Louie Baur's Posts - DealerELITE.net2024-03-28T18:18:14ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaurhttps://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2535904900?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1https://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blog/feed?user=0dl6bmguvv8fb&xn_auth=noYour Automotive Social Media Checklisttag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-10-10:5283893:BlogPost:3900882013-10-10T13:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<p><i>Social media is one of the strongest marketing strategies for dealerships. Are you using social media to its full extent? Use the KPA Social Media Checklist to keep your online presence on track.</i></p>
<p>There are plenty of tips and tricks out there for social media, but this checklist has been applied and proven to be successful specifically for car dealers.</p>
<p><b>Do you have an online presence? Make sure to provide multiple social media channels to your consumers. Currently, the…</b></p>
<p><i>Social media is one of the strongest marketing strategies for dealerships. Are you using social media to its full extent? Use the KPA Social Media Checklist to keep your online presence on track.</i></p>
<p>There are plenty of tips and tricks out there for social media, but this checklist has been applied and proven to be successful specifically for car dealers.</p>
<p><b>Do you have an online presence? Make sure to provide multiple social media channels to your consumers. Currently, the following four are king:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Facebook</li>
<li>Twitter</li>
<li>Google+</li>
<li>Pinterest</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Have an abandoned page? Might as well not even have it. Make sure you maintain a consistent posting frequency:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Post 4-5 days week, no more than twice a day.</li>
<li>Post on the weekends too.</li>
<li>Post at peak times for maximum exposure, typically around 10 A.M.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Measure your success. Your engagement matters and will show you where you need to improve:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Find out your ratio: look at your “talking about this” number and divide it by the number of page likes.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Are you talking? Successful social media is about communication.</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Interact with your fans and followers <strong>100% of the time</strong>. If they're willing to communicate, return the gesture.</li>
<li>Encourage the use of hashtags for easy tracking and interaction.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>What social media accessories are you using? Use the following techniques to increase your reach:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Text</li>
<li>Images</li>
<li>Videos</li>
<li>Hashtags</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Do you leverage your brand? Use content that your brand creates:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Repost your brand’s marketing and correlate them with your individual dealership.</li>
<li>Every brand has that special car that fans rally behind. Use that following to your advantage with tie-ins to your dealership.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Cats, memes, and babies are not strong content. Focus on local, relevant content:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Post high-quality, useful, high-quality, and entertaining content – that’s locally relevant!</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Do you advertise? Boosting is cheap and goes a long way.</b></p>
<ul>
<li>It’s easy to use Facebook to boost a post. With $5-$20 dollars you can increase the number of people who see your posts.</li>
<li>Do not boost every post. Be selective.</li>
</ul>
<p>Learn more about a good social media strategy with the KPA Dealer Webinar <a href="http://www.dealerwebinars.com/dummies.html">Social Media: What to do in the Next 6 Months</a>.</p>
<p>Do you need further assistance? KPA offers 3 tiers of social media service. Contact KPA at <b>800.899.7791</b> or <a href="mailto:sales@kpaonline.com"><b>sales@kpaonline.com</b></a> to improve your social media strategy.</p>
<p> </p>Canned Social Media Marketing in an Hour Per Day #Infographictag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-06-25:5283893:BlogPost:3752012013-06-25T05:30:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/canned-social-media-marketing-in-an-hour-per-day/can-of-social-media/" rel="attachment wp-att-9722"><img alt="Can of Social Media" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Can-of-Social-Media.jpg" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>Under normal circumstance, I do not like the types of social media strategies that try to can them into basic processes with time limits. Sure, it’s good to have guidelines, but I find that they’re normally too limiting to allow people to make the right decisions. This infographic is somewhat like that, but it’s design is just too cool in its…</p>
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/canned-social-media-marketing-in-an-hour-per-day/can-of-social-media/" rel="attachment wp-att-9722"><img alt="Can of Social Media" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Can-of-Social-Media.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>Under normal circumstance, I do not like the types of social media strategies that try to can them into basic processes with time limits. Sure, it’s good to have guidelines, but I find that they’re normally too limiting to allow people to make the right decisions. This infographic is somewhat like that, but it’s design is just too cool in its simplicity to ignore it altogether.</p>
<p><img title="More..." alt="" src="http://soshable.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif"/>The concepts are actually pretty strong, but unfortunately they’re not realistic in many ways. Spending 15 minutes on content curation and 15 minutes on blog writing, for example, are both potentially unrealistic for all but those who have their processes down (and have the ability to type really, really quickly). It also seems to be giving too much time to everything else other than Facebook which requires much more than 10 minutes a day for it to be effective.</p>
<p>Those disagreements aside, the aesthetic of the infographic is still quite awesome. In a world of complex infographics, having something this simple is refreshing. Is it possible to get social media done in an hour a day? Yes. Is it easy? Yes. Does it take practice and strong strategies? Absolutely.</p>
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/canned-social-media-marketing-in-an-hour-per-day/social-media-hour-infographic/" rel="attachment wp-att-9723"><img alt="Social Media Hour Infographic" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Social-Media-Hour-Infographic.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>Infographic via <a href="http://dendritepark.com/social-media-cocktail/#.UcgGcpzBEhO" target="_blank">Dendrite Park</a>.</p>How Branding Posts Set Up Power Posts on Facebooktag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-06-24:5283893:BlogPost:3751382013-06-24T01:30:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Brand Power" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38418" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Brand-Power.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">There are several different ways that dealers go about using Facebook for marketing. Some use it for branding only. Others use it for business communications only. Sometimes, the best way to go about it is to do both. They compliment each other nicely when it’s done right.</p>
<p>It’s important to understand that you shouldn’t post irrelevant content even if it’s for branding purposes. That always has to be stated because all…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38418" alt="Brand Power" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Brand-Power.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">There are several different ways that dealers go about using Facebook for marketing. Some use it for branding only. Others use it for business communications only. Sometimes, the best way to go about it is to do both. They compliment each other nicely when it’s done right.</p>
<p>It’s important to understand that you shouldn’t post irrelevant content even if it’s for branding purposes. That always has to be stated because all too often dealers are posting content that has nothing to do with them just to try to fit in and get a lot of likes for their page. This is a bad strategy.</p>
<p>The good news is that there’s plenty of interesting content available that <strong>is</strong> relevant. There are a few different ways to go about doing that, but one thing that everyone has is their own surroundings. It’s an easy thing to use because every businesses has something interesting, unique, funny, or beautiful in their local area that can be used to highlight the community nature of their social media page. Here’s an example:</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38419" alt="Hinderer Bread Basket" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Hinderer-Bread-Basket.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>This post is an image from the local area by a Honda dealer. There are a couple of things that people might say negatively about this type of post. First, it has nothing to do with business, in this case the business of selling more Hondas. Second, it’s not “branded” properly because there’s no watermark on the image.</p>
<p>Local businesses are part of the local area, which is why this might not have anything to do with selling cars but the people who would care about it (including the 85 who liked the post and the 21 who shared it) are likely locals who appreciate content from their community being shared on social media. As far as the branding complaint, it <strong>is</strong> branding, not by using a watermark (which can hurt the effectiveness of the post) but because the page itself gets to spread across the local news feeds.</p>
<p>Those who want to use Facebook for more than branding still need posts like this because it sets up the business-relevant posts to perform better. You need content that is universally enjoyed in order to get a boost in Facebook’s news feed algorithm, PageRank. These types of branding posts that are popular can help posts that go up later, such as this review post:</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38420" alt="Hinderer Review" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Hinderer-Review.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>It was able to get some decent traction in a few hours without the use of Facebook advertising because of the quality of posts before it. If this type of content is all that is going up, then the 381 people who saw it would have dropped down to a couple of dozen people. It’s through working with the algorithm that business-relevant posts like this one have an opportunity to be seen. Once we boost it through advertising, it will get even more exposure.</p>
<p>All-branding or all-business are the wrong strategies for most. It’s a cool combination of the two that yields the best results. When done properly, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.</p>Use Social Media to Educate Consumers (and possibly blow their minds)tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-06-16:5283893:BlogPost:3743542013-06-16T02:40:54.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><div class="finline-large"><img alt="Education" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38303" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Education.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">The days of businesses focusing their efforts on entertaining their fans on social media are behind us… at least they should be. Today, people expect more out of businesses. They expect to be shown things that they don’t normally see from their friends and family. If they follow a business, they aren’t looking for that business to post funny cat pictures or memes. They get enough of those already.</p>
<p>One of the most…</p>
</div>
<div><div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38303" alt="Education" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Education.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">The days of businesses focusing their efforts on entertaining their fans on social media are behind us… at least they should be. Today, people expect more out of businesses. They expect to be shown things that they don’t normally see from their friends and family. If they follow a business, they aren’t looking for that business to post funny cat pictures or memes. They get enough of those already.</p>
<p>One of the most popular things we posted this week was on a car dealer’s Facebook page. It wasn’t a hot concept car or a restored muscle car. It wasn’t some local attraction or hometown hero. It was a picture of power outlets. Thankfully, these weren’t your standard power outlets that come in most vehicles. It was the uniqueness of the console that made the post so popular.</p>
<p>Most people aren’t used to seeing the sort of power that this particular vehicle had available:</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38304" alt="Power Outlets" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Power-Outlets.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>When you have an opportunity to show your customers something they might not know about your product, you’re being useful. You’re delivering what they want a business to deliver to them in their feeds. In this case, it worked out and received strong sentiment from fans and friends of fans alike, receiving over 100 likes and getting exposed to thousands of local potential customers. Just because something is common knowledge to you doesn’t mean that it won’t have the “wow factor” to your customers. Show them the goods! You can blow their minds with some of the neat features your products have to offer.</p>
</div>Four Types of Facebook Posts that Dealers can Rotate if They Musttag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-06-13:5283893:BlogPost:3742062013-06-13T22:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Facebook" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38237" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Facebook.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">There are too many opportunities out there in the world of social media that makes it a bad idea to ignore the medium. Businesses can make an impact if they put in the effort. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready.</p>
<p>It’s still possible to put in minimal effort and have a decent presence. When it’s time to put in full effort, you’ll be better prepared if you have a nice string of daily content that fills your pages.…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38237" alt="Facebook" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Facebook.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">There are too many opportunities out there in the world of social media that makes it a bad idea to ignore the medium. Businesses can make an impact if they put in the effort. Unfortunately, not everyone is ready.</p>
