I'm a huge fan of social networking! I think I'm LinkedIn with quite a few of the regulars on Dealer Refresh and have been an avid forum participant since I bought my first S2000 (S2Ki.com is one of my favorite net-hang outs). I love the new communication areas the net has given us!

Maybe I can play a little devil's advocate here.....not because I want to, but because I've had to deal with this.

Branding, SEO, and transparency are all great reasons to engage in the latest social networking programs, but how do you filter out the bad? I caught one of our salespeople on MySpace "representin' da Flag" (our dealership's name is Checkered Flag) with all kinds of photographic paraphernalia; which certainly did not reflect the Checkered Flag image nor any other franchised dealer for that matter. He worked at our BMW store and had non-compliant BMW logos all over the place. If you knew this person, you'd never expect the MySpace page this guy had up. Of course, any sensible human being would look the other way on associating that MySpace page with Checkered Flag.....or would they?

Does MySpace become a work-related site now? Should we allow all of our employees to spend hours on the clock, playing on MySpace? I know MySpace is one extreme, but it does fall into the social networking cloud/category.

This question carries into other areas: employees making their own websites, putting the dealership name in their personal email signatures, etc. The Internet is either viewed loosely or strictly depending on who is viewing it. Government regulation is still years away. Is the answer education? Do you have time to educate your staff?

I'm rambling now. I'll end this post by stating, this is just a thought.

Damn Brian, how many SERPs do I have to monopolize before I can get on your short list of dealers blogging?

Plain and simple, the reason dealers don't take advantage of social networking/marketing is because they don't have someone like Jeff (or the rest of us reading here) on-staff.

You've got an industry full of people whose library of marketing knowledge begins and ends with "go $10 lower than the other guy in next week's print ad". They're never going to start an Internet marketing revolution in their stores... and if they're lucky enough to stumble across a good third party who offers such services, and if that party is lucky enough to actually convince the dealer that it's worth their while, the dealer STILL isn't going to be where they ought to be in this day and age.

Sure, it's great to say, "my dealership's on MySpace", or "we've got a blog"... but if it's a third party posting that content with minimal input from the dealer, then the dealership is digging a trench on both sides of that endeavor:

On one side, it's not hitting customers the way social networking is meant to hit them - a B.S. blog post about how great the dealership is, with canned verbiage from an outside vendor, is a stink that Internet users can smell a mile away. You're saturating the SERPs and getting your name out there, sure... but what social marketing REALLY does is prepare your store for the next big craze (and I can't believe I'm about to call this a craze): actual, real life, attention to customers' needs, creative value-building, and quality relationship forming.

On the other side, what the third party can't give you is that everyday freshness in the approach to the business that I'm sure Jeff's owner can get from him every time he pulls up a chair. You need someone on the inside who knows exactly what, for instance, your Service Department lacks in, and how that can be remedied with a combination of social marketing, customer follow-up, and the addition of a quality third party tool. The people who really know Internet marketing in this industry transcend their immediate job position, and bring value to the store not just as an Internet Manager, but as a fresh, creative mind on tap 24/7.

Jeff's Dealer Refresh blog here is a great testament to the usefulness of social media, blogging, etc.

Ryan Gerardi left HomeNet a year or so ago to start up a business to help dealers master the social media space and blogging in particular. autoconversion.net He remains the best that I know at it.

Car dealers that blog that I know are:

earlstewartoncars.com
followupforsuccess.com
davidthomasautogroup.blogspot.com/
blog.checkeredflag.com

As Jeff points out, you don't do this to generate leads. It is where the word of mouth, the brand, the networking, the CSI, the reputation, and the goodwill in the community happens these days.

Unfortunately (my opinion), most dealerships remain highly transactional based, so relationship / marketing / goodwill / branding efforts tend to be haphazard, inconsistent and fit in "when time permits" by staff with transactional responsibility. It is not criticism, just an observation and as always there are exceptions and excellence in places you do not always expect to find them.

An industry blogger in Hagerstown? Jeff Kershner... who would have thought.

An entrepreneur dedicated to helping dealers execute social media, Web 2.0 and blogging strategies? Ryan Gerardi... in Pennsylvania?

A car dealer who blogs in Florida? Earl Stewart.

A car dealer Internet Director who blogs and figures this stuff out on his own time? Chris Hanson in Dallas-Ft. Worth for the David Thomas Auto Group.

