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.

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…

Every business, no matter what Industry you are in, is looking to expand your reach online. Whether it is through advertising to displaying your products on a website, you are looking to get your name and goods out there. Social Media Marketing is one way of doing it, but it must be done…

By Jeff Perez 

This article was originally written by Carrie Thompson for L&L Automotive:

Car technology has advanced rapidly over the past 100 years, from a ‘horseless carriage’ to today’s electric…

Bad management runs rampant in organizations. For my discussion I will focus on Automotive Sales and Finance Management. I say this because this is epidemic in many Industries and I don’t want to appear to be singling out Automotive Dealerships.

All emotions stem from insecurity and must be controlled because it has no place in a work Setting.…

A new store recently opened at 298 Mulberry Street in downtown Manhattan.

And if you walk in the door, you'll see something truly amazing.

Something that's about to put 100 million Chinese factory workers out on the street...

... And launch a 21st-century industrial revolution right here in the U.S.A.

The Air Force already bought…

There is a startling way for most dealers to double their business – fire their advertising agencies. Dealerships spend an enormous amount of money on advertising for new customers. Unfortunately, often that money is wasted. The money is wasted because the agencies are strictly placing ad dollars in media and doing production. Often, the ad dollars are spent without any knowledge and use of direct response marketing, and the game plan that will be used towards keeping those…

The San Antonio Spurs played not to win and wound up losing. The Spurs gave the power and control of the game to the Miami Heat and Miami took the power and control of their destiny and won. The Spurs will forever regret the position they took. Business lessons learned: Play to win instead of not to lose. Never give away your power or control of your destiny to the competition. 

I was consulting with a potential client yesterday and started looking at their Facebook and Twitter pages. Once a day, every day, they would post a question that had very little to do with anything at all. "What was the last movie you watched?"

Once a day, every day, they wouldn't get a response from anyone. It was awkward…

 Google has been testing what they call their "Local Carousel" for the past couple months, and today it is officially going live. It's the same top of page scroller you've been seeing on tablets for the past year, but now it's on your browser for your local related searches. Lets take a look at what it is and what it means for your local …

Your digital showroom is the best source for quality leads and lead generation. Your consumers are not going to third party sites to search for your dealership, they are going to search engine sites like Google. And in those search engine sites, your potential customer is usually typing in the model of the vehicle they are looking for or they use search terms like…

  The unintended acceleration scandal that rocked Toyota's world spread like a dreaded MRSA virus from the front pages of newspapers to local late night news. It turned out to be much ado about floormats, not so much the throttle system.…

Whether you asked for it or not, your customers are talking about your business online. Ask yourself: what do my potential customers see when they search for my business online?…

For a few months now, I’ve been discussing the idea that local businesses should never fall into the trap of trying to be funny or interesting through the use of irrelevant pictures and memes. “No cat or dog pictures” has become a mantra of sorts with the concept being that businesses should try to stand out, not fit into the mix on Facebook and other social media sites.

As some have argued, there are definitely…

Unless you have been hiding in a cave somewhere, you have heard that the U.S. economy is doing poorly. Housing starts are down, the value of the dollar is down, car sales are down, real estate is down, retail is down, gas prices are up, food prices are up, bankruptcies are up and the sky is falling. What is a person to do?

1. Don't Drink the Cool Aid

The news is sensationalized and fear sells. Things are rarely as good as they seem and things are rarely as bad as they…

A few months ago, we confronted one of our dealers that had our website solution about why they were putting a watermark of their logo on irrelevant pictures and posting them to social media. Apparently, their social media vendor had a theory.

It was a process, really, and it went like this:

1. Find viral images on sites like Reddit, 9Gag,…

Despite NADA’s landmark victory in getting most auto dealers exempted from direct oversight by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), it looks like the agency has found a back-door way to make life more difficult for dealerships. The Bureau recently announced that lenders that offer auto loans through dealerships will be held responsible for…

Some say that a dealer doesn’t need overnight chat operators because some research shows that only 10 percent of dealership web traffic occurs between midnight and 8 am. They estimated that with a 3 percent chat rate that would extrapolate to only 15 chats per month with 5,000 visitors. Here’s why even if those figures are accurate,…

It’s Saturday! Blow up the Balloons, blow up the squiggly air man thingy, get your game faces on and get ready. Barely anyone will walk on to your lot today. Any ideas why?

Before you continue reading this article, do me a favor right now and go grab your local newspaper. Open it up to the first auto dealer…

From day one, owners Ted Rubin and Todd Smith built ActivEngage to be employee-focused. In addition to providing free medical, dental, and vision benefits, ActivEngage proves that it truly values its employees with free gym memberships to promote workplace wellness, an on-staff licensed massage therapist to relieve work-related stress, bi-monthly food trucks, and a lounge…