Hello folks, it is Wednesday again and time for me to put on Part II of the series 15 Free Social Monitoring Tools. As I had stated in my first post, these tools were used by me during my "active" duty as an eCommerce Director for several dealer groups and I hope that you will find the tools #6 to #10 as useful as I did. Here we go:

Kurrently: Shows Twitter stream or the Facebook threads on keyword topic. Real-time showing. Good feature: You can control how fast or slow your stream strolling in.

VJ’s comment: “Especially useful for monitoring the "cloud" on Twitter!”

 Same Point: Providing an overview of Social mentioning’s but also real-time Twitter and Facebook. Further crawls through Blogger blogs and LinkedIn. Promises also to show negative mentioning’s but could not see really evidence of legit results. Possibly needs some more improvement on their end.

VJ’s comment: “Needs some improvement but listening also into LinkedIn is pretty cool!”

 Blog Pulse: The name says it all. Reflecting on Blog post results of the desired keyword search.

  VJ’s comment: “Focusing really on the Blogosphere and will surprise you, what actually shows up with the right keyword!”

 Twendz: Very interactive platform. Shows even the trend of searched word in real-time. Clean appearance. Allows immediate response to incoming tweet and direct linking to Twitter account. VJ’s comment: “Design is great and I love the small analytic section. Nice feature - Word Cloud!”

 Yahoo Pipes: One of the “oldtimer” in social conversation and news monitoring. Do not forget about this valuable tool. Shows even tags used in the upcoming search results with sources and which formats were used.

VJ’s comment: “Was one of the first tools I have ever used to see who and what is buzzing. Classy and nostalgic tool!”

...Please check back for next week Part III and another round of 5 Free Social Monitoring Tools!

Hello folks, it is Wednesday again and time for me to put on Part II of the series 15 Free Social Monitoring Tools. As I had stated in my first post, these tools were used by me during my "active" duty as an eCommerce Director for several dealer groups and I hope that you will find the tools #6 to #10 as useful as I did. Here we go:

Kurrently: Shows Twitter stream or the Facebook threads on keyword topic. Real-time showing. Good feature: You can control how fast or slow your stream strolling in.

VJ’s comment: “Especially useful for monitoring the "cloud" on Twitter!”

 Same Point: Providing an overview of Social mentioning’s but also real-time Twitter and Facebook. Further crawls through Blogger blogs and LinkedIn. Promises also to show negative mentioning’s but could not see really evidence of legit results. Possibly needs some more improvement on their end.

VJ’s comment: “Needs some improvement but listening also into LinkedIn is pretty cool!”

 Blog Pulse: The name says it all. Reflecting on Blog post results of the desired keyword search.

  VJ’s comment: “Focusing really on the Blogosphere and will surprise you, what actually shows up with the right keyword!”

 Twendz: Very interactive platform. Shows even the trend of searched word in real-time. Clean appearance. Allows immediate response to incoming tweet and direct linking to Twitter account. VJ’s comment: “Design is great and I love the small analytic section. Nice feature - Word Cloud!”

 Yahoo Pipes: One of the “oldtimer” in social conversation and news monitoring. Do not forget about this valuable tool. Shows even tags used in the upcoming search results with sources and which formats were used.

VJ’s comment: “Was one of the first tools I have ever used to see who and what is buzzing. Classy and nostalgic tool!”

...Please check back for next week Part III and another round of 5 Free Social Monitoring Tools!

As an e-Commerce guy, what would make my life easier when looking for specific data and news? How can I find short, to-the-point information when writing my next dealer blog post about model XYZ? And last but not least, who is actually talking about our cars, the automotive industry and/or our dealership right now?

These are the questions that inspired this post on the 15 free tools I use to monitor the social media sphere. Enjoy!

First 5 Free Tools for Using Social Media Like a Pro (Part I of III) 

OMGILI: Stands for “Oh My God I Love It” – will track a keyword throughout several social networks. This tool has the capability to share results on Facebook and Google+ as well. It also shows further comments of threads and responders.

VJ’s comment: “A very thorough research tool for an advanced user!”

