Video is hot these days, and is a great way to engage your potential customers. When it comes to online video, YouTube is probably the first site that pops into most people’s minds, so I thought it might be a good idea to discuss some of the Pros and Cons of putting your dealership videos on YouTube.

The Pros of using YouTube:

SEO

When I talk to car dealers about YouTube, invariable one of the first benefits mentioned is search engine optimization (VSEO). Videos hosted on YouTube are indexed well and generally show up highly in search results (after all, YouTube is owned by Google).

Audience

Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world? More than 1 Billion unique users visit YouTube each month. Even though 70% of this traffic comes from outside the United States, YouTube still gets over 120 million viewers in the US a month. That’s a lot of eyeballs!

Social Network Integration

Google+, Facebook, Twitter, GMail, and others integrate YouTube embeds into their platform frameworks. That means that when one of your dealership’s YouTube videos is posted to or shared on a social network, a prospect can watch that video directly from his feed or timeline without having to click a link and go to another page

Low Cost

You don’t have to pay YouTube a dime to host your videos. It’s free! You get access to all of those viewers without paying for it. Of course, as one of my former colleagues would say, “YouTube is free if your time isn’t worth anything.” To take full advantage of YouTube, you’ve still got to put the time in to make sure you’re producing compelling content, uploading your videos with good titles, and optimizing the video descriptions with important keywords.

The Cons of using YouTube:

SEO

Now you’re probably thinking, “wait, I thought you said SEO was one of the pros of YouTube?”.

I did, and it is, but there are also some SEO downsides: While YouTube can get great exposure for your videos, it doesn’t necessarily have a positive impact on how your dealership website ranks in search. In fact, your search results from YouTube can actually cannibalize traffic that would normally go directly to your website. Unfortunately, even if you put links back to your dealership website in your video descriptions, these links are tagged as “nofollow” which means they’re ignored when it comes to helping your search rankings.

Competitor Ads

YouTube exists to make money, and they do that by selling ads before videos play, banner overlays, featured/suggested videos in the right rail, or the related videos that appear after videos are done playing. Your competitors can even purchase ads to run on YouTube against your videos to attempt to hijack your potential customers.

Limited Dealership Branding

Individual video pages on YouTube don’t allow much customization or opportunity for dealership branding, links, or calls to action. The video description allows for some information, but certainly doesn’t give a potential customer a seamless branded experience. Ideally, you’d like your prospect’s entire experience to revolve around your dealership, not jumping to different sites and brands.

Competing Content

In addition to ads from other dealerships, related and popular videos are competing for the attention of your prospects. After all, YouTube is not optimized to sell cars, they’re optimized to get users to consume videos. Your prospect may have started looking at a vehicle from your dealership, but before they know it they’re watching a video of Kung Fu Grandpa in a Food Lion parking lot.

Takes a customer away from your website

In addition to the negative SEO effects of YouTube (cannibalizing your own dealership website traffic), even when you have YouTube videos embedded on your website, those videos only link back to YouTube. SEO is all about getting prospective customers to your website, where you can convert them into leads and get them into your store. When you send prospects away to a website like YouTube, you’re losing your captive audience, and it could be tough to ever get them back.

Summary

YouTube definitely has to be part of your dealership’s video strategy, but it shouldn’t be your entire strategy. There are other video tools that can supplement YouTube’s shortcomings, so you can take advantage of the pros and negate the cons.

What results have you had using YouTube for your dealership?

Are you okay with landing potential customers on YouTube to watch your individual video responses?

Sound off in the comments!

 

This is part 1 in a 4 part series about automotive social media strategies that are emerging to help car dealers get true benefit. It's not just about branding. It's not about auto-feeding marketing content. With the right strategies in a place, dealers can drive foot traffic and website visitors in a way that can help them sell more vehicles and drive more service customers.

Understanding the Three Stages of Your Dealership's Social Media Presence

Arguably the most important lesson I've learned in the 9 months that I've been analyzing car dealers' social media profiles and pages is that there's no formula that can be applied to them universally. There's a plan that can be applied, but every dealer has unique strengths and weaknesses within their presence that requires adjustments in direction to get them onto the right strategic track.