<p>It’s still possible to put in minimal effort and have a decent presence. When it’s time to put in full effort, you’ll be better prepared if you have a nice string of daily content that fills your pages. Automation is a bad idea and can do damage in the long run, but there are ways to put in a little bit of effort and still do okay, at least holding down the fort until you’re ready to blast off.</p>
<p>Diversity is a key, so having a rotation of content types that get posted once a day can keep things rolling until the time comes to take it seriously. Scheduling a single post a day and rotating the various types of posts will give you an acceptable presence. Keep in mind that this will not help you find success. It will only allow you to keep success from passing you by when the time comes to put in the real effort.</p>
<p>Here is a breakdown of four content types that you can put on a rotation. Done right, it should only take you half an hour a week to have an acceptable Facebook presence, a placeholder so to speak, while you get the resources together to really make a push in the future.</p>
<h2>In store “sexy” inventory</h2>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38238" alt="Sexy Inventory" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Sexy-Inventory.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>This isn’t a license to start spamming pictures of the boring stuff. If you’re going to post it to Facebook, it better be compelling in some way.</p>
<p>Be sure to link to the inventory item after adding the photo. You don’t want to post links of any sort as pure links (not during this holding pattern phase, at least) but this will give you the ever so slight potential of getting clicks to your website.</p>
<h2>Local views</h2>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38240" alt="Local Views" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Local-Views.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>It doesn’t matter where you are. There are going to be places and areas that local customers will recognize. Highlight them. This gives the opportunity to demonstrate support for the local area.</p>
<h2>Customer reviews</h2>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38241" alt="Customer Reviews" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Customer-Reviews.jpg" width="728"/></div>
<p>This is very important – do <strong>not</strong> post from the review source itself. This can hurt you algorithmically. There’s nothing wrong with using the review sites themselves, but don’t post your reviews directly from there. It doesn’t help. Make it a text post. Add a little personality into it. Tell a story. The review by itself isn’t appreciated by the Facebook community.</p>
<h2>History lessons</h2>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38242" alt="Classic car post" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Classic-car-post.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>There’s something cool out there from the past in every industry. Take advantage of it. Rotate in nostalgia and your fans will love it.</p>How to Start Over with a Facebook Pagetag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-06-09:5283893:BlogPost:3735392013-06-09T23:30:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Reset Button" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38164" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Reset-Button.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Oh, the regrets. Things happen. We start heading down the wrong direction and suddenly we find ourselves in a bad place. What am I talking about? Facebook pages. Most businesses have them. Most businesses are doing them wrong. Some have done them so wrong in the past that it’s better to start from scratch. As much pain as that may cause, the alternative is worse.</p>
<p>The way that the EdgeRank algorithm works combined with…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38164" alt="Reset Button" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Reset-Button.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Oh, the regrets. Things happen. We start heading down the wrong direction and suddenly we find ourselves in a bad place. What am I talking about? Facebook pages. Most businesses have them. Most businesses are doing them wrong. Some have done them so wrong in the past that it’s better to start from scratch. As much pain as that may cause, the alternative is worse.</p>
<p>The way that the EdgeRank algorithm works combined with the improved effectiveness of Facebook advertising make it necessary in some cases to dump a page and start over. Having too many low-quality Facebook fans can hurt your chances for the good fans to ever see your messages. Local businesses should shoot for a minimum of 80% local likes, preferably around 95%. These likes should be acquired using transparent techniques. “Coaxing” people into liking your page because they think they’ll win an iPad or get to play a cool game is a bad way to go about getting fans, even if they are local.</p>
<p>So, you’re sitting there with bad fans. Facebook gives you the ability to delete fans, but that means going through them one at a time, clicking remove, confirming that you want to remove them, and then waiting for it to work. The process is tedious and Facebook only allows you to go back and see the last 500 likes. This makes manual pruning of your following impossible if your page has a lot of fans unless you’re going to delete everyone without seeing if they’re local. That poses potential challenges as well because if a ton of damage was done to your EdgeRank, you’ll still be carrying over that damage even after you delete everyone.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this: some are in a position where it’s best to start over. If you have questions about whether or not that applies to you, feel free to contact me and I’ll take a look. In the meantime, here’s how to go about making it happen.</p>
<h2>Step 1: Build a replacement page</h2>
<p>You never want to go for an extended period of time without a Facebook page that is relevant and vibrant. You’ll want the new page up and running before removing the old one. To do this, create a brand new page with a variation of your name. For example, let’s say your current Facebook page is at /ABC.Toyota and you’re in Dallas, you would want to create a page called /ABC.Toyota.Dallas. Get content going on the page, then start promoting it transparently with Facebook ads.</p>
<p>Once it’s up to an acceptable level, it’s time to make the switch.</p>
<h2>Step 2: Switch the old page to a new URL</h2>
<p>The first instinct would be to delete the old page. You’ll want to move it, first. Deleting a page takes 14 days. By moving it to a new URL, you’ll have access to the old URL for your new page immediately. On the old Facebook page, click on “Edit Settings”.</p>
<div class="finline-large"><a href="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Replacing-a-Facebook-Page-Step-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Replacing-a-Facebook-Page-Step-1.jpg?width=600" width="600" class="align-center"/></a></div>
<p>Click on “Change username” under “Basic Information”.</p>
<div class="finline-large"><a href="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Replacing-a-Facebook-Page-Step-2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Replacing-a-Facebook-Page-Step-2.jpg?width=600" width="600" class="align-center"/></a></div>
<p>Once there, it will give you the option (if you haven’t changed it already) to pick a different URL for your Facebook page. Make it something semi-useful, /ABC.Toyota.Service, for example. You can only change a Facebook URL one time, so make sure it’s a good one. The reason you’ll want to make it something useful is so that you’ll have options. You may not want to completely delete the old one even with the bad fans. It can be a passive Facebook presence addressing a niche need, for example. In this case, it might be used to post service specials and pictures of Toyotas in the shop, for example. You can always delete it completely, of course.</p>
<p>You’ll want to change the address or delete it altogether from the backend. This will prevent this page from popping up as a “place” where people can check in.</p>
<h2>Step 3: Change the new page URL</h2>
<p>Now you can do the same thing with the new page you built. Change it to the original business URL. Make sure your data is set with the business address. It takes a few days for it to be picked up as a local place in Facebook, but that’s okay. Check-ins (currently) have very little value for the page itself other than running check-in specials (which you can do immediately) and to get the exposure as other people share their location. In other words, the accumulation of checkins isn’t that big of a deal for most businesses. There’s a little backlash in that who visit your page won’t see their friends who have also visited the page, but unless you have thousands of checkins accumulated, it won’t hurt to start over.</p>
<p>If you <strong>do</strong> have thousands of people who have checked in at the location, you shouldn’t be replacing the page. In that scenario, it’s best to go through the manual process of pruning your fans. This can take hours, even days if you have a lot of followers and you’ll still have the negative impact on the algorithm to deal with, but it’s better than losing a ton of credibility, particularly if graph search becomes important in the future (today, it’s just not that big of a deal and few people are using it to find businesses).</p>
<p>By running a check-in offer, you’ll be able to make sure that the page is properly accepted as a place. That doesn’t mean it will show up on mobile devices immediately. Unfortunately, Facebook says it takes “a few days” before this happens, which really means a couple of weeks.</p>
<h2>Step 4: Delete or repurpose the old page</h2>
<p>If you delete the old page, it will take 14 days. This is recommended if you don’t have time to properly manage two pages. If you do not want to delete it, you can repurpose it just as we suggested in the example above. In that scenario, it becomes a light landing page that some people will use. Because the page was algorithmically hampered, it won’t show up in users’ news feeds very well but it can be used for niche purposes.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>It’s really a case by case basis scenario. Deciding whether or not to start over is something that should be based upon analysis, pros, and cons.</p>Second Screen Usage During Commercials Highlights Social Media's Potentialtag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-06-04:5283893:BlogPost:3730782013-06-04T04:49:32.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Second Screen Television Ads" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38056" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Second-Screen-Television-Ads.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Quick, what’s the first thing you do when a commercial comes on the television. The standard answers without thinking about it are: flip through the channels, go to the restroom, or get up to get a drink.</p>
<p>Now, think about it more thoroughly. What do you <strong>really</strong> do when a commercial comes on. The answer for many Americans and people around the world is that they grab their smartphone or tablet and do…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38056" alt="Second Screen Television Ads" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Second-Screen-Television-Ads.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Quick, what’s the first thing you do when a commercial comes on the television. The standard answers without thinking about it are: flip through the channels, go to the restroom, or get up to get a drink.</p>
<p>Now, think about it more thoroughly. What do you <strong>really</strong> do when a commercial comes on. The answer for many Americans and people around the world is that they grab their smartphone or tablet and do things there until the show comes back. In fact, many people are using their smartphones or tablets <strong>while</strong> they’re watching television.</p>
<p>It’s the way of a mobile, always-connected digital world. Active social media users are checking their feeds during commercials. People check their email. They play games. They check out something on the internet that they thought about during their show. Some just do, well, something, anything, because it’s the right time to do it.</p>
<p>Most businesses are not taking advantage of this trend. We saw a glimpse of it <a title="Super Bowl Ads" href="http://www.techi.com/2013/02/the-real-takeaways-from-the-super-bowl-social-media-debate/">during the Super Bowl when many advertisers</a> read their market research and determined that they should use their spot to highlight social media hashtags, but it was isolated. Businesses aren’t moving forward as quickly as they should.</p>
<p>There are two real takeaways from this trend. First and most obviously, advertising on social media is a must, particularly on Facebook. Compared to television ads, they are pennies on the dollar and they’re reaching people at the intended time – during the entertainment mindset. This is what has made television so effective as an advertising venue and it’s what contributes to the effectiveness of social media advertising, just at a much less expensive scale.</p>
<p>As counter-intuitive as it may seem before you give real thought to it, social media is the most cost-effective way to reach your television audience. It sounds weird, but it’s true. It’s not just while they’re watching television. When was the last time you road on a train or a bus? What are people doing when they’re waiting for a plane? At restaurants, when you’ve put the menu up and finished placing your order, you may talk to the people around you or you might pull out your mobile device while waiting for the food. It’s what we do when we have nothing to do and social media advertising is the key to reaching these people.</p>
<p>The second takeaway is this – businesses should be addressing people through television to interact <strong>at that moment</strong> on their mobile devices. People are on them. Use that knowledge. I’ll be very impressed the first time I see a television ad that says something like, “You probably have your tablet or smartphone in your hand right now, so check out what we’ve done for you at…”</p>
<p>That would get their attention because you’d be talking directly to them. Even the people who aren’t on their device at that particular moment have a chance of grabbing theirs from the coffee table and checking out what you’re doing simply because you asked in a way that makes them feel connected. It’s basic psychology that is not being used today. Will you take advantage of the trends?</p>If You Want Attention on Google+, Go Large and Horizontal with Your Imagestag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-05-30:5283893:BlogPost:3724482013-05-30T19:30:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="New Google Plus" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38022" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/New-Google-Plus-31.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">When Google+ first rolled out their change, we called it “<a href="http://www.techi.com/2013/05/the-google-redesign-is-pinterestesque-with-a-little-facebook-sprinkled-on-top/" title="The Google+ redesign is Pinterestesque">Twitteresque</a>“. After exploring it further for the last couple of weeks, we believe that it’s actually better than Pinterest in many ways… and worse.</p>