Others who can't but help spill out how they feel the industry needs to change? Shaun Raines from Dealer Advisor. dealeradvisor.blogspot.com/

And the list goes on. As I wrote in my company's weekly newsletter earlier today:

"There will always be people who are ahead of the curve, and people who are behind the curve. But knowledge moves the curve." -- Bill James, legendary baseball statistician/strategist.

Brian Hoecht

Jeff,

Great insight.

Social working is the buzz right now in many industries. New social sites with specific themes are appearing everywhere as the entry costs and level of difficulty decreases.

I'm specifically involved in the special finance arena. Subprime auto customers are very loyal, given that they are treated well by the dealership they bought from. As their credit improves they will soon reenter the marketplace for another automobile. If you've already developed a relationship with that customer through a social network they are more likely to return to your store when they are ready to trade.

I have written in my blog that dealers need to be more consultative with their special finance customers and keep in touch with them and their family and friends. This might be new a way to do so. Having a social site that gives tips on credit repair and other issues relating to the subprime industry may generate a sizeable amount of traffic for a store.

Best Wishes,

Jim Wagner
TheSubprimeReport.com

Jeff -

First off, love your blog! Keep up the great work and community.

I'm glad you brought this up. I actually just wrote an article for Digital Dealer Magazine that spoke to this subject directly (should see it in a week or so). I have also posted many times on the AutoRevo blog regarding LinkedIn, blogs, social networking, YouTube, Twitter, and much more.

In reading another comment in your SEM category the comment said it perfectly, "Dealers are about 2 years behind any technology curve." Social Media Marketing will become a huge area of the future in the car business. And with that many dealers will see companies offering these types of services to get them up and running. The hardest part will be getting dealers to post on their blogs, but such is life.

I welcome this opportunity in the auto industry, but for now I'm just an evangelist.

Chad Polk
AutoRevo

Wow it's so crazy that you mention this, I was just actually thinking myself how much this could benefit a dealership. I want to add that forums can also play a big part in this and if the forum allows, place the link in your signature and participate. This did a lot for one of my personal websites. Hope you don't mind me sharing this inbound link stat from yahoo as an example:

I showed these to the owner of our dealership. He loved them, and they really got him thinking. Since Johnson has some of the same franchises as us, we pulled up their sales numbers. Let's just say this - he changed his mind.

Awesome. To think how many years of arm-twisting I've done to GM's and owners to get them to think outside the realm of standard ad agency drivel... I'll readily admit that I'm jealous this didn't come from one of my dealers.

I live in Johnson Automotive's MSA (The Research Triangle of NC). These commercials are hilarious! And in this area, you cannot escape the badger advertising, no matter where you go or what you are doing. This morning I checked my Yahoo! email, there was a big display ad of the badger sitting on the hood of a car with the phrase "You came looking for a car," the windshield wiper changes the phrase to "you left with a headache." Then displays a link to nobadgers.com. Along I-40, I-440, and I-540, and throughout the area, billboards simply say "No Badgers" followed by "visit any Johnson Automotive dealership."

I read an article the other day about Johnson's agency, and the "Badger" campaign budget for this year. The agency that created this campaign is the same one who did the Geico gecko and the cavemen. The Martin Agency of Richmond, VA also created the "What can Brown do for you?" campaign, and works with Wal Mart, Alltel, and Hanes.

Ready for the best part? The production costs alone totaled nearly $3.5 million for the Badger spots. Add that to the nearly $14 million ad budget for Johnson's 10 stores...no wonder you can't escape the Badger ads!!!

I keep saying I am going to shop a couple of their stores, just to see if the experience is really any different. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I will keep you posted!

Thanks Jeff!

You're right. The nobadgers.com domain is pointing to a DealerSkins flash doorway page that doesn't feature any of the videos or help you find the others. If you click the badger picture it takes you to some black and white flyer ads that are pretty sucky compared to the videos. This is a terrible landing page, especially since the URL is in each video.

I'm with you Jeff, this would make a brilliant viral campaign for the Johnson group. Funny, clever, and to-the-point messaging addresses negative "stereotypes" and gives the viewer a sense that the Johnson group "might be different". These spots, placed on or throughout the Johnson group websites, have the power to really catch the eye of a casual web surfer. Compelling video that brings value (in this case humor) has the ability to "keep" the customer on the site. A great group of spots that certainly "got my attention"!

The clip is from "Analyze That." I have this clip on my blog: HILL MARKETING GROUP

It's become a part of our sales pitch, "wanna talk to the boss?"