Some have a strong presence that allows them to integrate directly into an aggressive strategy starting immediately. Others have to work the EdgeRank algorithm for a little while before they can successfully post aggressive content like inventory items. There are those who were so butchered over the years that it's better to start from scratch rather than try to fix their existing presence, particularly on Facebook. Thankfully, the majority of dealers are in a neutral state - not bad, not good, ready to get going.

Though the strategy itself cannot be applied universally, it doesn't take long to determine the health of their social media presence and place them into the right stage. Think of it like gears on a manual transmission. If the page is going nowhere, you have to get going in 1st gear. If you have a good rolling start, we can pop it into second gear and accelerate quickly. Those who have their presence in a strong state already have some velocity - it's time to kick into 3rd gear and beyond.

Stage 1: Localizing Fans

Dealers that have fewer than 500 fans or that have more than 500 with a good percentage that are localized are ready to get started with Stage 1. This is the starting point and lays the foundation for the aggressive strategy. There was a time when it was perceived that having bulk fans regardless of where they lived was a good thing. The idea was to play the numbers - if you could get 10,000 fans or more, surely some of them will be in the local area, right? Unfortunately, this strategy isn't just ineffective. It can actually hurt the ability of your posts to appear in the important news feeds on Facebook, namely those people within driving distance.

On the other important networks (Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest), localization isn't nearly as important. Sure, you want to have locals following you, but you're not harmed by having people from across the country or around the world also following you. On Facebook, it's a different story. With reach being the most important component of a valid Facebook strategy, having a high percentage of distant fans can prevent your posts from reaching the true target market. I'll go into more details about why this is the case when we get into Stage 2, but for now it's important to know that Stage 1 is all about making 80% of your Facebook fans localized within driving distance to the dealership.

This is why it's easier to start with fewer fans than with a lot. One of the most successful pages that I've seen so far is one that had 26 fans in February. As of July, they have over 1,800 likes with 86% of them being from the local area. Keep this in mind when you look at your own numbers. No need to get discouraged if you have 300 fans. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, you're actually in much better shape than those who have 30,000.

If you fell victim to a poor strategy in the past that acquired fans through nefarious means such as games, giveaways, or direct purchases, it's quite possible that you may have to start over. It's a hard choice to make, but Facebook does not offer an easy way to purge fans if you have thousands of low-quality ones. More importantly, your EdgeRank is potentially shot, in which case you'll get more traction by starting from scratch. Before anyone makes this sort of decision, please contact me directly. I'll take a look and make a recommendation.

Whether you're building on a page that hasn't been damaged or one that you are starting fresh, the strategy for fan acquisition is the same. Locally-targeted transparent ads are the way to go. It's not expensive if managed properly and is the best way to get the right people following your page. The ads need to be authentic. Don't try to coax people into liking you page. The ad copy should be something to the effect of, "Hey Baltimore! ABC Motors wants to be your automotive resource on Facebook."

Had you asked me a year ago if it would work, I would have said it was unlikely that you can get enough people to like a dealer's Facebook page using this method. Thankfully, smarter people than me told me to try it and the results have been nothing short of spectacular.

While the page is growing through Stage 1, the posts should be indicative of what you'll be posting in the future, just not as great. In other words, save your best content for when you've got a good number of people engaging with your standard posts.

Once you get to a nice point where the majority of your fans are fresh, local, and ready to move on to the next stage.

Stage 2: Get the Followers and the Algorithms to Like You

There are two algorithms and two timelines that you're going to want to play at here. The algorithms are the Facebook EdgeRank algorithm and the Google+ variation, an unnamed but similar algorithm. Both determine whether or not your posts will appear in the various news feeds of your fans as well as their connections. Twitter and Pinterest are chronological feeds, but on Twitter you have the potential to get highlighted through lists and 3rd party applications that can aid in increasing exposure.

The majority of effort should focus on Facebook. It's the big dog, the network that has the highest potential for reaching your audience. That doesn't mean that you can forget the others. At the bare minimum, you should take the few minutes per day it takes to craft strong content to all three of the lesser social networks. This doesn't mean plugging in a feed, especially the common practice of having your Facebook posts feed directly into Twitter. It takes a tiny amount of time to craft and post on the other networks. Make it a habit to do it first thing in the morning, before lunch, or even before leaving for the day. They're just too easy to ignore and they have a value that we'll discuss in a future post.