WordPress Search: This tool is an enormous help for finding other blogs writing about your cars, models. It provides very good insights about who to mention in your next dealer blog post.

VJ’s comment: “What should I say? Like a great, red wine – rich bouquet, deep (color) – a classic !”

Addictomatic: This tool will share news and topics from networks and channels like Bing, YouTube, Google Blog Search, Twitter Search, Flickr, Blinkx Video Search,  Yahoo, Twingly Blog Search, Wikio and more. It’s great for writers who need more info on topics.

VJ’s comment: “One of my favorites! And careful – it’s adictive!”

SocialMention: This tool is like Google Alerts for the social sites. It crawls the social sources and displays where the information was gathered, which hashtags (#) are being used in combination for your keywords, sentiment and even the top-users using the keyword. You can even sign up for email alerts.

VJ’s comment: “Known as one of the first tools out there. Should be in everybody’s “toolbox”. Great metrics and stats!”

Ice Rocket: This tool is a so-called “buzz machine.” It allows selective keyword information of blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Images or BigBuzz. The results display in real-time through incoming feeds (like a news ticker.)

VJ’s comment: “Like it a lot! Will let your inbox buzzing.”

...Please check back for next week Part II and another round of 5 Free Social Monitoring Tools!

As an e-Commerce guy, what would make my life easier when looking for specific data and news? How can I find short, to-the-point information when writing my next dealer blog post about model XYZ? And last but not least, who is actually talking about our cars, the automotive industry and/or our dealership right now?

These are the questions that inspired this post on the 15 free tools I use to monitor the social media sphere. Enjoy!

First 5 Free Tools for Using Social Media Like a Pro (Part I of III) 

OMGILI: Stands for “Oh My God I Love It” – will track a keyword throughout several social networks. This tool has the capability to share results on Facebook and Google+ as well. It also shows further comments of threads and responders.

VJ’s comment: “A very thorough research tool for an advanced user!”

WordPress Search: This tool is an enormous help for finding other blogs writing about your cars, models. It provides very good insights about who to mention in your next dealer blog post.

VJ’s comment: “What should I say? Like a great, red wine – rich bouquet, deep (color) – a classic !”

Addictomatic: This tool will share news and topics from networks and channels like Bing, YouTube, Google Blog Search, Twitter Search, Flickr, Blinkx Video Search,  Yahoo, Twingly Blog Search, Wikio and more. It’s great for writers who need more info on topics.

VJ’s comment: “One of my favorites! And careful – it’s adictive!”

SocialMention: This tool is like Google Alerts for the social sites. It crawls the social sources and displays where the information was gathered, which hashtags (#) are being used in combination for your keywords, sentiment and even the top-users using the keyword. You can even sign up for email alerts.

VJ’s comment: “Known as one of the first tools out there. Should be in everybody’s “toolbox”. Great metrics and stats!”

Ice Rocket: This tool is a so-called “buzz machine.” It allows selective keyword information of blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Images or BigBuzz. The results display in real-time through incoming feeds (like a news ticker.)

VJ’s comment: “Like it a lot! Will let your inbox buzzing.”

...Please check back for next week Part II and another round of 5 Free Social Monitoring Tools!

Losing focus during your automotive social media campaigns is so easy. As the Internet Sales Manager, you must wear many hats. Because you are seen as “the PC guy” (which actually we are not) our days are full of “Fix my font size” and “Check my wi-fi” and of course the crowd favorite “Why is my computer so slow?”

The day is just too short to keep up with all these duties, (even though Internet people are known to be more organized and scheduled than most) Still, the danger is high that we just get overwhelmed and important things like writing a blog post about the new upcoming model, sending responses to questions, entering fresh Facebook content and monitoring the reputation on  the Twittersphere, Yelp and the other online entities falls by the wayside. 

MIRACLE ALERT: WIN BACK YOUR FOCUS WITH AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR

The idea is not new and for decades, the press, writers, bloggers and Marketing/PR departments have functioned smoothly thanks to this easy tool. When I was in charge of my dealership’s digital marketing, I created this calendar from scratch.