Did anyone else catch the error at the beginning of the video? The clip was not from "Meet the Fockers." It was from either "Analyze This" or "Analyze That," not sure which one. DeNiro is a mob guy trying to go legit, so he takes a job selling caddies. Hilarious! Reminds me of the old "Jerky Boys" clip with "Frank Rizzo" interviewing for a car sales job...anybody remember that one?

Truecar recently rolled out an independent dealer program.
The montly rates are anywhere from $350/month - $2500 per month depending on inventory.
$350 - Up to 50 vehicles
$750 - 51-100 vehicles
$1250 - 101-250 vehicles
$2500 - 250 and above vehicles

AutoTrader boasts "AutoTrader.com is the only website with more than 3 million vehicle listings from 40,000 dealers and 250,000 private owners. We provide the largest selection of vehicles and attract more than 14 million qualified buyers each month."
 
There are around 17767 dealers in US in 2011. So how can AT boast of 40000 dealers

So does carsforsale.com. Unlike webmanager...we actually have our own portal. We do the free website as well. $99 a month...best deal you'll find for 7 million shoppers a month.
 
Becci Foley
 
605-306-3411

I work at carsforsale.com. We are right under cars.com for traffic. I sold cars for 4 years and let me tell you. Autotrader costs way too much. We build a FREE website and drive traffic and do EVERYTHING Autotrader and Cars.com does and we are $99 a month. Makes no sense to me why a dealer would spend that kind of money unless there was a guarantee on leads, and there never is. There is always a contract involved too which sucks because then you are locked into something that may or may not work. Just saying. Call me if you want and run us side by side and save yourself some damn money...
 
Becci Foley
 
605-306-3411

Carquid is taking on autotraderr in the uk offering £1 one car one week have a look at the site it's the future ,,,,, all feedback will be greatly received

I just started working for a website that does something similar, it's called dealergarden.com, it's a little different in that we take dealers local newspaper ads or whatever ad they want to place on our site and those ads are up for one week and change every Friday. We provide free leads that don't go into a pool, they go directly to the dealer. as far as our advertising, we run ads in all the local newspapers, tv commercials and have extensive internet advertising through banner ads and such. I was curious what you guys think, because we're running into a plateau and wanted to know if there was anything else we could do to get the ball rolling a little quicker. OH and it's only $100 a week no matter how many vehicles were sold. We got the idea from how expensive it is to run the full page ads that a lot of dealers do, and wanted to make it cheaper so that the smaller dealers could afford it as well and they all can expand the reach of their current ads they place in newspapers, direct mailers and such. All of the dealer garden employees were in car sales and to run a full page ad here it's roughly $3500 per full page ad and we had one dealer tell us that in Buffalo to run a full page ad for one day was something ridiculous, he said it was bout $10,000! INSANE! What do you think? if you wanted to check out our commercials we have running right now, go to YouTube and do a search for dealer garden, our channel will come up.

Sonal,

Why pay caroodle.com a nickel when they have ZERO traffic?

Why pay caroodle.com a penny when CraigsList is Free?

Why not pay http://theygottago.com/ $10 for... nothing?

(bracing myself for caroodle.com defense)

Jeff, is there a reason for such a big variation in price? I have come across companies like caroodle.com and they charge $300 per month for unlimited cars listing. What does auto traders premium listing do for a dealer? Are there companies that provide the dealers a cost per sale (from a lead) option?

Thanks for your feedback!

Hi, I am writing a research article on auto dealers marketing trends and would love to get some feedback on the expert writers on this board!

I am looking for subscription fee info on the top 5 auto sales websites like autotrader.com, cars.com etc.

From reading the discussions above, I understand that these companies charge $1000-$3000 per month. Is that correct? with autotrader on the higher end of the spectrum.

How would you like your job moved to another country? Car dealers rape people any ways! But that's ok. Car should go for one price! No 4 squares, no trade in up and downs, no down payments that aren't needed, or a bunch of bull.... " I need to go talk to the DEAL GUY.". What a bunch of garbage! Your selling cars!!!! They sell themselves! Your just there to screw the customer for a return in your pocket! Every time I buy a car, I want to punch you in the face !!!!

Great Forum. We have many dealer customers and they all say the same thing.

Hi Guys,

The Motoring blog is up and running well with fantasic articles on motoring.

Also, The site is up for Posting your Adverts free of cost, let us know if you need more information on any thing. Dealers can upload their listing. we have got more than 230 dealers already signed up and looking for more in this week.

Thanks for your support.

regards

TheMotoring.com Team