as what happens on other people's Facebook, Twitter, and social media pages."

Every few months I need to remind myself to continue to preach this point. Dealers and businesses in general always migrate towards focusing on their own pages and profiles when working automotive social media. While it's important to maintain a strong presence through our own pages, the real bang for the buck is what happens off of our pages.

Think about two scenarios:

1) A happy customer buys a new car. They're pumped, young, tech-savvy, and you ask them if you can take their picture for Facebook. They agree. You line up the car with your dealership's sign in the background. They stand next to the car, leaning on the door and smiling like a kid in a candy store with a credit card in hand. You post it to your dealership Facebook page. Mission accomplished!

2) A happy customer buys a new car. Everything is the same as above. The difference is that instead of asking if you can take their picture with your camera, you say, "I noticed you have a smartphone. I know you're excited so if you want to tell everyone on Facebook, I'd be happy to take your picture with it!"

In the second scenario, the mission was truly accomplished. Why? Yes, people will visit your Facebook page whether from your website or simply as avid followers. However, you're not blowing them out of the water or getting new peoples' attention by posting it only on your own page.

When a happy customer posts the picture on their page, the real magic of social media happens. Now their friends and family see that they bought a new car and that they bought it from you. Do the math, here:

• >>> 140 People: Average number of Facebook friends
• >>> 17 Months: Average buying cycle within an American household
• >>> 8.24: The number of people who are friends with your customer on Facebook who are actively in the market to buy a vehicle today.

Where is the real juice in social media? Is it on your Facebook page? Is it on your Twitter profile? To some extent, the answer is year, but just as flossing will do very little if you don't brush your teeth, posting to your own Facebook page and Twitter profile will do very little if you don't get your customers to post about you on their social media profiles.

There's only one regret I have about delivering a keynote at this weekend's Driving Sales Executive Summit: how can I discuss the future of search and social in 30 minutes? It's a topic that would need 2 hours to scratch the surface because the changes that are coming up shortly are both exciting and terrifying at the same time.

They're exciting because innovative, forward-thinking dealers (such as those who normally select TK Carsites as their marketing partner) will have an advantage over the competition by being "in the know" about the things that are soon to come.

The terrifying aspect is that it's a huge responsibility that falls onto the shoulders of marketing decision-makers at dealerships and the vendors that they use. The good ol' days of "throw up a pretty website and try to get the people into the dealership" are behind us. 2012 will mark the tipping point of something that has been coming for the last 3 years, namely the nearly-complete integration between our online presence and our physical dealerships.

How we handle online marketing and even sales (yes, direct sales) online will create the widest gap the industry has ever seen. Those who move with the trends and focus on getting (and keeping) customers in the venues online where they spend their time will increase their sales at unprecedented rates; if 2010 was the rebound year for the automotive industry and 2011 was the stabilize-and-grow year, 2012 will be the "cream of the crop will rise" year.

In other words, many of your competitors will be hurt by the trends and upcoming changes, while savvy dealers who understand that search and social are the absolute, hands-down keys to success will have their best year in over a decade.

Here's a teaser of what we will discuss at Driving Sales Executive Summit on Sunday:

• * Google will consolidate most of their services under a single branded offering.
• * Facebook will become a search engine contended (and will likely purchase Bing).
• * Mobile traffic will grow 300+% for some car dealers in 2012

Any of the topics could span a couple of hours of discussion. We'll be squeezing it all into 30 minutes and we'll still be able to give actionable advice to the dealers in attendance. It's a tall order, but that's what it takes to make this DSES the best ever.

I wrote a little more in depth on the subject of search and social on Soshable. See you Sunday!

Many people have asked me over the last couple of days why I wasn't at Digital Dealer. I have had to remain aloof about it... until now.

Today, KPA announces that it has acquired TK Carsites Inc. TK Carsites has over 650 automobile dealership clients throughout the country. The combination of the TK Carsites product line and current KPA product lines establishes KPA as a leading dealer services and Internet marketing provider for over 4,000 automotive, truck, and equipment dealerships and service companies.

The united company offers an exciting prospect for dealers in ways that we've never been able to offer in the past.

“I am impressed by KPA’s 95% year-over-year client retention. There is no automotive Internet marketing company that comes close,” says Richard Valenta, CEO and co-founder of TK Carsites. “For our clients, this means that they can continue to expect high levels of support, as well as a renewed commitment to the evolution of their products.”

You will see much more coming out of KPA and TK Carsites in the coming weeks. If you aren't excited yet, just wait. You will be.

Many dealerships have found email campaigns to be very successful and deliver a strong ROI. Those dealerships who have, over the years, accumulated a strong database of past customers as well as prospects have had some successes through newsletters, sales event marketing, and buzz-building particularly around new vehicle releases.

Things are starting to change that dealers who use email should remember. The percentage of people who are checking their email primarily on mobile devices has more than doubled in the last year alone. Are your campaigns "mobile-friendly" enough to keep up, or are you missing out on reaching 15% of your database?

For tips and a better understanding of the direction that email marketing is going, we turn to our friends at Litmus:

"Email remains the strongest online activity around the globe. In fact, email users are expected to reach 3.8 billion by 2014; that is nearly half of the earth's current population, and a significant climb from 2.9 billion reported users in 2010. Now that most people are equipped with smartphones and iPads, is anyone still logging on to view their messages on a monitor? Here, we take a look at how our phones and other technological 'toys' have changed the way we view email."

Click to enlarge.

It's a topic that has been covered ad nauseam here and on every business website on the internet. We can all see that social media is big, but how is it translating to the bottom line? Is it directly increasing sales? Are people realy in "buying mode" when they're looking at pictures of their friends at the bar last night? Is it worth the investment.

The answer to the question really comes down to three things: the industry, the personality of the business, and the strategy.

Many in the automotive industry have clearly demonstrated that social media can be very effective in generating business. Just read the automotive social media white paper as a single shining example from Jeff Cryder (who will be speaking at Driving Sale Executive Summit in Vegas).

As far as personality at the dealerships, that's, well, personal. Is your dealership aggressive with its marketing to the point of being public and open about the people and happenings at the store? Are your salespeople and internet people tech-savvy enough to engage in a Facebook conversation with someone before and after a sale? These are all individual questions.

When it comes to strategy, there's winning and losing. Most strategies, unfortunately, are not very effective. I'm not going to go into the bad that's out there (another blog post altogether) but I will say that just because you have a bad experience with a strategy doesn't mean that you should abandon social media altogether.

To get a general view, we have an infographic from our friends at MDG Advertising that breaks down the ROI aspects of social media marketing.

It's not really a question that everyone can answer. For many, the decision has been made for us. Some manufacturers are forcing their dealerships to use specific website providers that consolidate the look, feel, and functionality of the website in order to maintain corporate consistency.

Other OEMs allow their dealers to go wild. They have very few standards or compliance guidelines that their franchises are supposed to follow.

Most OEMs are somewhere in the middle with specific compliance measures that must be met but no limits on which marketing company the dealers can use.

Should a dealership website be consistent, looking mostly like every other of the same brand? Should dealers be allowed to express their personality and focus on their own strengths? Are dealers better off as individuals competing against others in their market of the same brand, or is the corporate line of keeping it simple and consistent while focusing on conquest sales from other brands the right way to go?

We may not have the answer to that question (only you do) but we do have this great, albeit long, video going over the benefits of personalized dealer webstes. What are your thoughts on the issue? Please post them below.