To get started I decided…

1) …on the frequency and the regularity of the events I wanted to share somehow – somewhere. I further looked how far into “the future” I wanted to plan. Month by month, quarterly or even longer. 3-Months ahead was my choice then.

2) …open up Excel and included e.g following columns for each month

Do the same for new cars coming down the pipeline. Repost car reviewsfrom experts in the automotive writer scene, post “spy” photos so you can’t identify what model it is this time – readers love this – I guarantee!

These are really only a few examples of how you can customize your editorial calendar, and I am sure you have plenty of ideas as well. You just need to make sure that you stick to the plan. When you have scheduled a blog post for Thursday – this blog post for Thursday needs to be online ON THURSDAY. Same with all the other scheduled events.

It is about developing a habit. Just think about the U.S. citizens most “looking forward to it” day – APRIL 15^th. Also when you do not want to do it (right now) – You have to. Push yourself into the habit and follow the plan you designed. Let nothing else come in between. The calendar and organizational discipline will rule this time!

Last advice: Share it with your superior and align your work with the offline advertising schedule of your profit centers. Here and there will be a chance to “sneak” in a subliminal soft-sell message ;)

Happy Selling!

Losing focus during your automotive social media campaigns is so easy. As the Internet Sales Manager, you must wear many hats. Because you are seen as “the PC guy” (which actually we are not) our days are full of “Fix my font size” and “Check my wi-fi” and of course the crowd favorite “Why is my computer so slow?”

The day is just too short to keep up with all these duties, (even though Internet people are known to be more organized and scheduled than most) Still, the danger is high that we just get overwhelmed and important things like writing a blog post about the new upcoming model, sending responses to questions, entering fresh Facebook content and monitoring the reputation on  the Twittersphere, Yelp and the other online entities falls by the wayside. 

MIRACLE ALERT: WIN BACK YOUR FOCUS WITH AN EDITORIAL CALENDAR

The idea is not new and for decades, the press, writers, bloggers and Marketing/PR departments have functioned smoothly thanks to this easy tool. When I was in charge of my dealership’s digital marketing, I created this calendar from scratch.

To get started I decided…

1) …on the frequency and the regularity of the events I wanted to share somehow – somewhere. I further looked how far into “the future” I wanted to plan. Month by month, quarterly or even longer. 3-Months ahead was my choice then.

2) …open up Excel and included e.g following columns for each month

Do the same for new cars coming down the pipeline. Repost car reviewsfrom experts in the automotive writer scene, post “spy” photos so you can’t identify what model it is this time – readers love this – I guarantee!

These are really only a few examples of how you can customize your editorial calendar, and I am sure you have plenty of ideas as well. You just need to make sure that you stick to the plan. When you have scheduled a blog post for Thursday – this blog post for Thursday needs to be online ON THURSDAY. Same with all the other scheduled events.

It is about developing a habit. Just think about the U.S. citizens most “looking forward to it” day – APRIL 15^th. Also when you do not want to do it (right now) – You have to. Push yourself into the habit and follow the plan you designed. Let nothing else come in between. The calendar and organizational discipline will rule this time!

Last advice: Share it with your superior and align your work with the offline advertising schedule of your profit centers. Here and there will be a chance to “sneak” in a subliminal soft-sell message ;)

Happy Selling!

Marketing Tactics – Hot and fresh from the press

It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for. After about six weeks of anticipation (a.k.a. an eternity in today’s web 5.0 environment), Google just announced that it will roll out two new significant platform updates in the next week.

Update 1: Sharing Web Pages What it does: With the “Web Pages” update, you will see the well-known Plus1 button. At first sight, really nothing new, right? Wait! Then suddenly you see another NEW option in the pull-down menu called “Share on Google Plus” – brilliant! It will go directly into your stream of Google+, similar to your Facebook “Recommend” button.

Dealerships advantage: Using this feature, you can now add a comment on a website you’d like to share, select the circles with whom you want to share this website/webpage, and hit “share”. In other words, you will now be able to share targeted messages to your targeted groups.

