Facebook Ideas for Car Dealers

November 10, 2008 by yhurg
Filed under: Marketing 

With the growing awareness and interest in “Web 2.0″ for car dealers, the pressure is on to conceive truly impacting ways for dealers to sell more cars with today’s web technologies. I for one have no doubt that Web 2.0 is key to the success of car dealers, but I also realize the climb has hardly begun.

It’s important to consider proven marketing practices and techniques when leveraging technology. Often people shift towards tools and technology because they are new and then try to find clever ways to make them viable. Take something like Facebook for instance. It’s free and available to everyone so dealers are signing up for it and then wondering how they can put it to good use.

Facebook is a sophisticated application and there are numerous ways to utilize it for sales and marketing purposes, but its not going to be easy. First you have to develop an audience which takes time, commitment, and creativity. You don’t develop an audience in social networks by advertising and soliciting to people. You develop it by observing your connections, interacting with them, and creating interest in them for you. Not realistic if you have an ulterior motive. But that’s the reality of social media networking.

So what can dealers do with Facebook? Well, I think a good start would be to keep it simple by using the Events functionality. Let’s say you are having a tent sale in a few weeks. First you would create an event on your Facebook to announce the event. Then you would blast an email to your permission-based email audience about the event, maybe using a short video to introduce it and invite people to connect with you on Facebook.

Then, at the event, set up a table with a Facebook banner and some materials to educate people at the event about your efforts on Facebook. Take lots of pictures, some videos, maybe even get some written testimonials. Essentially, document the event with multi-media. Heck you might even consider hiring a professionals to do this like you would for your wedding.

After the event, update your Facebook with all the pictures and videos and such, like a journal entry. Make it look sharp, fun, and appealing. Now shoot out another email to your list thanking them for attending and encouraging those that weren’t there to make a check out the pics and stuff anyway.

Hopefully you get the idea. This is no easy task but you want to start somewhere. To pull this off you need buy-in from staff and possibly professional help from select partners, and of course an audience interested in your efforts. But it’s these sorts of efforts that will allow you to build trust with your audience, evolve your dealership, and selling more cars (and service them too). Do this regularly and you could be on to something.

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Comments

14 Comments on Facebook Ideas for Car Dealers

  1. Steve Taylor on Wed, 12th Nov 2008 5:35 pm

    2. Hi, I would be interested to see if what you’re suggesting would actually work. In fact I’m struggling to see if Facebook has any benefit to a dealer except for the backlinks it would create. From a UK perspective, consumers are very unlikely to use Facebook in their buying process. It may be different in states but I still feel buyers aren’t interested.

    Or am I missing something?

  2. yhurg on Thu, 13th Nov 2008 2:24 pm

    3. Hi Steve,

    You stated something key, “consumers are very unlikely to use Facebook in their buying process”.

    This would be because dealers do not use Facebook in the buying process. As dealers learn to find ways for using Facebook as part of the buying process then I would expect your customers to naturally become a part of that process.

    Think of the telephone, fax, and email. Well, the phone might be a stretch b\c it has been around as long as selling cars has, but when fax and email first hit the scene they were not part of the car buying process. But today they are a staple.

    My post presents a real-world use for Facebook with dealers and their customers and I hope to experiment with it on some of my dealership customers. I am confident it would help the dealer build their Facebook network which if done consistently would indeed lead to sales.

    Appreciate the response Steve and let me know if there is anything with which I can be of assistance for you.

    -Ryan

  3. yhurg on Thu, 13th Nov 2008 3:04 pm

    4. There is a good discussion at the Grok which distinguishes Social Media and Networking sites for building relationships and networking rather than for SEO and advertising, which I wholly agree with.

  4. Umer Farooq on Fri, 14th Nov 2008 4:05 am

    5. Great points… also do not forget to post an ad in the Facebook Marketplace. Fastest way to build your network is look-up your walk-ins/appointments on face book and other social sites. Keep your self in the prospective mind. Now and then share some news with them… write on their wall etc.

    You can also go broad and create groups… your business group, scion group, local ford group etc… etc…

  5. Steve Taylor - Automotive Technology Consultant on Fri, 14th Nov 2008 1:39 pm

    6. Hi Ryan,

    I understand where your coming from and understand how Facebook can work in other industries and initiatives. But in the context of automotive, and seeing it from the perspective of a potential customer, I wouldn’t go onto Facebook, I would ignore Facebook if it appeared on my Google search and EVEN IF I did go on and read what a dealership had to say, I don’t think it would influence me to purchase from them.

    I believe that if the website is a manufacturer or C2C website then Facebook can play a good part. Consumers are looking for recommendations and reviews on brands and models of car to help them decide which to buy. Only 19% of consumers at the moment are even considering this type of social medium when researching their purchase online. http://www.vlane.com is such a site that can and do use Facebook to promote their site, but they aren’t a dealership.

