Why aren’t dealers social networking?
That’s the title of an article I wrote back in Dec of 2007. I can’t believe I had almost forgot that I written it? It wasn’t until I was digging through my analytics and took notice to a top referring site pointing to the article.
The title of the article was a little deceiving. I didn’t even write about why dealers are NOT in social media …
“There are many reasons why dealers are not social networking and I’m not totally convinced that all dealers need or should be social networking. But rather than writing why dealers shouldn’t be social networking let’s look at a few of the advantages why maybe they should be.”
Instead, I wrote about 5 advantages to dealers for leveraging social media. Interesting enough, these same 5 advantages still hold true today are have become the backbone of many articles about the dealer industry and social media found on some of the “other” social sites in our industry.
- Branding and Awareness Opportunities
- Search Engine Saturation
- Build Link Popularity
- Build Traffic to your Dealers Website
- Interaction with the Public – Online Reputation
Our industry has come a long way since writing that article in 2007 (well maybe not that far). But the question still remains…“Why aren’t dealers social networking?”
Are you even convinced that dealers should even be focusing their efforts in this medium??
It’s still a great question, and one that no one has really talked about. Well…I’ll tell you why most dealers are not OR should not be focusing their effort on social media…
- Most dealer still can’t answer the phone with professionalism while asking the right questions to get to know the customers’ wants and needs.
- Most dealers lead response time is still over an hour on average AND when we do get a lead, most don’t know how to respond to the customer with relevancy.
- Most quit following up with the customer after 48 hours and then wonder why the customer bought from the other dealer.
- Most dealers still struggles with its “Brand” / its “Message”, a strong Why Buy from Me.
- It’s too much damn work and most DO NOT have “that person” to manage and take ownership of it.
- Dealers still struggle to fully embrace New Marketing and trying to understand today’s consumer.
- Most vehicles comments are still “power windows, power locks and A/C”.
- Most dealers have no email marketing strategy or better yet, have an email capture rate of less than 20% on the showroom floor.
- Heck, most dealers still can’t keep their Specials Updated.
- Your Reason Goes Here…
* Most of these dealers are not reading DealerRefresh, that’s another issues in itself (and another post).
The list could go on and on and I bet YOU TOO have a few reasons you could add to the list.
It’s simple..get your 101 on target before you worry about engaging the customer via social media. Social Media, when done right takes real dedication, time, care and finesse. Don’t ask “how many cars will it sell me this month” because there’s no report that going to truly track it to a direct sale!! Humm..maybe its time for your dealer to become its own “BRAND”.
What reason do you think car dealers are still not taking advantage of Social Media??
And heck..maybe you agree and are convinced that not all dealers need or should be in the social media game.