This means that instead of having news from the all new VW Passat spread around shotgun style to all of your circles (which could easily include Beetle or Jetta drivers), you can now send the message only to this micro- targeted audience (Passat drivers or new Passat prospects) who you know will definitively appreciate the info. This new feature will even be more valuable when Google+ is open for all businesses – so sit tight, it will definitively become an even bigger Facebook challenger.

Update 2: Plus Snippets The second new update is called “Plus Snippets.” A Plus Snippet helps better categorize content via a descriptive image, a link, and an explanatory blurb included with your shares. Click on the Plus1 and share it with your circles – this time the Plus snippets will have a title, image and description – a huge advantage for all publishers out there.

Dealership advantage: With this feature, it appears that Google is redefining its Social SEO even more. When you are maintaining a blog for your dealership or dealer group (what I certainly hope for), you can now determine which kind of snippets (pictures and or images) will show. Additionally, you will be able to determine what tag line you want to set for the particular snippet as well as the description, which will help you to gain an advantage in your local SEO setup.

The same applies for your website model pages, which are hopefully optimized with unique, deep and rich content. So please remember, when publishing your blog post and image, make sure the description and headline will have your dealer name, make/model, current OEM ad slogan and city included. With the new Google+ updates, this is more critical than ever.

In case you are not able to wait a week for this feature, you can connect with Google directly at the Google+ Platform Preview Group.  

Marketing Tactics – Hot and fresh from the press

It’s the moment we’ve been waiting for. After about six weeks of anticipation (a.k.a. an eternity in today’s web 5.0 environment), Google just announced that it will roll out two new significant platform updates in the next week.

Update 1: Sharing Web Pages What it does: With the “Web Pages” update, you will see the well-known Plus1 button. At first sight, really nothing new, right? Wait! Then suddenly you see another NEW option in the pull-down menu called “Share on Google Plus” – brilliant! It will go directly into your stream of Google+, similar to your Facebook “Recommend” button.

Dealerships advantage: Using this feature, you can now add a comment on a website you’d like to share, select the circles with whom you want to share this website/webpage, and hit “share”. In other words, you will now be able to share targeted messages to your targeted groups.

This means that instead of having news from the all new VW Passat spread around shotgun style to all of your circles (which could easily include Beetle or Jetta drivers), you can now send the message only to this micro- targeted audience (Passat drivers or new Passat prospects) who you know will definitively appreciate the info. This new feature will even be more valuable when Google+ is open for all businesses – so sit tight, it will definitively become an even bigger Facebook challenger.

Update 2: Plus Snippets The second new update is called “Plus Snippets.” A Plus Snippet helps better categorize content via a descriptive image, a link, and an explanatory blurb included with your shares. Click on the Plus1 and share it with your circles – this time the Plus snippets will have a title, image and description – a huge advantage for all publishers out there.

Dealership advantage: With this feature, it appears that Google is redefining its Social SEO even more. When you are maintaining a blog for your dealership or dealer group (what I certainly hope for), you can now determine which kind of snippets (pictures and or images) will show. Additionally, you will be able to determine what tag line you want to set for the particular snippet as well as the description, which will help you to gain an advantage in your local SEO setup.

The same applies for your website model pages, which are hopefully optimized with unique, deep and rich content. So please remember, when publishing your blog post and image, make sure the description and headline will have your dealer name, make/model, current OEM ad slogan and city included. With the new Google+ updates, this is more critical than ever.

In case you are not able to wait a week for this feature, you can connect with Google directly at the Google+ Platform Preview Group.  

Chapter IV - What not to do when looking into your website to figure out “is it working”?

As you will see down the line, a study confirms that we car sales people just obsess too much about it. What I mean is we constantly search for the “holy grail” in making a website flashy, pretty, and interactive with the latest gadget out there in the industry.

I get it – we possibly think we need to impress our potential new customers who have finally found our website – us picturing them glaring at their screen with Ohhhhs and Ahhhs coming out of their mouth. But sorry to disappoint you – we need to wake you up a little bit more roughly, like my grandma used to do when my brothers and I slept in too long, and poured a nice cold and refreshing glass of water in our faces.

