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,…

Some infographics are long for the sake of being long. They take up way too much space to make very few points or to present data in ways that simply don’t make sense from an graphic perspective. Then, there are those infographics that are long for a valid reason. This is one of those.

Social media is ever changing.…

In my recent exploration of various social media profiles being used by local businesses, I found a disturbing trend. While there are definitely those who are doing it right and utilizing Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest the right way, there are also plenty who are simply failing at it miserably. They are forgetting the most fundamental aspect of managing their profiles, namely posting the right way.

There are…

There are those who think that Facebook and Twitter are the only relevant social networks when it comes to business. There are those who go so far as saying that Facebook is all that you need. In truth, both may be right, but that’s strictly from a social perspective. Once you throw search into the equation, Google+, Pinterest,…

During a discussion with a potential client, something came up that surprised me. It shouldn’t have considering the types of information that are floating around the internet and being spread by “gurus,” but it did.

“I post pictures to Facebook and links to Twitter,” she told me.

That was the sum of their strategy. In a way it sort of made sense – rather, I…

There’s a challenge associated with Facebook advertising that isn’t as important when it comes to Google Adwords or similar advertising platforms. With Adwords, as long as your ads match well with the page that you’re advertising, you can maintain a high quality score and keep your ads working well. On Facebook, there is a much tougher audience than the Google algorithm that you have to win…

We all get our oil change. It’s a relatively constant thing. Most people are comfortable with getting their oil changed regularly. Some cars tell you when it’s time. Most people have a sticker on their windshield that tells them when it’s time. Heck, our internal clock often reminds us.

Now,…

I’m always hesitant to talk to people about the wonders of Facebook advertising. It’s the most cost-effective way to get the word out to the right people. The targeting capabilities make Google envious and the effectiveness, when done right, is nothing short of a work of art for driving business.

The…

Yesterday, I found myself utterly mortified. I caught a Pinterest page that my team was managing uploading images to Pinterest. After several deep breaths, I talked to my teammate and corrected this for the future.

Pinterest has an image upload feature. I wish they didn’t. There’s absolutely no reason to pin an image directly…

This is the first (and most likely last) time that I will use a Hillary Clinton book title as the concept for a blog post. I didn't read the book, but the concept is definitely applicable in social media.

I was speaking to a potential client yesterday who was telling me some of their challenges with social media. The main challenge…

There’s just no excuse for car dealers to not be on Pinterest. Some would say it’s worthless. Some would say it’s hard to understand. Some might even say that it’s a fad. They might all be valid arguments under normal circumstances, but there’s on thing that trumps them all.

It takes no time, almost literally. You can maintain a very strong, daily-updated Pinterest presence…

Stop the madness! I, unfortunately, might be part of the cause of the recent trends happening on dealer Twitter profiles and for that, I am truly sorry.

For years, I've been harping on the concept that Twitter is something that no dealer should avoid because of how quick and easy it is. There's no huge investment of time required to have a strong Twitter presence. This advice and the…

This isn’t going to be a long post (I know a lot of mine have been too long, lately) but that doesn’t make it any less important. It’s short because the concept is simple. Unfortunately, many are missing out on this easy technique.

There are plenty of types of content that you can post on Facebook, but they invariably fall into one of two categories –…

"Second place is a set of steak knives."

When Alec Baldwin's character lectured the sales team in Glengarry Glen Ross, he made it clear that the winner was the one on top, that everyone else was lucky to have a job, and that if they continued to perform the way they did they wouldn't have a job for much longer. The same holds true in social media. If you're not…

Commitment. It means different things to different people. When it comes to social media marketing and Facebook in particular, it means making the choice to work hard, keep going, and stay disciplined.

Facebook is extremely fickle. Its algorithm relies on momentum, something that dies…

So, you have a Facebook page for your business. You’re ready to tap into the most powerful social site in the world. You want to get fans, to get people to like your page and hear your messages, to communicate with them in a meaningful way and to help drive more business.

You…

On June 5th, I will be presenting a webinar called “Beyond the Basics: 5 Myths and 10 Rules for Advanced Social Media Mastery“. It might as well be called, “Stop the madness because the social media world is going down a dark path.”…

Take a look at those familiar little icons in the top right corner of the screenshot above. Four of the primary social media sites’ logos adorn a prominent position on the homepage. It’s not an uncommon sight. Some put them at the top. Other put them at the bottom. Some make them large and prominent. Others make them small and subtle. One way or another, most dealerships put…

Here’s the sad truth about the way that most dealers are posting their inventory to Facebook. It’s not getting seen. None of it. Not at all.

Currently, there are three primary ways that dealers are posting their inventory to Facebook. The most common method is to have a tab on their Facebook page with their inventory. This doesn’t work. The…

I’m not a broken record, at least I’m not trying to be. It seems that I’ve covered this topic from different angles a lot lately, but it’s simply that important to understand. In business in general and in automotive marketing in particular, getting more Facebook fans is a very low priority compared to reaching more people.…