<p>One of the ways that it’s definitely better…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-38022" alt="New Google Plus" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/New-Google-Plus-31.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">When Google+ first rolled out their change, we called it “<a title="The Google+ redesign is Pinterestesque" href="http://www.techi.com/2013/05/the-google-redesign-is-pinterestesque-with-a-little-facebook-sprinkled-on-top/">Twitteresque</a>“. After exploring it further for the last couple of weeks, we believe that it’s actually better than Pinterest in many ways… and worse.</p>
<p>One of the ways that it’s definitely better than Pinterest is in the display of large photos. The algorithm that drives the way that posts appear in your feed is beginning to reveal itself to be more complex than EdgeRank. It may have been that way all along but we never noticed because there wasn’t enough activity. In any case, it’s there now and we’re liking what we’re seeing.</p>
<p>First, you’ll see something here in this image screen captured from a friend’s feed that my post was prominently displayed. It took a while of scrolling to find the right image for this demonstration and it happened to be mine when we found it.</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38023" alt="Google Plus Horizontal" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Google-Plus-Horizontal.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>It’s not hard to understand. Google+ likes big posts. Apparently, it only works for horizontal orientation, though. We also saw an infographic that looked terrible because it was shrunk down.</p>
<p>In a lot of ways, Google+ is still a mystery. The community is emerging and flexing its preference muscles which is likely why they made the recent change. They love images much like Facebook but even more so. They highlight them more prominently than any of the networks and it appears to be a function of the algorithm to determine whether an image is displayed in the standard small format on the feed or if it gets the wide screen treatment. The key is to make sure that the images are large and relatively high resolution. That doesn’t mean that you should be posting huge pictures all the time, but if you can make sure that they’re at least 1000px wide, you should have a chance to get it seen better.</p>
<p>It isn’t just individuals, either. Business pages are getting the treatment as well:</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-38025" alt="Google Plus Horizontal Business" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Google-Plus-Horizontal-Business.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p>My motto – if you’re going to be social, you might as well go big.</p>Automotive Social Media is Open 7 Days a Weektag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-05-28:5283893:BlogPost:3720182013-05-28T16:30:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Always Open" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-37986" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Always-Open.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Many dealers are trying and failing at social media. Some are succeeding. One of the keys to finding success is in taking on an “always open” mentality.</p>
<p>Just like a website should always be on, social media requires constant attention, particularly Facebook. It doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t take weekends off. In fact, some have seen that the weekends are when the real activity happens. For some pages, they’re receiving…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-37986" alt="Always Open" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Always-Open.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Many dealers are trying and failing at social media. Some are succeeding. One of the keys to finding success is in taking on an “always open” mentality.</p>
<p>Just like a website should always be on, social media requires constant attention, particularly Facebook. It doesn’t sleep. It doesn’t take weekends off. In fact, some have seen that the weekends are when the real activity happens. For some pages, they’re receiving more interactions on social media during the weekends or late at night than they do during business hours.</p>
<p>How can a marketing manager or internet manager be successful on something that is constantly nagging at you? One of the ways is through tools. The best tool, of course, is sitting in your pocket or on your desk right now. Mobile devices give us the ability to be on pretty much all the time. One doesn’t have to have Facebook or Twitter open in the web browser at all times. They simply need to have their push notifications set properly.</p>
<p>Make sure that you have the appropriate apps on your phone and that they’re pinging you any time someone is engaging with you on your social networks. If they Tweet at you or send you a direct message, you have the opportunity to interact with them while they’re still on Twitter. If they post a comment on one of your posts or to your Facebook wall, you can get a conversation going even if you’re not in front of your computer.</p>
<p>Some people prefer email. Those of us who are constantly on email can set notifications on our social networks to email us when there’s engagement. On some networks, you can even reply through email directly to the networks – Google+ is great at this.</p>
<p>Regardless of the method, keeping an eye on what’s happening is a must. Here’s graphic showing a business engagement level by day followed by a quote on <a href="http://automotivesocialmedia.com/blog/automotive-social-media-doesnt-sleep-and-doesnt-take-weekends-off/" target="_blank">automotivesocialmedia.com</a>:</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37987" alt="Daily Stats" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Daily-Stats.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<blockquote><p>You can see from the graph above that this particular dealership gets the most interaction on Sundays. Would this be possible if we weren’t there replying to their weekend comments and posting relevant content? Of course not! People don’t wait around. They don’t want to hear a reply on Monday. They’re ready to engage when they’re ready to engage and if you miss the opportunity, there’s a good chance you won’t have another.</p>
</blockquote>What do Abandoned Facebook Pages Say About Your Business?tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-05-25:5283893:BlogPost:3717472013-05-25T16:30:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<p><a href="http://www.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ghost-Towns.jpg"><img alt="Ghost Towns" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37967" src="http://www.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ghost-Towns.jpg" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>In many ways, Facebook has lost some of its luster as a business tool. It isn't that it's not possible to properly market a business on the platform. It's that the complexity of the EdgeRank algorithm mixed with the touchiness of the advertising formats has many turning autopilot onto their pages instead of investing time or money into them.</p>
<p>They just weren't seeing a return on investment…</p>
<p><a href="http://www.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ghost-Towns.jpg"><img alt="Ghost Towns" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37967" src="http://www.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ghost-Towns.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>In many ways, Facebook has lost some of its luster as a business tool. It isn't that it's not possible to properly market a business on the platform. It's that the complexity of the EdgeRank algorithm mixed with the touchiness of the advertising formats has many turning autopilot onto their pages instead of investing time or money into them.</p>
<p>They just weren't seeing a return on investment the way that they had hoped.</p>
<p>It seems to be an ebb and flow of sentiment. General Motors, for example, decided to dump their investment into Facebook advertising last year before returning to the platform this year. It's not an uncommon practice - try it, fail, give it up, hear that things are better, try again.</p>
<p>Those who are on the downside of their Facebook love affair often turn to automation. Once they've decided that they can't get the ROI out of Facebook, they either abandon their page altogether or continue to post to it semi-regularly or through posting tools that take care of the process for them. It isn't hard to see when a business has taken their eyes off the Facebook ball for a while as the posts quickly become unengaged. Users stop liking them. Comments stop coming in. These pages become virtual ghost towns.</p>
<p>The challenge is with the representation it offers to those who visit the page. Just because a business abandons their page or sets it on autopilot doesn't mean that people stop visiting it. Sure, the posts are no longer visible in the news feeds of fans and friends of fans, but there's still search. With very few exceptions, Facebook pages rank on the front page of searches for businesses by name. People visit them to get a feel for what the business is up to and how they're treating social media in general. What do they find when they visit abandoned or poorly managed pages?</p>
<p>It's not good. It leaves a bad taste in people's mouths in the best case scenario. In other cases, it can actually be a detriment as negative posts from spammers find their ways onto the walls of abandoned pages. Spammers love hijacking them and filling them with links to bad places because they're much less likely of getting reported. Spam posts on active pages are a quick way for someone to get banned, while on abandoned pages they can help spammers get more credibility in the eyes of the automatic Facebook spam filters. Facebook relies on pages and users to report spammers. When they can find friendly havens on pages that have been abandoned, it helps them build quiet credibility in the eyes of the filter.</p>
<p>Even pages that are checked on a semi-regular basis can be bad. They demonstrate very little effort in a very loud way. Many social media users are passionate about their networks and don't like it when a business is willing to dismiss their page. Is it worth it? Can investing 5 minutes a day help to prevent this from happening?</p>
<p>Absolutely.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Post originally appeared on <a href="http://www.techi.com/2013/05/what-do-abandoned-facebook-pages-say-about-a-business/">Techi</a>.</p>A Case for Posting Lots of Good Content on Your Websitetag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-05-17:5283893:BlogPost:3706332013-05-17T22:32:40.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Hello My Name Is Content" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-37789" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Hello-My-Name-Is-Content.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Content speaks for itself. It speaks for a company. It speaks to the people.</p>
<p>Most business websites are sorely short on content. Sure, they have sales content and information about the company, but so few today are actually putting out high-quality content about relevant topics that make their websites more of a resource. Today, people want to trust a company before doing business with them and content is the easiest…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-37789" alt="Hello My Name Is Content" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Hello-My-Name-Is-Content.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Content speaks for itself. It speaks for a company. It speaks to the people.</p>
<p>Most business websites are sorely short on content. Sure, they have sales content and information about the company, but so few today are actually putting out high-quality content about relevant topics that make their websites more of a resource. Today, people want to trust a company before doing business with them and content is the easiest way for them to understand that you know what you’re doing.</p>
<p>It’s not just about having information for visitors to see in order to convince them that you’re an expert. It’s also about having things to post about on social media. Many businesses spend time going through feeds and reading blog posts by industry professionals to find content for their Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ accounts. While pulling from outside sources has its benefits, why would one want to always drive traffic to other sites? Why wouldn’t they take advantage of their own expertise and post content that they put together on their own sites?</p>
<p>In this infographic by <a href="http://www.contentplus.co.uk/marketing-resources/infographics/anatomy-of-content-marketing/" target="_blank">Content Plus,</a> we look at the anatomy of content marketing. It’s important to understand that just selling all the time isn’t effective, that being a resource means gaining trust, and that people can find you in more indirect ways than direct ways in today’s content-driven digital era.</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-37790" alt="Anatomy of Content Marketing Infographic" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Anatomy-of-Content-Marketing-Infographic.jpg" width="750"/></div>Kissing Up to the Facebook and Google+ Algorithmstag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-05-13:5283893:BlogPost:3696722013-05-13T18:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/kissing-up-to-the-facebook-and-google-algorithms/kissing-up/" rel="attachment wp-att-9291"><img alt="Kissing Upv" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9291" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Kissing-Up.jpg" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>There’s a fine line between making social media useless by posting things that aren’t relevant for business and making it ineffective by having posts that are too promotional, thus killing the posts through “death by algorithm”. Done right, businesses have the ability to be interesting enough to make the algorithms like them while being relevant enough…</p>
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/kissing-up-to-the-facebook-and-google-algorithms/kissing-up/" rel="attachment wp-att-9291"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9291" alt="Kissing Upv" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Kissing-Up.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>There’s a fine line between making social media useless by posting things that aren’t relevant for business and making it ineffective by having posts that are too promotional, thus killing the posts through “death by algorithm”. Done right, businesses have the ability to be interesting enough to make the algorithms like them while being relevant enough to get a benefit out of the networks.</p>
<p><span id="more-9290"></span>It’s a relatively complex formula used by both Google+ and Facebook when determining whether or not to present a post to people in their feeds, but the process to master them is pretty simple. The basics summed up in a sentence is this: by mixing in likeable content with business-relevant content at the appropriate levels and applying the right amount of advertising pressure (at least with Facebook), business posts have the ability to keep the algorithms happy while still getting the business messages out.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Understanding the Two Styles</h2>
