Twitter - How Do You Use It?

[Katie]

I remember being around the forums when Twitter was just starting to be born and some people were for the micro MICRO blogging technique, and others were against.

Now, it seems like everyone, or most everyone has a Twitter account for their dealership. Just curious how you all use it?

Do you have just one account for your dealership and have someone maintain it? Do each of your salesmen have a twitter account connected to the dealership? Do you have them on a Twitter List?

1, 2, 3, DISCUSS

 

[Alex Snyder]

Personally I use it to keep up with many people around the industry and a few friends. For the dealership, it is just automatically fed by blog articles. Twitter has not been a viable business option for us to put much effort into. If it ever becomes one, we are ready to pounce on it. If it doesn't, no biggie.

 

[Dominic Belfiori]

I use it primarily to keep up with people around the industry as well. I also use it to post my blogs and keep in touch with a few friends. But as Alex said Twitter has not been a very viable business option, but we still try to keep the tweets going

 

[Katie]

Personally I use it to keep up with many people around the industry and a few friends. For the dealership, it is just automatically fed by blog articles. Twitter has not been a viable business option for us to put much effort into. If it ever becomes one, we are ready to pounce on it. If it doesn't, no biggie.

The good thing is that it's a free service. I think it depends a lot on your market and that's not something you can control. I feel like, for example, Buick wouldn't benefit much from Twitter because it has a much older following of people. That might be stereotyping, but it's just an IMO type thing.

Do you use Bit.ly or something like it for your blog articles to see how many clicks you get? Just wondering if you have any success with the blog article views/comments.

 

[Katie]

I use it primarily to keep up with people around the industry as well. I also use it to post my blogs and keep in touch with a few friends. But as Alex said Twitter has not been a very viable business option, but we still try to keep the tweets going

Thanks for the feedback! Like I had said in my response to Alex, it's a good thing that it's free. But of course, it does take a decent amount of dedicated time to maintain on a high level.

Also, a quick question for ya, Dominic, do you have a Twitter Username that's your Dealership? Or do you have your username is a personal account? I.E Do you use @ABCMotors or @DominicBelfiori?

 

[Dominic Belfiori]

Thanks for the feedback! Like I had said in my response to Alex, it's a good thing that it's free. But of course, it does take a decent amount of dedicated time to maintain on a high level.

Also, a quick question for ya, Dominic, do you have a Twitter Username that's your Dealership? Or do you have your username is a personal account? I.E Do you use @ABCMotors or @DominicBelfiori?

I have both a personal and dealership one (But my personal is pretty much business oriented): @DominicBelfiori ; @CuneoAgency

 

[Katie]

I have both a personal and dealership one (But my personal is pretty much business oriented): @DominicBelfiori ; @CuneoAgency

I was just curious, as I always wondered if more people would connect with actual people than they would with a business entity.

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[DrewAment]

I have experimented with a few dealers and thier twitter accounts. Not just "car sales" posts, but social media type stuff. I used bit.ly links in everything, tracked it campaign wise - the ROI and user base was just not there.

It is hard to "regionalize" twiiter for a car dealer whose main market is anytown, USA. All the visits and traffic was very minimal, and those that were clicking were way out of the dealers PMA.

Facebook, by its very nature and advertising model, allows you to regionalize to your local market.

So Twitter does not get my ROI and DISC vote for dealers. And I have yet to find someone who passionately disagrees with me.

Just my 3 cents. (inflation)

 

[rrowzee]

I like the way Momentum Porsche in Houston uses it. The service manager will post about track events, group buys, etc. The Porsche clubs tend to be pretty tightly knit. So social media makes sense for that demographic. I would imagine the same would apply to other niche groups.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

I use twitter to keep up with a lot of people in the industry and across a few other verticals.

I don't follow a lot of people..at first I was but the frequency and irrelevancy became too much.

There are a few key people I follow in and out of the industry - mostly outside of.

As for postings - the DR Blog is fed into my @dealerrefresh twitter feed, I tweet manually a few posts here in the forums. I try to keep the @dealerrefresh tweets relevant to our industry and technology. I throw in a few personal things here and there.

I follow some local news with my personal twitter account @jeffkershner but I have found it's not easy to keep up with 2 twitter accounts.

As for on the dealer side - just taking over a few dealers with the new move, I do have a super star. My sales manager at my Mitsubishi dealer is giving it a great effort as we are slowly build additional followers.