    Again, I’m looking at it mainly from my 12 years web experience, 8 of which in automotive in the UK, so it might all be different in the USA.

    If you haven’t already check out the Cap Gemini Report 08/09 to gain an insight into what people are doing online.

    Cheers

    Steve

  6. conversion to electric car on Sun, 23rd Nov 2008 3:17 am

    7. I agree that web marketing would help the dealers but facebook would help or not i am not sure. I go with Steve Taylor that facebook may work in other industries but automotive i am doubtful. By what you have explained if we can get good business then we must give it a try.

  7. Automotive CRM Guy on Mon, 5th Jan 2009 9:12 pm

    8. Vehicle listings from Oodle will soon appear in Facebook. This should help generate some more traffic for dealers. Oodle listings are even free! Inventory management companies like VinSolutions send their dealer’s inventory to Oodle.

  8. Steve Taylor - Automotive Technology Consultant on Tue, 6th Jan 2009 12:51 pm

    9. Wasn’t Oodle looking to do this over 2 years ago? I think I can remember reading something about it a while back.

  9. Mike Sparks on Tue, 19th May 2009 8:31 am

    10. Steve i use facebook and do a few posts every other day. I cannot say it has helped me sells cars but it does help to get our name out. Instead of my picture in the profile I use a pic of my website and in my pictures i have posted a few cars. i do not make my post about the business but about positve happedings locally.

  10. yhurg on Tue, 19th May 2009 10:02 am

    11. Hi Mike. I am looking at your website http://www.midtnautos.com/ but do not see any connection to it with Facebook. Was curious to see your FB page and becoming a fan.

    There is a gentleman on the Automotive Digital Marketing Ning Network run by Ralph Paglia that blogs about everything BUT autos. Says he gets lots of dialog generated this way. Link to his profile is below if you want to check it out:

    http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profile/christopherferris

    Show me how I can access your FB page.

  11. Ralph Paglia on Sun, 12th Jul 2009 5:01 pm

    12. Ryan,

    I found this article on Chris Ferris’ ADM Professional Profile and although I agree with the recommendations that you make, I would like to add that the use of Social Media by car dealers may be made much more effective if approached first as a relationship development, enhancement and engagement strategy. Soliciting new customers may be a lot less effective on Facebook than connecting with new and existing customers who have already purchased vehicles or services at the dealership. In many respects, I see the best use of social media for car dealers as evolving more into a CRM-type function than a conquest or new customer acquisition marketing tool. To check out links to a dozen examples of dealers using this strategy, read the article at:
    http://www.automotivedigitalmarketing.com/profiles/blogs/automotive-social-marketing

  12. yhurg on Mon, 13th Jul 2009 2:13 pm

    13. Funny you should say that Ralph. About a year ago I was suggesting the same thing on cardealerforums.com and got a bit of resistance from another user on the site. Look for, “Blogs don’t have anything to do with CRM” by “Sporty81″ on this thread:

    http://cardealerforums.com/customer-relationship-management/t48350-future-crm-not-email-text-messaging.html

    Interestingly, Sporty81 was from VIN Solutions. I wonder if he has changed his tune since then. I would hope so.

  13. James Scott on Wed, 9th Dec 2009 12:43 pm

    14. The article and reader comments are very useful…thanks.

    I am currently consulting for a car dealership in Cambridge UK and i have suggested setting up a facebook site to:

    a) use as a place to show the cars stocked
    b) To encourage users to write a review on any of the cars (these are prestige cars like BMW, Range Rovers, Porsche etc.
    c) To enable customers to have another source of where our cars are stocked i.e. autotrader, our website, facebook…basically so that they can chose the media that suits them.
    d) To enable customers to keep abreast of what we are doing should they not want to receive email updates.
    e) Because it shows us as open and venerable, I bet some car dealerships would be scared of such a thing…i mean people can write what they want.
    f) becasuse competitors might do it! it is free and easy to do, so why not do it first!

    http://blacksheepthinking.blogspot.com/

  14. yhurg on Thu, 10th Dec 2009 12:19 pm

    15. @James how are you planning to show what cars are in stock? If you intend to leave a wall comment for each vehicle in stock then I would be weary but if you have a widget that can list them in a Box then that might be more effective. I have not pursued this objective there yet, but it is the logical next step.

    One thing we do on our dealership blogs is include an RSS listing of the inventory. When the user clicks a vehicle then it takes him or her directly to the dealership website where he can learn everything there is to know about it on the dealer’s website.

    To see this in action go to http://blog.yourmercedes.com/

    There is something to be said for what Ralph wrote previously, about pursuing Facebook as a means for further developing relationships with those who are already customers versus establishing new relationships.

    Thank you for stopping by and sharing. You are at least the second UK blogger to comment on this post.

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