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/kissing-up-to-the-facebook-and-google-algorithms/legend-happy-post/" rel="attachment wp-att-9292"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9292" alt="Legend Happy Post" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Legend-Happy-Post.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>There are two types of content that should be posted on Facebook and Google+. The first and most common type is the “happy” post. It’s the type of content that your fans will enjoy. It’s normally not business-relevant other than that it should pertain to the type of business or local area. In the image above, a Mazda dealer posts an image of a hot Mazda vehicle. It performed well – on a page with under 600 fans it received over 30 likes. This is positive for the algorithm and will help future posts find exposure on news feeds.</p>
<p>The other type of post is a “money” post. It’s business relevant. It is designed to drive foot traffic, website traffic, or both. It promotes a sale, a community event relevant to the business, or a message of some sort that the business wants exposed.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Mix it Up</h2>
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/kissing-up-to-the-facebook-and-google-algorithms/toyota-of-wallinford-mixing-it-up/" rel="attachment wp-att-9294"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9294" alt="Toyota of Wallingford Mixing it Up" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Toyota-of-Wallinford-Mixing-it-Up.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>There’s no formula for this, unfortunately. In other words, it’s not a matter of posting 4 happy posts for every 1 money post. Every page has different thresholds and diverse fans that make it necessary to test, test, and retest before determining the right strategy.</p>
<p>The key is to keep it changing. You don’t want to let your fans get fatigued. In other words, a dealership that posts car picture after car picture will eventually force people to stop liking the posts. Keep it fresh. Try new things. While we definitely do not recommend mixing in anything that isn’t relevant (cat pictures, for example), there are plenty of things going on in the local area and at the business itself that allows a page to continue to succeed against the algorithm.</p>
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<h2>A Warning About Facebook Ads</h2>
<p><a href="http://soshable.com/kissing-up-to-the-facebook-and-google-algorithms/facebook-sentiment/" rel="attachment wp-att-9296"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-9296" alt="Facebook Sentiment" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Facebook-Sentiment.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>Facebook ads work. We use them efficiently as part of our client’s strategy. They have a caveat that must be noted, though, and it’s a mistake that more and more businesses are making every day.</p>
<p>They are a two-edged sword. While they’re great for getting more exposure to the page and to individual posts, they can also hurt a page. If the wrong posts are highlighted through Facebook ads, it can have the opposite effect than intended. Posts that get a ton of negative sentiment through Facebook ads can cause future posts to be invisible to just about everyone who has the potential to see them. Keep in mind that Facebook and Google+ are both aware of visibility.</p>
<p>In other words, they know when someone is scanning their news feed and when they pass over a post without interacting with it. Every time they see a post and do nothing with it, they are telling Facebook and Google+ that they didn’t find your content worthy of engagement. This effects their chances of seeing future posts.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>The algorithms are not difficult to master. They just take understanding and a willingness to test, test, and retest. Are you willing to make the effort?</p>Google+ Dimensions and Sizing Cheat Sheettag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-03-30:5283893:BlogPost:3630462013-03-30T22:30:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Google+ Specifications" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36811" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Google+-Specifications.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Every time a social network makes a change to their layout, design firms around the world groan about how they now have to redo a ton of different artwork. Social media is big business and companies will pay big bucks to look just right on their pages and profiles.</p>
<p>Google had a change of their own recently on Google+, including one major change to profile and page layouts that made the…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36811" alt="Google+ Specifications" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Google+-Specifications.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Every time a social network makes a change to their layout, design firms around the world groan about how they now have to redo a ton of different artwork. Social media is big business and companies will pay big bucks to look just right on their pages and profiles.</p>
<p>Google had a change of their own recently on Google+, including one major change to profile and page layouts that made the <a title="Google+ adds more features to profiles, makes cover photos HUGE" href="http://www.techi.com/2013/03/google-adds-more-features-to-profiles-makes-cover-photos-huge/">cover photo extremely large</a>. This added a new wrinkle to the mix because now pages had different through which they had to operate. The whole cover image isn’t immediately visible when people visit the page, so there are different ways to make it work so that the messages in the cover image are portrayed properly.</p>
<p>This cheat sheet by <a href="http://www.edgeitdesign.com/google-design-cheat-sheet-infographic/" target="_blank">Edge IT</a> breaks down the changes for those wanting to do it themselves. It’s not complicated. It’s just annoying to have to do it so often. Can’t social networks come up with a universal sizing chart and stick with it?</p>
<div class="finline-large"><a href="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Google+-Size-Chart.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Google+-Size-Chart.jpg?width=550" width="550" class="align-center"/></a></div>Your Social Media. It Needs More Cowbell.tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-03-25:5283893:BlogPost:3615532013-03-25T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><div class="finline-large"><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/your-social-media-it-needs-more-cowbell" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/More-Cowbell.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">“I gotta have more <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowbell_%28instrument%29" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title="Cowbell (instrument)">cowbell</a>!”</p>
<p>It has become one of the…</p>
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<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><div class="finline-large"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/your-social-media-it-needs-more-cowbell"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/More-Cowbell.jpg?width=750" width="750"/></a></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">“I gotta have more <a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="Cowbell (instrument)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowbell_%28instrument%29" target="_blank">cowbell</a>!”</p>
<p>It has become one of the most popular skits in <a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="Saturday Night Live - Full Episodes and Clips streaming online for free" href="http://www.hulu.com/saturday-night-live" target="_blank">Saturday Night Live</a> history. When Chistopher Walken played <em>The</em> Bruce Dickinson in a skit that had <a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="Will Ferrell" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Ferrell" target="_blank">Will Ferrell</a> playing <a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="More cowbell" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_cowbell" target="_blank">Gene Frenkle</a> from the band <em><a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="Blue Öyster Cult" href="http://www.blueoystercult.com/" target="_blank">Blue Oyster Cult</a></em>, the need for more cowbell was born. It was a good skit, but the absurdity of enhancing the song with the obnoxious sound of the cowbell really hit home and made it memorable.</p>
<p>In social media, that’s the whole point.</p>
<p>When you look at the various posting styles that businesses employ on <a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="Facebook" href="http://facebook.com/" target="_blank">Facebook</a>, <a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/" target="_blank">Twitter</a>, <a rel="nofollow" class="zem_slink" title="Google+" href="http://https//plus.google.com/" target="_blank">Google+</a>, and others, there’s something normally missing. Few are taking advantage of the use of the cowbell. No, it’s not about being obnoxious. It’s about being memorable. It’s about standing out from the rest of your competitors. It’s about having something unique that nobody else in the industry is peddling and that resonates with the audience.</p>
<p>It can be funny, but there are always risks with going after humor. What if your humor doesn’t match your audience?</p>
<p>Another tactic is to go after something more relevant to your business. If you sell a product or a service, try to position it in a way that’s different from everyone else. Today in the car business, for example, there are plenty of dealers that post pictures of their happy customers. While this is a valid strategy, it’s not inspiring and is definitely not going to help you stand out when half of the dealership pages nowadays are doing the same thing. Instead, find a different angle, something that nobody else is doing. You can have a particular spot where the pictures are taken that has an iconic background. You can take pictures of your customers as they’re driving away rather than simply standing in front of their vehicle. You can have them hold up a sign of some sort. There are plenty of options available that are only limited by your imagination.</p>
<p>“Guess what. I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.”</p>
<p>While you think about how to stand out, watch the skit itself. It probably won’t inspire you but it might make you laugh.<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/39387904" width="750" height="497" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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</div>For Dealers, Facebook should be about what's Happening in the Real Worldtag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-03-24:5283893:BlogPost:3617072013-03-24T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><div class="finline-large"><img alt="Real World Events" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36473" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Real-World-Events.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<div class="clr"></div>
<p class="single-first-p">One of the most important lessons you can learn in Facebook marketing for your business is that you can have a much greater impact on your performance online through Facebook by focusing on what’s happening in the real world. Facebook is virtual, but that doesn’t mean it has to focus on the virtual world. Make it real.</p>
<p>If your business is out…</p>
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<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36473" alt="Real World Events" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Real-World-Events.jpg" width="750"/></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">One of the most important lessons you can learn in Facebook marketing for your business is that you can have a much greater impact on your performance online through Facebook by focusing on what’s happening in the real world. Facebook is virtual, but that doesn’t mean it has to focus on the virtual world. Make it real.</p>
<p>If your business is out there doing things in the real world, you have plenty of potential Facebook content to post on your page (as well as you other social media pages and profiles). Do you participate in charities and local events? Do you sponsor a little league team? Do you have a monthly meeting at a local restaurant?</p>
<p>What about your employees? Do they go on trips or do amazing things like skydiving? Does your team have a bowling league? Does your service manager sing in a country western band on Saturdays?</p>
<p>There are plenty of things that we do in the world that aren’t necessarily associated with business. Finding the business posts is an easy task if you’re keeping your eyes, ears, imagination, and smartphone open. When you really get into it, humanizing the business by sharing things that are happening in and out of the store through your activities and employee activities is crucial. You’re business is made of people. On social media, people love other people. That’s what we really want to see on social. Take advantage of this by getting your content through your people.</p>
<p>This is where the people themselves can get involved. They don’t just have to be the content creators with their actions. They can be the content finders. They can brainstorm, make lists, and come up with things that they’re doing in the real world that make sense to get on social media. The content is out there. You just have to focus on people.</p>
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</div>5 Step Process for Promoting Content on Social Media Quicklytag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-03-23:5283893:BlogPost:3617042013-03-23T20:54:10.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><div class="finline-large"><img alt="The Flash" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36648" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/The-Flash.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
<p class="single-first-p">In an ideal world, marketing content through social media would be an extended process because we would all have the time to do it the right way. We could focus on positioning it, nurturing it, and timing everything out exactly like it should be timed. Unfortunately, this isn’t a perfect world and we have to maximize our results while minimizing the time and effort to achieve them.</p>
<p>There are plenty of shortcuts…</p>
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<div><div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36648" alt="The Flash" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/The-Flash.jpg" width="750"/></div>
<p class="single-first-p">In an ideal world, marketing content through social media would be an extended process because we would all have the time to do it the right way. We could focus on positioning it, nurturing it, and timing everything out exactly like it should be timed. Unfortunately, this isn’t a perfect world and we have to maximize our results while minimizing the time and effort to achieve them.</p>
