JD Rucker's Blog (365)

The Social Advertising Mistake Every Dealer Needs to Avoid

As Facebook continues its unofficial quest to make the platform pay to play and with Twitter quickly following in those footsteps, many are looking towards advertising as the most important component, but they would be wrong. Others who sell their products would say that strategy can overcome the need to play, but they would be incorrect as well. It’s the third…

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Added by JD Rucker on July 13, 2013 at 10:01pm — No Comments

You Know Your Area. Use that Knowledge on Social Media.

Local Facts

If there’s one thing that gets under my skin the most about local businesses on social media, it’s that they rarely take advantage of one of the most important types of posts: local facts. It’s a low-hanging fruit that is completely missed by most.

It starts with having a local following and fan base, of course,…

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Added by JD Rucker on July 9, 2013 at 5:29am — No Comments

The Wrong Ways (and right way) to do Contests or Giveaways on Facebook

Facebook Contest

There's a trend on Facebook that simply won't die. Many dealership pages continue to offer giveaways, contests, and even "exclusive" games on Facebook in order to get more fans. It has been proven over and over again to be ineffective at getting targeted, high-quality fans but there seems to be an insistence on continuing it in order to bulk up the numbers.

The problem with this is…

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Added by JD Rucker on July 2, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

How to Know in 30 Seconds if Your Facebook Presence is Working

Over the last couple of weeks, my exploration into the world of effective automotive social media has turned more towards pitches and consultations. We’ve spent 9 months now digging deeper than ever before into what constitutes success and we’ve come to the conclusion that it’s pretty simple – if you aren’t selling cars and driving business to the…

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Added by JD Rucker on July 1, 2013 at 8:30am — No Comments

Social Media Doesn’t Take Weekends Off

I was having a casual conversation with a counterpart at a different automotive social media company yesterday when he asked, “Why do you guys monitor on the weekends? The dealer doesn’t care and as long as we reply on Monday, they’ll be fine.”

The discussion that ensued was long and nearly got heated. Thankfully, cooler minds…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 30, 2013 at 8:00am — No Comments

Promoting on Pinterest with a Personal Account

Papas Pinterest

For a long time, I assumed that this was a well-known technique, but after talking to some clients I realized that it’s not as common as I thought. If you have a Pinterest account (you should) and you don’t mind using it for business (you might), then you should definitely be mixing in some business-relevant posts.

Here’s the basic idea – your personal Pinterest or…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 28, 2013 at 10:30am — No Comments

Be Thankful About Real Life on Social Media

Businesses are starting to get it. They once saw social media as a channel like many others through which they could broadcast their message. When that didn’t work, they shifted to using it as a branding tool only. When that wasn’t effective, they started communicating with people. Bingo! Now, more need to take it to the next…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 27, 2013 at 10:00am — No Comments

Now that Facebook’s In, it’s Time for some Hashtag Basics

Papas 300

There have been valid business reasons to use hashtags for years. Twitter started it off. Pinterest added to it. Google+ mastered it in many ways. Instagram, Tumblr… the list of social sites on which hashtags are relevant is long. Facebook was the last major holdout. Now that they’ve joined the bandwagon, it’s go time.…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 26, 2013 at 9:30am — No Comments

Moving Forward with Penguin 2.0

Penguin SEO

There are those who were hurt by the recent Penguin 2.0 update by Google. If your rankings fell in the last month, there’s probably a black and white flightless bird reason for the drop. Thankfully, there are things that you can do to make things better.

Even if you weren’t affected by the change, you should still take note. There are nuances and…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 25, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

The Easiest Way to Waste Money on Facebook

Looking at the screenshot above of the landing page that Facebook took me to when I clicked on Dodge’s advertisement in the sidebar, one might believe everything was in order. It’s not exceptionally attractive and definitely offers way too many options to be a strong landing page from a social media campaign, but at least it’s pretty compelling. The clear call to…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 24, 2013 at 3:04am — No Comments

Never Ask a Question in an Empty (Social Media) Room

Speaking in an Empty Room

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…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 21, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

Fine, there are Two Exceptions to the "No Cats or Dogs" Rule on Facebook

No Cats or Dogs

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…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 20, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

Dispelling the Misconceptions About Massive Social Media Followings

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,…
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Added by JD Rucker on June 19, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

Are Hand-Me-Downs Acceptable at Your Dealership?

Are your posts fresh or recycled

Look, I get it. I understand that it’s hard for vendors and OEMs to produce a social media solution for their dealers that scales properly while still bringing in good content. I do not, however, understand the concept of not even trying to mix things up. There’s an easy road and a hard road for automotive social…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 18, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

An Extremely Long but Exceptionally Useful Social Media Dimensions Infographic

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.…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 18, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

It’s the Words, Not the Stars, that Make Impactful Customer Reviews

I'm "that guy." You know, the one who thinks that 4-stars is an amazing review coming from me, the one who hasn't rated anything a 10 out of 10 since my wife's Mediterranean pasta, the guy who wonders why his kid only got an "A" and not an "A+" on a test. There are more of us out there than you think, but there's a benefit to what I call…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 17, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

4 Reasons that Social Media Services should Offer People, Not Software

Facebook Homepage

When I was asked last year to develop a social media marketing service, the first question they asked was whether I already had software in mind or if it needed to be built. I told them that the software had already been developed and it was free. This didn’t go over well at first; they’d always used premium social media…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 16, 2013 at 8:11am — 4 Comments

Understand the Basics of #socialmedia Posts on Each Network #Infographic

Basic Equation

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…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 13, 2013 at 9:00am — No Comments

Playing to Tomorrow's Customers on Social Media Helps Decision Makers Today

Tomorrow's Buyers

A father and son walked onto a car lot and started looking around. As the salesperson approached, the son, 14- or 15-years old, was clearly directing his father towards a particular new vehicle. They met the salesperson in front of a Chevy Cruze and told her that they wanted to take it for a test drive.

As car deals go, this one was a pretty easy one. The negotiations were tough – they were informed buyers who paid…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 11, 2013 at 10:00am — No Comments

A Quick Way to Get Search (and social) Benefit from Google+, Pinterest, and Tumblr

Easy

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,…

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Added by JD Rucker on June 10, 2013 at 9:30am — No Comments

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