The majority of customers reaching a desired website location wants just one thing: 

- “THE WEBSITE MAKES IT EASY FOR ME TO FIND WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR” – fact!

An entire 76% of questioned consumers by HubSpot in the second quarter of this year saw this as the most important factor for them to remain on the site and possibly purchase from the chosen vendor’s website.

Arguments from GMs and GSMs (and yes, even Internet Managers) such as “My website needs to look nice and pretty,” doesn’t fly and it is a presumption that we dealers just know it all. I heard it when I started back in a dealership, and I hear it still today as I am giving speeches or trainings on industry events. “My website looks too plain” or “why don’t I have anything moving in my website, like a running banner…?” – After seeing the results of the HubSpot study, it is very easy to give a response – because it won’t help!

Only 10% of consumers “want to see a pretty websites” and just 9% “love to experience a cutting edge interactive” website. Bummer…!!!

When I came back into the dealer world, the first thing I did was take down the “walking in lady telling me on the website how to appraise my current car”… I think she is just annoying and when getting into my backend looking at the websites duration time, the numbers pretty much told me “your conversion sucks.”

Looking again on the sites and pages duration time just 4 weeks later– surprise, surprise – the time my customers spent with me on the website had increased 38% and the numbers of pages visited tripled. Since I had these results with a minor adjustment (taking down the virtual spokesperson), I also saved some money on not paying any longer for this service.

I also love to de-clutter my websites. I go for clean, structured design with a natural feel of where to go next, well placed call to action buttons, and links inside the pages which will always lead back to the most profitable centers of my website – the service department, the used car inventory, used car specials, new car specials and the new car inventory.  

When having a smart linkage strategy, the success of page conversion and form submissions will naturally appear.

Chapter IV - What not to do when looking into your website to figure out “is it working”?

As you will see down the line, a study confirms that we car sales people just obsess too much about it. What I mean is we constantly search for the “holy grail” in making a website flashy, pretty, and interactive with the latest gadget out there in the industry.

I get it – we possibly think we need to impress our potential new customers who have finally found our website – us picturing them glaring at their screen with Ohhhhs and Ahhhs coming out of their mouth. But sorry to disappoint you – we need to wake you up a little bit more roughly, like my grandma used to do when my brothers and I slept in too long, and poured a nice cold and refreshing glass of water in our faces.

The majority of customers reaching a desired website location wants just one thing: 

- “THE WEBSITE MAKES IT EASY FOR ME TO FIND WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR” – fact!

An entire 76% of questioned consumers by HubSpot in the second quarter of this year saw this as the most important factor for them to remain on the site and possibly purchase from the chosen vendor’s website.

Arguments from GMs and GSMs (and yes, even Internet Managers) such as “My website needs to look nice and pretty,” doesn’t fly and it is a presumption that we dealers just know it all. I heard it when I started back in a dealership, and I hear it still today as I am giving speeches or trainings on industry events. “My website looks too plain” or “why don’t I have anything moving in my website, like a running banner…?” – After seeing the results of the HubSpot study, it is very easy to give a response – because it won’t help!

Only 10% of consumers “want to see a pretty websites” and just 9% “love to experience a cutting edge interactive” website. Bummer…!!!

When I came back into the dealer world, the first thing I did was take down the “walking in lady telling me on the website how to appraise my current car”… I think she is just annoying and when getting into my backend looking at the websites duration time, the numbers pretty much told me “your conversion sucks.”

Looking again on the sites and pages duration time just 4 weeks later– surprise, surprise – the time my customers spent with me on the website had increased 38% and the numbers of pages visited tripled. Since I had these results with a minor adjustment (taking down the virtual spokesperson), I also saved some money on not paying any longer for this service.

I also love to de-clutter my websites. I go for clean, structured design with a natural feel of where to go next, well placed call to action buttons, and links inside the pages which will always lead back to the most profitable centers of my website – the service department, the used car inventory, used car specials, new car specials and the new car inventory.  

When having a smart linkage strategy, the success of page conversion and form submissions will naturally appear.