<p>There are plenty of shortcuts that make promoting content on social media faster and easier and there are plenty of techniques used to make the promotions more effective. The real key is to find the right mix of the two to get the most out of it. Here is a process that can be used to get the most exposure for the content without spending too much time on it.</p>
<h2>1. Build content that can be shared</h2>
<p>It may sound like a no-brainer but you’d be shocked to see some of the content that companies are willing to share on social media. Sharing content that doesn’t work for the medium can do more damage than good. It can get you tagged as a spammer on <a class="zem_slink" title="Facebook" href="http://facebook.com/" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Facebook</a>, get you unfollowed on <a class="zem_slink" title="Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Twitter</a>, <a class="zem_slink" title="Pinterest" href="http://pinterest.com/" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Pinterest</a>, and <a class="zem_slink" title="Google+" href="http://https//plus.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Google+</a>, and make the various algorithms governing your exposure start to hate you website.</p>
<p>Content should rest on one of two places: the website or the blog. Those who have their blog on their primary domain are already ahead of the game, but if you have your blog on a separate domain or a subdomain of your primary website, you’re not in bad shape. If you have no way of posting regular content to your website and you don’t have a blog, this isn’t the article for you. Get one or both of those, first.</p>
<p>The content that you want to share on social media should be relevant and must be interesting. Nobody cares about the sale you’re having this weekend (unless it’s of general interest for one reason or another, but that’s a different blog post). Make sure that the content is designed to be shared easily and that people who see it will have the desire to share it with their friends. Otherwise, it’s not the right content to be sharing on social media.</p>
<h2>2. Share it on Facebook and Google+</h2>
<p>Because of the longer forms that these two platforms allow for your content descriptions, they need special care of their own. Unless your pages are low-maintenance (in other words, unless you don’t have time to pay attention to them), you should never use a feed to populate your content here. It doesn’t take much time to come up with a unique description and pick out the right thumbnails, something that can only be done if you’re posting manually.</p>
<p>The description that you put in the body of your Facebook and Google+ posts are like value propositions. Why should users be interested in clicking through to the post? You have room, but unless there’s something really important to say about the content, don’t go over a sentence or two. Make it unique and either answer or ask a question in the description.</p>
<p>For thumbnails, be sure that it’s not an ad or some other irrelevant image that’s being displayed. This is a post killer. If either Facebook or Google+ is having difficulty pulling in the right thumbnail, eliminate it altogether. You don’t want a spammy looking thumbnail accompanying your post.</p>
<h2>3. Share it on Pinterest, Twitter, and your other social sites</h2>
<p>If there’s anything visually appealing about the content, Pinterest is a good way to entice people and drive traffic. If there’s nothing visually appealing, add something or skip Pinterest. Articles do not play well on Pinterest if the image associated with it is boring. Your top thumbnail should have some value on Pinterest (look up and you’ll see <em>The Flash</em> representing this article even though it’s not about comic books).</p>
<p>While sharing on both Twitter and Pinterest, don’t just put the title and a link. You should take advantage of hashtags whenever possible and relevant. If you have room, make a quick statement or ask a quick question. For example, this post on Twitter will likely look something like this:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://clicktotweet.com/xFP0y" target="_blank">5 step process for promoting #content on #socialmedia quickly http://bit.ly/ZNLB6U Are you overautomating, wasting time, or both?</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Again, just as we don’t recommend using tools to post to <a class="zem_slink" title="RSS feeds" href="http://www.feedzilla.com/rss.asp" target="_blank" rel="homepage">RSS feeds</a> to Facebook or Google+ unless absolutely necessary, we also don’t recommend posting to Twitter directly from a Facebook feed. Doing it manually adds seconds to the process but the results are much better.</p>
<p>If you use sites like Scoop.it or <a class="zem_slink" title="Tumblr" href="http://tumblr.com/" target="_blank" rel="homepage">Tumblr</a>, this is also the same process. Twitter and Pinterest are the most important now, but keep your eyes open for others.</p>
<h2>4. Use your following or fake it 'til you make it</h2>
<p>Many have the ability to post something and watch as dozens, even hundreds of people share their wonderful content automatically. Most of us don’t have that luxury. The biggest mistake that many companies make is not taking advantage of their team.</p>
<p>You employees use social media. The customers you have a close relationship with use social media. You have friends and family. Ask for help, particularly with important content. There’s no shame in asking others to help share your content. If they are a part of your organization, they should be willing to help out. This isn’t universal. There are many employees who hold their social media efforts in high regard and do not want to mix business with pleasure and that’s fine. No need to force them. Just keep it in mind when it comes time for promotions.</p>
<h2>5. Plan for redistribution to revive evergreen content</h2>
<p>The process is five steps and it’s quick and easy, but that doesn’t mean that it ends the moment all of the steps are done. The concept of “rinse and repeat” applies here and you need to be organized to make it work properly.</p>
<p>If the content you’re posting is evergreen and able to be relevant a month or longer later, schedule time to reinvigorate the content. Post it to Facebook and Google+ a couple of months later. On Twitter, you can post it every couple of weeks as long as you change up the text slightly. Don’t overdo it, but the people that you reach with a social media post today will likely not be the same people you reach with the same basic post a month later. There’s nothing wrong with recycling as long as you’re doing it right.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Social media can be an excellent way to get engagement, to communicate with customers and clients, and to improve your overall exposure. There are many who are against using social media in this way because they haven’t seen the value. The truth is this – if they haven’t seen the value, they weren’t doing it right in the first place.</p>
</div>Wasn't Email Supposed to be Dead by Now?tag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-03-03:5283893:BlogPost:3579342013-03-03T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><div class="finline-large"><img alt="Email Smartphone" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36002" height="300" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Email-Smartphone.jpg" width="728"></img></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">At the World Economic Forum in 2004, Bill Gates made an interesting promise. “Two years from now, spam will be solved.”</p>
<p>The rise of social media has had others making other predictions for years. One such prediction has been in the form of bloggers and technology experts declaring that email will be dead by 2009, then 2010, then 2011… and on……</p>
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<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-36002" alt="Email Smartphone" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Email-Smartphone.jpg" height="300" width="728"/></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">At the World Economic Forum in 2004, Bill Gates made an interesting promise. “Two years from now, spam will be solved.”</p>
<p>The rise of social media has had others making other predictions for years. One such prediction has been in the form of bloggers and technology experts declaring that email will be dead by 2009, then 2010, then 2011… and on… and on.</p>
<p>Spam and email both persist. They have both improved as well. According to <a rel="nofollow" href="https://litmus.com/blog/email-preferred-more-clicks-conversions-roi" target="_blank">Litmus</a>, email was still the most popular online activity of 2012 despite Facebook taking up the bulk of our online time. Is your dealership using it? Are you improving on your practices, trying new technologies, new techniques? Did you fall into the trap of believing that email is the past and you have to put your focus elsewhere?</p>
<p>Take a look at this infographic and then make your decision about whether you should have email as part of your strategy or not.</p>
<div class="finline-large"><a rel="nofollow" href="http://i.imgur.com/CZE9Tbv.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/CZE9Tbv.png?width=540" class="align-center" width="540"/></a></div>
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<div class="finline-large"><p>* * *</p>
<p>"<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=email&search_group=#id=121661878&src=A0CFF8E6-822B-11E2-BDE1-A9399EA4A24C-1-42">Email Smartphone</a>" image courtesy of Shutterstock.</p>
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</div>Facebook's Corrected Insights May be a Red Herring for Improved Exposure for Pagestag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-03-02:5283893:BlogPost:3579332013-03-02T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><p><a href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/facebook-s-corrected-insights-may-be-a-red-herring-for-improved" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://www.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Facebook-Insights-Improved.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>When Facebook announced last week that Insights, their page-level analytics platform, had been <a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/facebook-s-corrected-insights-may-be-a-red-herring-for-improved" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reporting the…</a></p>
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<div class="postbody"><div class="xg_user_generated"><p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/facebook-s-corrected-insights-may-be-a-red-herring-for-improved" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Facebook-Insights-Improved.jpg?width=750" class="align-full" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>When Facebook announced last week that Insights, their page-level analytics platform, had been <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/facebook-s-corrected-insights-may-be-a-red-herring-for-improved" target="_blank">reporting the wrong numbers for several month</a>s, most took it as a growing pain of a company growing into its own. It was a minor negative, something that caused a handful of "Facebook advertising has a long way to go" blog posts but one that will be forgotten tomorrow (if it hasn't been forgotten already).</p>
<p>Put on your conspiracy theory hats, kids, as I tell you what may be really happening here.</p>
<p>Since Monday, the numbers have gone up as expected. In some cases, they've gone way up. Some of the pages that we manage are seeing 2X increases in post impressions, an unexpected rise considering that Facebook's reporting flaw was only affecting mobile app-based impressions not being shown while ad impressions were being counted twice. The increased numbers should have been noticeable but not that substantial. 2X is much more than anyone anticipated, particularly for pages that had been using advertising the whole time.</p>
<p>More importantly, engagement is way up. Without changing the strategy on any of the pages we manage, we've seen significant increases in likes and comments. This isn't a reporting issue. This means more people are seeing and interacting with the content through their news feed.</p>
<p>One might wonder why Facebook would hide this. It would be great news for businesses if their posts have received a boost of exposure. That's how it would appear on the surface, but once you dig deeper you can see that Facebook would not want this known and why they would want to camouflage the change with a supposed bug in their Insights.</p>
<p>First, it's like they took a page out of Google's playbook. Google has been known to make multiple changes to their search algorithm while announcing one. It's a way for them to test things without the SEOs of the world focusing on the changes and learning how to game them. For example, the Penguin update of 2012 was about the quality of inbound links, but at the same time they rolled out another algorithm update that increased the power of social signals. Had they announced that portion of the change, SEOs would have attacked. Had they rolled it out without the camouflage of the link-based Penguin update, SEOs still would have figured it out and attacked. By rolling them out simultaneously, they kept their foes guessing.</p>
<p>The same thing is possibly being done by Facebook. Had they announced that they made a change, social media marketers would have been out there trying to exploit it immediately. By announcing a bug in their insights, it should not even make it to the marketers' radar that a change might have taken place. If anything, they'll be focusing on seeing how significant the bug fix was and see if it will make their performance numbers look better to their clients.</p>
<p>More importantly, they would not want this type of change to get out to the public because it would counter the strides they've made in recent months towards getting more businesses to use Facebook ads. If organic exposure is increasing, ad spend would likely decrease. Today, there's a perception that Facebook is "pay to play" and while this is bad from a PR perspective, it's good for the bottom line. The last thing they need is more companies going back to organic-only freebie promotions.</p>
<p>There are no facts to support this conspiracy theory, only numbers that we've seen from the dozens of Facebook pages that we manage. Engagement is up tremendously. That cannot happen as a result of an analytics bug fix.</p>
<p>Okay, you can take you're tinfoil hat off now. I'm done.</p>
