Simply having a business page on Facebook is no longer enough to run a successful automotive marketing campaign on Facebook. With a number of companies and brands joining the bandwagon, Facebook has become a saturated market and unless you understand how the market behaves, you might be get lost amid all the noise.

Similarly, filling up your fans’ walls with advertorial posts will be useless unless you’re…

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Although the iPhone app was intended to let users stay connected with their Facebook friends while on the go, auto dealers can also take advantage of this technology to make their automotive mobile marketing campaigns more interactive and more in-tune with the social media. With the release of Facebook for iPhone’s newest version (version 3.4), one added feature is particularly useful for business owners: the ability to check-in at actual events.

 

Checking-In to…

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Print classified ads are one of the main tools auto dealers use to advertise their vehicles and service but as more and more people are turning to the internet for information, online classifieds are significantly and steadily outperforming newspapers and periodicals in providing ad spaces and lead generation.

Craigslist alone, as an established leader among local online classifieds, boasts over 20 billion page views each month, besting online retail giant Amazon and multimedia empire…

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Five years ago Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter, sent out the first tweet launching a new form of communication that became a revolution in 140 characters or less. This year, Twitter posted a blog reporting that it only takes about one week for users to send 1 billion tweets and last February an average of 460,000 accounts were opened per day. In the automotive industry, we should all ask ourselves, are we utilizing the fundamentals of Twitter to best engage current and potential buyers on…

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Facebook has recently launched a new application that could change the way you interact with current and potential customers. Facebook Questions, which operates similarly to Quora, Aardvark, LinkedIn Answers and other Q&A sites on the internet, can be a valuable tool for dealerships looking to find out more about their target market. With Facebook Questions you are able to ask a question then either set up specific poll answers for people to vote on, keep the question open-ended allowing… Continue

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Do you have a social media strategy for your dealership? Maybe you’ve met with your marketing department or your management team to discuss how you should go about posting to Facebook or Twitter. The discussions and the opinions can be endless- who should post, how often, what to post and what time of day and on and on and on.

 

Unfortunately, during all this planning and strategizing we often forget the key to…

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Running a successful social media campaign in the automotive industry, or any industry for that matter, involves keeping an eye on the website updates and improvements. With that said, Facebook has recently released its update on the comments plugin which can offer you some exciting features for your dealership's business page. 



These features include threaded comments, moderation controls, and being able to sync comments to your Facebook page. The ability to synchronize your comments… Continue

Service department marketing is something that often falls by the wayside in most dealership's and dealer group's marketing campaigns. However, with today's location based marketing applications and social media networks it's easier than ever to give your back end of the dealership the attention it needs. Here are a few quick ways you can utilize these new media elements:



1. Set Up Facebook Places and Deals for your Dealership Business Page - We've just actually completed a webinar on… Continue

As the Super Bowl draws near, the creativity of television campaigns are at its yearly high. In every workplace across America, Monday's water cooler talk will be dominated by the commercial spots that run during the nation's biggest event. Extending a brand's conversation past that :30 second TV spot is a big challenge that most dealerships and dealer groups struggle with when they decide to run a television campaign. Now more than ever, your dealership can utilize new media to provide an… Continue

Location based marketing within your social networks and applications provide your dealership an excellent opportunity to promote itself and your service department. With geo-based apps gaining an enormous amount of headway, it's important that your dealership use them to help promote your various marketing campaigns and departments. 



Location based networks like Foursquare, Gowalla, and SCVNGR are great avenues to achieve these types of promotions.  Let's start with Foursquare and… Continue

I’d been thinking about giving my youngest son an iPAD for Christmas until I read an article by Jeff Cole in an advertising trade mag.

Who’s Jeff Cole? He’s a digital forecaster and the spokesperson for the US-based World Internet project and director of The Centre for Digital Future which has been tracking and researching consumer behaviour in digital media…

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So this was my topic for a recent roundtable discussion I moderated at an event hosted by David Kain and Steve Stauning. (side note: I will say without a doubt if you get the chance to attend one of these events GO!! These guys are good, real good and they do a great event.) As far as the topic goes it was a really good discussion with a good group of Internet Managers and Directors and a few things came to light for everyone....process, utilization and CRM capabilities are still all over… Continue

Presenting:…

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You’ve received phone calls from automotive live chat providers. You’ve read the articles in dealer magazines. You’ve seen the postings on dealer message boards. You’ve made the decision to give the new craze a whirl. Maybe you want to reach out and see who is visiting your website. Maybe…

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