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</div>Don't upload photos to Pinteresttag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-03-01:5283893:BlogPost:3558322013-03-01T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Pinterest Cars" class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-35874" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Pinterest-Cars.jpg" width="750"></img></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">They say you learn something new every day. I learned something about Pinterest the other day that blew my mind a little. Users like links. This might seem like a no-brainer to some, but it goes against what I’ve learned in my years on the various social networks. On most networks, there are images and there are links. Images normally perform the best across the board. Links, on the other hand, do not.…</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img class="first-img aligncenter size-full wp-image-35874" alt="Pinterest Cars" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Pinterest-Cars.jpg" width="750"/></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">They say you learn something new every day. I learned something about Pinterest the other day that blew my mind a little. Users like links. This might seem like a no-brainer to some, but it goes against what I’ve learned in my years on the various social networks. On most networks, there are images and there are links. Images normally perform the best across the board. Links, on the other hand, do not. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all prefer images over links. It isn’t just the algorithms on Facebook and Google+, it’s also the overall community sentiment on all three, including Twitter.</p>
<p>Pinterest is different. People like links. They click through when they find something that interests them. It’s as if Pinterest itself is a large-scale thumbnail checker to give users a way to find links through which to click. I hadn’t been applying that to my own Pinterest. I’ve been uploading images directly the way that I do with other social networks. As a result, my profile’s performance wasn’t as good as it could have been.</p>
<p>If you have an image that you want to post to Pinterest, don’t upload it directly. If you have a blog or other website that you can post to that falls into the appropriate niche, that’s the place your images should go. From there, you can pin them onto your page and “double dip” between exposure and traffic to your websites. If you’re posting images that simply don’t have an appropriate venue through which you can post it, use Google+. Post it to G+, click through to the post, then pin it from there. It’s not as good as sending traffic to your website, but it’s better than nothing and people will be more likely to like or repin your post as a result.</p>
<p>Of all the networks, Pinterest has the highest potential in many industries for direct traffic generation. The idea that it’s all purses, hairstyles, and other things of interest to women is not true. This is a diverse world. The sexes have evolved. Some of the most popular pins I’ve seen have been classic muscle cars. Just because the majority of users on Pinterest are females doesn’t mean that you can’t have success with content that isn’t traditionally considered female-centric. Follow <a href="http://pinterest.com/socialnews/" target="_blank">JD</a> if you want to see these practices in action. You might as well follow <a href="http://pinterest.com/louiebaur/" target="_blank">my pins</a> as well.</p>3 things businesses need to know about their Twitter strategytag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-28:5283893:BlogPost:3559132013-02-28T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><div class="finline-large"><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/3-things-businesses-need-to-know-about-their-twitter-strategy" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Justin-Bieber.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">Twitter is still the most used social network by businesses. This surprises some, but the latest statistics showed that 77% of businesses were on Twitter versus 74% on Facebook. It’s not a big difference, but it’s still at least a little surprising to…</p>
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<div><div class="finline-large"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/3-things-businesses-need-to-know-about-their-twitter-strategy"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Justin-Bieber.jpg?width=750" width="750"/></a></div>
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<p class="single-first-p">Twitter is still the most used social network by businesses. This surprises some, but the latest statistics showed that 77% of businesses were on Twitter versus 74% on Facebook. It’s not a big difference, but it’s still at least a little surprising to many who view Facebook as the big social network and Twitter as the other guy in the field.</p>
<p>Twitter is easier. It requires less time. It’s more about communication than popularity and there are no algorithms that can make your efforts meaningless like they can on Twitter. I’m not suggesting that businesses should be on Twitter and not Facebook. On the contrary, if someone said they would only put their business on one, I would recommend Facebook for most. However, there are some major advantages to Twitter and businesses need to know about them to succeed.</p>
<h2>You're not Justin Bieber</h2>
<p>Just because the teen star is popular on Twitter doesn’t mean that you should emulate him with your business. He can post as often as he wants or as little as he wants. You can’t. You have to stay consistent.</p>
<p>He can leave Twitter alone for days at a time and come back to be even more popular than he was when he left. You can’t. You have to check it and contribute every day.</p>
<p>He gets so many direct messages and @replies that he couldn’t possibly reply to everyone. You don’t, so reply to everyone.</p>
<p>Most importantly, he can post whatever he wants without ramifications. You can’t. You must be thoughtful, courteous, professional, useful, entertaining (sometimes), empathetic, and relevant. It sounds like a lot to fit into 140 characters but it can and <strong>should</strong> be done if you want to be successful on Twitter.</p>
<h2>Stop feeding the feed</h2>
<p>Twitter is a communication tool and we’ll cover that shortly. The exact opposite of being a communication tool is using it as a broadcasting tool. This is a bad thing. If you have various feeds plugging away at your account to keep it updated on a regular basis, stop. It’s not so bad to have a feed or two posting from exceptionally trusted sources on an infrequent basis to save a little time, but that should only account for 20% or less. This means if you’re Tweeting 10 times a day, you can afford to have one or two of those as automated RSS-fed Tweets.</p>
<p>For many, Twitter is nothing more than a glimpse into your feed. It’s a way for prospective customers to check you out and see if you’re active and communicating or if you’re one of those businesses that is simply posting stuff for the sake of having stuff posted. They can tell the difference and while many people may expect businesses to act this way, it’s an opportunity to show that you’re truly communicating to your followers through your Twitter account. You’re replying to them. You’re commenting on the posts of those you follow. You’re retweeting those you follow. You’re offering “hand written” advice or comments rather than feeding the feed with links.</p>
<p>Last but not least, there are two feeds that I never recommend using: your Facebook page and your blog. Your Facebook page has the ability to post to Twitter every time it gets a new status update. This is not a best practice. Assuming you’re not feeding anything to Facebook (you better not be!) and posting only content that you’ve vetted, there’s no reason why you can’t manually post it to your Twitter feed as well. Remember, the content that comes to your Twitter feed from Facebook links back to Facebook, not the original piece of content. This is an extra step. Those who think that they are going to get more Facebook fans by feeding their posts to Twitter don’t have an understanding about how social media really works. It doesn’t happen that way. As far as your blog, this should be the most important Tweets that you post. To do this, you want to manually craft them. Surely you’re not posting so much to your blog that you can’t spend the 20 seconds it takes to then post it manually to Twitter with appropriate hashtags and an engaging comment or question added to the post.</p>
<h2>POSTING WITH ALL CAPS IS BAD</h2>
<p>This may just be a pet peeve but I can’t imagine that Twitter users in general view this as a good thing. If you’re posting in all caps, please stop.</p>
</div>Social Media isn’t for Every Dealer but it May be for Youtag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-27:5283893:BlogPost:3558312013-02-27T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><p><a href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/social-media-isn-t-for-every-dealer-but-it-may-be-for-you" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://www.kpaonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Vintage-Studebaker-Ad.jpg?width=680" width="680"></img></a></p>
<p>Here’s a stark truth that may make some of our competitors, employees at Facebook, and even some of my own employees a little upset: car dealers don’t <strong><em>need</em></strong> social media marketing to be successful. Search, proper website maintenance, display ads, reputation management, and mobile marketing may all have a claim of…</p>
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<div><p><a href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/social-media-isn-t-for-every-dealer-but-it-may-be-for-you" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.kpaonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Vintage-Studebaker-Ad.jpg?width=680" width="680" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p>Here’s a stark truth that may make some of our competitors, employees at Facebook, and even some of my own employees a little upset: car dealers don’t <strong><em>need</em></strong> social media marketing to be successful. Search, proper website maintenance, display ads, reputation management, and mobile marketing may all have a claim of being more important that social media when it comes to driving leads and foot traffic to a dealership.</p>
<p><span id="more-3949"></span>There, I said it. Now let’s talk about what social media really means to car dealers.</p>
<p>Those who have most of their ducks in a row and are hitting on all 8 cylinders with their other marketing efforts can dramatically improve their exposure, lead potential, foot traffic, and customer communication by implementing a proper social media strategy into their dealership’s online marketing portfolio. It’s not a shortcut. It isn’t easy. It also isn’t as hard as many make it out to be and it can be extremely rewarding from an ROI perspective when done right.</p>
<p>Take a look at your Facebook page, your Twitter profile, and the other parts of your social media presence. Can you say that they’re making an impact on your branding? Are you reaching people with your message? Are people able to reach you through social media if they have compliments, complaints, questions, or concerns? Once you know these answers, you can determine whether or not social media is really right for you.</p>
<p>Here’s the reality: a mediocre social media presence is only slightly better than having no presence at all. Having no presence at all is actually better than having a bad social media presence. Without a willingness to put in the effort, time, and money into social media, the chances of success are small. It’s one of those things where you’re either “all in” or you’re out.</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with maintaining a basic presence for those who are only finding your social media profiles through search or through your website. This type of “PR-only” presence can work if you lack either the desire or the resources to make your social media strategy a strong one. It checks off the box so to speak. The problem with the industry today and the reason that I’m writing this is that since I’ve been 100% focused on automotive social media for the last 8 months (prior to that I’ve worked on general social media promotions in and out of the automotive industry since 2007), one thing that I’ve discovered is that most dealers fall somewhere in between having a check-box presence and having a robust social media strategy. This is social media “no man’s land” where the effort is more than what should be put in for a basic PR-only presence but isn’t enough to have a truly robust presence that is driving leads and foot traffic to the dealership.</p>
<p>Long story short – pick a side. Either go in or tone it down. Resting somewhere in the middle with one foot through the door and the other dangling out the other end will not make you successful but is too much effort for a basic presence. A little green man once said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” It applies in automotive social media nicely.</p>
</div>Posting only links on Twitter means posting nothing at alltag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-26:5283893:BlogPost:3558302013-02-26T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><div class="finline-large"><a href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/posting-only-links-on-twitter-means-posting-nothing-at-all" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Alyssa-Milano.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a></div>
<div class="clr"><span>Anyone who has been on Twitter as long as I have (6 years I believe) knows that the site has gone through major transformations in the past. Lately, Vine might be the only major change in a while but there was a time when it seemed like proper Twitter etiquette changed week by week. When I first…</span></div>
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<div><div class="finline-large"><a href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/posting-only-links-on-twitter-means-posting-nothing-at-all" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Alyssa-Milano.jpg?width=750" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></div>
<div class="clr"><span>Anyone who has been on Twitter as long as I have (6 years I believe) knows that the site has gone through major transformations in the past. Lately, Vine might be the only major change in a while but there was a time when it seemed like proper Twitter etiquette changed week by week. When I first started, links were magical and very few people posted them. Today, many accounts post nothing but links. This is a big mistake.</span></div>
<div class="clr"><span> </span></div>
<p>If you post only links, you’re really not posting anything at all. Why? Because people aren’t really following you if that’s the case. Run some tests. Use bitly or goo.gl or other click tracking link shorteners and you’ll see what I mean. If you aren’t getting clicks it’s because people have tuned you out. If they’ve tuned you out, it’s probably because you’re posting too many links.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/Alyssa_Milano" target="_blank">Alyssa Milano</a> is a celebrity that has been on Twitter for a very long time. She has always remained active throughout. She isn’t anywhere near the size of a Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga in sheer numbers but for someone who hasn’t been in the public spotlight for a while other than a couple of short-lived TV series and a bit role in <em>New Year’s Eve</em>, the actress and full-time mom is able to drive tremendous traffic to the links she shares. It’s because she mixes it up. She’s <strong>real</strong> on social media. This is a trait that is growing harder and harder to find.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The best way to use Twitter to drive traffic is to use Twitter for things other than driving traffic. You’ll get more people to pay attention to you by having conversations, posting thoughts and real statuses, and posting interesting pictures and videos. Work in links at a much lower frequency and you’ll actually be able to drive more traffic to them than if you set your Twitter account up with RSS feeds and Facebook posts.</p>
</div>The Social Media Lead Generation Horse Racetag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-25:5283893:BlogPost:3543252013-02-25T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><div class="clearfix" id="blog-post-content"><div class="finline-large"><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/the-social-media-lead-generation-horse-race" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Horse-Race.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a></div>
<div class="clr"></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Those in social media marketing as a profession realize that there are certain unknowns when it comes to the new web. We know that people are on social media. We know that they don’t want direct marketing. We also know…</p>
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<div><div id="blog-post-content" class="clearfix"><div class="finline-large"><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/the-social-media-lead-generation-horse-race" target="_blank"><img src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Horse-Race.jpg?width=750" width="750" class="align-full"/></a></div>
<div class="clr"></div>
<p class="single-first-p">Those in social media marketing as a profession realize that there are certain unknowns when it comes to the new web. We know that people are on social media. We know that they don’t want direct marketing. We also know they’d rather get direct marketing than pay for the services, so there’s at least a little room for something.</p>
<p>The question is, “what is that something?”</p>
<p>Whether from B2C or B2B, social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn give marketers the ability to try to reach the target audience and generate leads. The vast majority are trying. Most are failing, or at least not meeting their expectations if they’re not failing altogether.</p>
<p>This infographic breaks down how 2012 compared to 2011 from a lead-generation perspective.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.brafton.com/infographics/social-media-horse-race?utm_source=infographic&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=large&utm_campaign=social-media-horse-race" target="_blank">Click to enlarge</a>.</p>
<div class="finline-large"><img alt="Brafton's Infographic: Social Media Horse Race" src="http://cdn.brafton.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Brafton_HorseRace_4_72-012-750x4845.png" width="750"/></div>
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</div>Stop Posting Happy Customer Pictures on Facebooktag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-24:5283893:BlogPost:3544152013-02-24T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><div class="clearfix" id="blog-post-content"><p><a href="http://www.kpaonline.com/blog/2013/02/stop-posting-happy-customer-pictures-on-facebook/" rel="attachment wp-att-3881"><img alt="Boring pictures are boring" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3881" src="http://www.kpaonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Boring-pictures-are-boring.jpg" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>Too often, dealers and other businesses are given intangible ideas that they’re supposed to use to try to master Facebook. They’re told to “be engaging” or “be a part of the community” on Facebook, but what does any of that really mean?</p>
<p>From both an esoteric as well as a straightforward…</p>
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<div><div id="blog-post-content" class="clearfix"><p><a href="http://www.kpaonline.com/blog/2013/02/stop-posting-happy-customer-pictures-on-facebook/" rel="attachment wp-att-3881"><img alt="Boring pictures are boring" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3881" src="http://www.kpaonline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Boring-pictures-are-boring.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>Too often, dealers and other businesses are given intangible ideas that they’re supposed to use to try to master Facebook. They’re told to “be engaging” or “be a part of the community” on Facebook, but what does any of that really mean?</p>
<p>From both an esoteric as well as a straightforward perspective, the idea of making your posts “resonate” may sound like another one of those intangible concepts that don’t really say much, but once you understand the way that EdgeRank and Facebook advertising work, you’ll see that getting true interaction and spreading the brand on Facebook is actually a very concrete and sustainable strategy. It’s all about understanding why certain messages work and others do not.</p>
<p>To truly resonate, a dealer must “touch” the audience in some way with every post. As we’ve discovered through research and testing, a <a href="http://soshable.com/never-waste-a-facebook-post-ever/" target="_blank" title="Never Waste a Facebook Post">wasted post can do more harm than not posting at all on Facebook</a>. You have to bring value to the table because Facebook has been taking spam protection and news feed quality very seriously since October of last year. It doesn’t take many spam reports or post ignores to tank your EdgeRank and make your posts invisible for all intents and purposes.</p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Why Happy Customer Pictures Are Bad</h2>
<p>There are many dealers that are making one huge mistake with their Facebook page. They’re posting images of happy customers who just bought a car. There are definitely ways to make this work and any general rule will have exceptions, but the vast majority of those posting these images are doing more harm than good with them.</p>
<p>Boring pictures do damage to your EdgeRank. It’s that simple. If you’re posting a lot of images of smiling customers who just bought a new Ford Focus, there’s a pretty good chance that anyone who sees the image is going to pass it up in their news feed. What many dealers (and even vendors) do not realize is that every time someone is presented with a post on Facebook and they pass it up, the chances of them seeing the next post are reduced. The chance of other people seeing your posts are reduced.</p>
<p>Your posts should not be the type that people can simply pass up. If they don’t know the people standing in front of the car, there is very little chance that they’re going to engage with the post in any way. By posting these, you’re basically saying, “any of our fans who know these people, this post is for you and everyone else can ignore it.”</p>
<p><strong>If they ignore your post, you hurt your chances of future posts being seen in the news feed</strong>. This cannot be stressed enough. You cannot waste posts. If you want to post pictures of happy customers, you have to get more creative. It’s hard because you’ll have to get your customers <strong>and</strong> your sales team to do things that are likely outside of their comfort zone.</p>
<p>In October we posted <a href="http://www.dealerbar.com/profiles/blog/show?id=879728%3ABlogPost%3A66937" target="_blank" title="5 Facebook Customer Photo Types That Aren't Totally Boring">a story about customer photo types</a> that aren’t totally boring. It was a good list, but the changes that were happening at Facebook at the time have made even these pictures too boring. They’re better, but probably not good enough for today’s EdgeRank. Here’s an example.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.dealerbar.com/profiles/blog/show?id=879728%3ABlogPost%3A66937"><img width="750" alt="" class="aligncenter" src="http://api.ning.com/files/0kRRrD1tXHQAoLjY2SyIpF01uybtocGMQxdJUD9L7tQ8l9T74INnOrqjPyWfRDrxv2nQdKpCGgHEu*m-s*jF1A__/Highlight.jpg?width=750" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>Better. Not good enough. You cannot risk people passing up too many of your posts if they simply don’t resonate. I said that it cannot be stressed enough so I’m going to say it again: when people pass up your posts without engaging in some way, Facebook registers this and it hurts your chances of appearing down the line in their feed.</p>
<p>If you absolutely have to post happy customer pictures, make them extremely creative. Make them of general interest. Before posting, ask yourself if <strong>you</strong> would like the image if you saw it on your news feed. In general, these types of posts should be avoided.</p>
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</div>Be Careful what You Advertise on Facebook Sponsored Storiestag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-23:5283893:BlogPost:3542612013-02-23T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://www.hirethewinners.net/profiles/blogs/be-careful-what-you-advertise-on-facebook-sponsored-stories" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Advertise-2.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a> <strong>More businesses are taking advantage of the inexpensive advertising options that Facebook has available.</strong> They are far from perfect but they have value simply because they get the brand out there without a lot of cost. The affects on reach are so dramatic and the dollars spent are so miniscule that many…</span></p>
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<div><p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://www.hirethewinners.net/profiles/blogs/be-careful-what-you-advertise-on-facebook-sponsored-stories" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Advertise-2.jpg?width=750" width="750"/></a><strong>More businesses are taking advantage of the inexpensive advertising options that Facebook has available.</strong> They are far from perfect but they have value simply because they get the brand out there without a lot of cost. The affects on reach are so dramatic and the dollars spent are so miniscule that many are promoting on a daily basis as Facebook wants it to be. It takes seconds to get a story rolling on Promoted Stories. There are, however, things to watch.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Unlike Google or other forms of advertising, Promoted Posts still follow the same rules and best practices associated with normal posts.</strong> In other words, spam won't fly. In fact, it can do more damage to your Facebook page when promoted than when it's simply posted.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Facebook takes into account many factors when deciding when your posts appear in news feeds and which users will see them.</strong> When you promote a post, it appears higher in the news feed for your fans and possibly in the feeds of friends of your fans, depending on which options you select. This is a good thing but it can have a negative effect if you aren't posting quality content. If it's of low value, people who are not used to seeing you in their feed may unlike your page, remove your from their feed, or report the content as spam (even if it isn't spam). These actions have negative effects on both your promoted posts and your standard posts. In other words, by exposing content that people generally won't like, you do more damage than good.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>This is a common issue for businesses. They see the benefits once they start using Sponsored Posts, but after a little while the same money isn't going as far as it used to.</strong> The costs of advertising go up while the potential reach goes down. They also start to notice that their unsponsored posts get fewer views because of the spam reports, unlikes, and removals from the news feeds.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The only way to avoid this is to make sure that the content that gets sponsored is of the same <strong>or higher</strong> value to people as your normal posts. This doesn't mean that you should use Facebook advertising dollars on frivolous posts but it does mean that you must be mindful of the value you're bringing to the audience. It's a bigger stage when the posts are sponsored so be sure to put your best foot forward.</span></p>
</div>A Case for Posting a Dozen Tweets a Day as a Businesstag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-22:5283893:BlogPost:3543242013-02-22T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><p><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/a-case-for-posting-a-dozen-tweets-a-day-as-a-business" rel="attachment wp-att-7895"><img alt="A Dozen Eggs" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7895" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/A-Dozen-Eggs.jpg" title="A Dozen Eggs" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>“We have a rule at our dealership – no more than 3 social media posts a day. Yes, Twitter is included.”</p>
<p><span id="more-7894"></span>It’s not a secret. Those who <a href="https://twitter.com/louiebaur" rel="external nofollow" target="_blank">follow me on Twitter</a> know that I post 40-50 times a day. I’m a guy…</p>
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<div><p><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/a-case-for-posting-a-dozen-tweets-a-day-as-a-business" rel="attachment wp-att-7895"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-7895" title="A Dozen Eggs" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/A-Dozen-Eggs.jpg" alt="A Dozen Eggs" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>“We have a rule at our dealership – no more than 3 social media posts a day. Yes, Twitter is included.”</p>
<p><span id="more-7894"></span>It’s not a secret. Those who <a href="https://twitter.com/louiebaur" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow">follow me on Twitter</a> know that I post 40-50 times a day. I’m a guy who has been sucked into social media and it works for me. It definitely wouldn’t work for a business. With that said, the infrequent way that the car dealers I monitor handle their Twitter is simply not enough. You need to Tweet more.</p>
<p>The notion that people will unfollow you if you post too much is still a reality… on Facebook. Twitter is different. Because of the way that the feed works in a chronological order rather than based on an algorithm the way Facebook and Google+ do it, each individual Tweet only reaches a tiny fraction of your audience at any given time. Some say that, depending on the quality of your following, the best that you can expect is still less than 1% per Tweet. That means that if you have 1000 followers, less than 10 people actually see your Tweet.</p>
<p>To Tweet infrequently means that you’re not reaching the audience. To Tweet too much means risking getting unfollowed. The middle ground: a dozen. If you post around a dozen Tweets a day, you’ll find that you can be successful and garner more engagement without making people leave you in droves.</p>
<p>The other challenge when looking at this number is the time necessary to make it happen. A dozen sounds like a lot. Done right, it should only take about 10-20 minutes a day. Here are some tips:</p>
<ul>
<li>Post 3-5 links. They can be to your blog, to a video you released, to industry news, to reviews of your products – the possibilities are limitless.</li>
<li>Post 1-3 proactive engagement @replies. Send a Tweet towards other local businesses, local influencers, and others in the industry.</li>
<li>Post pics – no limit here. If you’re a car dealer, you have plenty of things on your lot that can be sent as pictures. The new filter tools on Twitter mobile are excellent. Take advantage of them. Post pictures of cars!</li>
<li>Respond accordingly. If you’re only getting a couple of interactions and retweets a day, respond to all of them. If you start getting more interactions, respond to the “manual” ones. Anyone who talks to you directly (in other words, not a retweet) should get a reply from you.</li>
<li>Use your other social networks. Some people tie Facebook directly into their Twitter feed. I’m against this for several reasons that I won’t get into now, but you should definitely tie in Pinterest, Tumblr, and other social networks.</li>
</ul>
<p>The most important thing to remember is to space out the frequency. You’ll run more risk of people unfollowing you by posting three or more Tweets one right after another (other than responses to others) than by posting a dozen a day spread out. Use tools like Buffer or Hootsuite to keep space between your posts.</p>
<p>Twitter is a great tool that so few are really using properly. Differentiate yourself from your competitors by having a vibrant Twitter feed.</p>
</div>Triberr Increases Exposure with the Power of the Like-Mindedtag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-21:5283893:BlogPost:3542602013-02-21T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><p><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/triberr-increases-exposure-with-the-power-of-the-like-minded" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Triberr-New-Media-Expo-Louie-Baur-Dino-Dogan.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a> <br></br><br></br>While learning incredible things and meeting equally incredible people at the New Media Expo in Vegas, I ran into Triberr founder Dino Dogan. I was using Triberr a while back but stopped because it became too hard. The site used to be automated – set it and forget it. They turned it into more of a curation site and I fell…</p>
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<div><p><a target="_blank" href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/triberr-increases-exposure-with-the-power-of-the-like-minded"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Triberr-New-Media-Expo-Louie-Baur-Dino-Dogan.jpg?width=750" width="750"/></a><br/><br/>While learning incredible things and meeting equally incredible people at the New Media Expo in Vegas, I ran into Triberr founder Dino Dogan. I was using Triberr a while back but stopped because it became too hard. The site used to be automated – set it and forget it. They turned it into more of a curation site and I fell of the radar as a result. Recently, I’ve rejuvenated my activity and found that if anything the curation component actually makes it better, which is why it was perfect timing to meet Dogan.<br/><br/>For those who are not familiar, Triberr is designed to group like-minded people into “Tribes”. These tribes fall into many different categories such as marketing, technology, and automotive. It is a “blog amplification platform”, which means that users within the tribes share some of each others’ posts on social media. Once you’re in a tribe, you’re given a stream of content that you can select to share on Twitter, Facebook, and/or LinkedIn. Your own content from your blog is fed into this stream so that other members can share your content as well.<br/><br/>The engine driving the site is elegant. You select how often you want content shared to your profiles – once every two hours, for example – then you go through and select the content you want added to the queue. It can hold up to 100 items in your queue, making it easy to go through and select the content in one sitting that will populate your social media profiles over time.<br/><br/>It’s very much a back-scratching environment – the more you share of others, the more they will share of yours. Unlike other platforms, however, the user has the ability to “mute” other users. This is extremely important for those who do not want to be bombarded by spam or articles that are off-topic. If you only want the best people’s content to show on your stream, so be it. By not sharing spam, you probably won’t get your content shared by them, either, but that’s perfectly fine by me. For my feed, I focus on high-quality bloggers. They are the ones that are also sharing the content I post, which makes it much more useful anyway. The traffic from the initial tests have shown to be much higher than I would have expected or even remember from when I was first using it and the social signals for search rankings are top-notch.<br/><br/>Check out Triberr. If your blog falls into one of the niches and your social profiles are good for sharing content in your area of expertise, it’s probably a perfect fit.</p>
</div>Why Social Signals are only Going to get Bigger in Search Rankingstag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-20:5283893:BlogPost:3541712013-02-20T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><p><span class="font-size-3"><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/why-social-signals-are-only-going-to-get-bigger-in-search" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Like-Chalk.jpg?width=750" width="750"></img></a> <strong>The last time I was involved with search engine optimization, Alta Vista was a player.</strong> I was working on my own sites and making a killing by taking advantage of the new world of search engines. Yahoo was making its move to the top. Google wasn’t even a word at the…</span></p>
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<div><p><span class="font-size-3"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/why-social-signals-are-only-going-to-get-bigger-in-search"><img class="align-full" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Like-Chalk.jpg?width=750" width="750"/></a><strong>The last time I was involved with search engine optimization, Alta Vista was a player.</strong> I was working on my own sites and making a killing by taking advantage of the new world of search engines. Yahoo was making its move to the top. Google wasn’t even a word at the time.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Flash forward to 2007 and social media became my thing.</strong> I was able to drive great traffic with the social news sites and started really getting involved the marketing components in 2008. That’s when JD Rucker and I hooked up and started working the various social angles for clients, but he would always handle the search engine components. At the time, I never thought I would get back into SEO, but things have changed since before the Penguin update. We knew it was coming – listening to Google’s Matt Cutts and Bing’s Duane Forrester at the first SXSW I’d ever attended made us realize that the things I was doing in social would soon apply to search.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Fast forward to today. Social signals are a big thing.</strong> Many websites are able to make exceptional moves up in the search rankings through social signals alone. Now, rumors are spreading about a social-focused update called Zebra. Chances are good that it’s just a rumor, but the data that we’ve seen shows spikes in social signal influence over search <strong>when the signals are real</strong>. Those who are buying fake +1s, getting retweets from spam accounts, or inflating their Facebook likes are not seeing the same results that we are.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>Social signals are the easiest way for the search engines to get human interaction with pages that they can monitor and utilize in rankings.</strong> There is no reason to believe that the usefulness will slow down. What <strong>will</strong> happen is that they will figure out more ways to sniff out the spammers. They’re already doing it with reviews; those who create accounts and write reviews with no past or future activity end up getting removed.</span></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3">The point is that the rumors that social signals are losing value in search are being spread by those who are not putting out strong content that is able to get real social shares. Social signals simply make sense. They’ll be effective for the foreseeable future.</span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3">* * *</span></p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3">“<a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&searchterm=social+signals&search_group=#id=98943659&src=b057ab7296dae3bfddcf32766cc36e5a-1-28" target="_blank">Like</a>” image courtesy of Shutterstock.</span></p>
</div>The Best Blog Post Titles are Shorttag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-18:5283893:BlogPost:3541702013-02-18T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><p><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/the-best-blog-post-titles-are-short" rel="attachment wp-att-8220"><img alt="Martin Short" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8220" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Martin-Short.jpg" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>No, no. Not Martin Short. Short, as in not very long.</p>
<p><img alt="" class="mceWPmore" src="http://soshable.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif" title="More..."></img> Bloggers have been told for a long time that the longer and more detailed the title, the more likely it will be that people will click on them. We have seen quirky titles popping up for a long time and they definitely have an extra clickability factor to them that…</p>
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<div><p><a href="http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/the-best-blog-post-titles-are-short" rel="attachment wp-att-8220"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8220" alt="Martin Short" src="http://soshable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Martin-Short.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>No, no. Not Martin Short. Short, as in not very long.</p>
<p><img class="mceWPmore" title="More..." alt="" src="http://soshable.com/wp-includes/js/tinymce/plugins/wordpress/img/trans.gif"/>Bloggers have been told for a long time that the longer and more detailed the title, the more likely it will be that people will click on them. We have seen quirky titles popping up for a long time and they definitely have an extra clickability factor to them that shorter blog post titles do not. However, the singular benefit does not compensate for the negatives associated with longer titles.</p>
<p>First, the shorter the title, them more search engine optimization clout it has. Google and Bing look to title tags as one of the most important onsite factors when determining rankings. It's a mathematical scale - the longer the title, the less "juice" each individual word and character has when it comes to SEO.</p>
<p>Second, shorter titles are more likely to be shared on social media. Call it psychology, call it "too long to retweet" fear, call it whatever you want, the stats show that blog posts with longer titles get shared less often than shorter ones.</p>
<p>Finally, and this is arguably the most important thing to remember, shorter titles that get to the point are better for getting the focused reader. It's true, longer titles are more likely to get clicked, but your real blog visitors are more interested in getting to the point and staying focused on their goals rather than getting to see how clever the blogger was in their posts. That's not to say that you shouldn't be creative with your titles or that longer titles are against some arbitrary rule. It's just that all too often bloggers will extend their titles because some blogging expert told them to get wacky. If you don't need to get wacky, don't do it.</p>
<p>You're reading this post right now so something about the title compelled you to read further. That's a good sign. If you can recognize the importance of having titles that get to the point, then you can appreciate the abilities that shorter titles have for SEO, sharing, and focused interaction.</p>
</div>Dealers Should Not Follow Everyone Who Follows them on Twittertag:www.dealerelite.net,2013-02-17:5283893:BlogPost:3541692013-02-17T21:00:00.000ZLouie Baurhttps://www.dealerelite.net/profile/LouieBaur
<div><p><a href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/dealers-should-not-follow-everyone-who-follows-them-on-twitter"><img alt="TK Twitter Following" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-34661" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TK-Twitter-Following.jpg" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>One of the biggest old-school truths that is obsolete today is the idea that you should follow everyone on Twitter that follows you. It was once considered “social media polite” to follow just about everyone who took the time to follow your own updates. This never included spammers or bots, of course, but when real people and companies followed yours,…</p>
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<div><p><a href="http://www.dealerelite.net/profiles/blogs/dealers-should-not-follow-everyone-who-follows-them-on-twitter"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-34661" alt="TK Twitter Following" src="http://cdn.techi.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TK-Twitter-Following.jpg" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>One of the biggest old-school truths that is obsolete today is the idea that you should follow everyone on Twitter that follows you. It was once considered “social media polite” to follow just about everyone who took the time to follow your own updates. This never included spammers or bots, of course, but when real people and companies followed yours, many gurus recommended giving them a follow back.</p>
<p>The interactions and ways that Twitter has evolved over the years has brought it to the point that most businesses have corrected this old notion. As a social media society, we are more willing to not expect a reciprocal follow. In fact, many people and businesses follow very few of the people that follow them and focus on following people and companies that bring value to their Twitter feed. This is the way it is today.</p>
<p>As a business, you should be following localized “players”, people within your industry, employees, vendors, partners, and most importantly the customers that you know bring value to the table. It’s okay to not follow every customer; most people won’t be offended. You want people who are following you because they want to hear what you have to say. Conversely, you want to follow the people that have something to say that you want to hear. It’s that simple.</p>
<p>Use tools like <a href="http://manageflitter.com/" target="_blank">Manage Flitter</a> and others to get your following down to a reasonable level. A follow should serve one of two purposes: filling your feed with great content and showing support for the right people. It’s for this reason that it’s okay to follow vendors and partners who may or may not have something of value to add to your Twitter stream, but keep these at a minimum. Don’t follow people who have been inactive for a while. Don’t follow people who post way too much. Make your list of accounts that you follow work for you and you’ll have a much better Twitter experience.</p>
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