As for Facebook, Stage 2 is often the hardest. It's not like Stage 1 where you can just throw ads at it to make it work. You have to craft strong content, mix it up, and get people to interact with your posts. There may be an urge to use the Boost option (paying to increase exposure of individual posts) on a lot of your posts, but there's a caveat that everyone must understand. Facebook ads aren't like Google ads. On Facebook, the effects swing both ways. If you boost the wrong type of content, you can actually harm your EdgeRank. I've seen first hand where a page had boosted so much spammy content in a month that Boosting became cost prohibitive.

The urge to Boost a lot of posts can be strong, especially after you've had one reach tens of thousands of people. The challenge is that if the content that is boosted is received negatively by the community, your potential reach per Boost goes down. Being "received negatively" isn't just those people who click 'hide' or 'report' on your content. Facebook and Google+ are both aware of inaction as well. In other words, if someone sees your posts in their feed and they do nothing with it as they scroll passed it, this counts negatively towards your EdgeRank with that individual. If too many people are ignoring your posts, it will become less visible as will future posts. This is the reason for what I mentioned earlier about how low-quality fans can hurt your exposure to your target audience. It's not just about getting in front of people. It's about getting them to interact with you.

The most important part of Stage 2 is the content mix. As I've said many times in the past, cat pictures and memes do not belong on a dealer's Facebook page. Yes, they can be popular. However, the goal isn't to try to fit in on Facebook. The goal is to stand out. You should have made a promise in Stage 1 that you're going to be your local community's automotive resource on Facebook. You need to fulfill that promise with the content.

There are dozens of types of quality, relevant content that you can post. Pictures of cars, maintenance tips, local community spotlight posts, and interesting automotive facts are just a handful, but if you mix these in at a rate of around 1-3 posts per day, you'll find it to be the fastest path to get to Stage 3 with or without spending money on Boosts. Once you've made it to where your posts are all getting likes, comments, or shares at an acceptable level, it's time to get to the money posts in the next stage...

Stage 3: Driving Business

When your page is rocking and rolling with localized engagement, it's time to get to the goal of your social media presence: selling more cars and driving more service customers. For this, you'll have to stay tuned for part 2 of this 4 part series. Until then, get your social media house in order by moving forward with Stage 1 and 2. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment here or contact me directly.

What Are You Doing With All Those Yahoo Email Addresses?

In looking at the percentage of Yahoo! email addresses dealers obtain, Yahoo is always in the top three and usually at the top. When Yahoo! makes a change it can have a big impact.

Yahoo recently announced that they will be releasing user IDs that haven’t been accessed in over 12 months and making those user IDs available for someone else to register. Additionally, Yahoo announced a policy that user IDs will be released after 12 months of inactivity moving forward. So Yahoo users who don't log into their accounts in 12 months will lose their user ID.

What this means for Yahoo users:

If your current email is "[email protected]" and you've always coveted the address "[email protected]" - this may be your lucky chance to get it.

What this may mean for email marketers:

Once this update goes into effect, a couple of things could happen. Let's use the example of Bob changing his email from [email protected] to the new [email protected] which becomes available.
1. If you currently have [email protected] in your email database:

A. And a new person registers [email protected], you'll be sending your email to the wrong Bob. What do people do that get email they didn't ask for? They hit the spam button which impacts your deliverability to all Yahoo users if your complaint rate gets too high (we like to stay in the range of 1-2 per 1000).

B. And no one re-registers [email protected], you'll send to a bad email address which will bounce. High bounce rates can impact your deliverability as well.

2. If you currently have [email protected] in your email database - you may or may not get notified of the address change. Sending to the old address may or may not forward to the new address. Details aren't clear yet.

What do we recommend?

Do a re-engagement campaign to clean out your inactive Yahoo user accounts (we recommend this for all email providers) and continue to purge inactive accounts moving forward since this will affect all Yahoo accounts that become inactive at 12 months. And remind your service advisors how important it is to always ask customers to update their email address.

Questions:

What percentage of Yahoo emails are in your dealers database?

Do you have a process in place for purging inactive email accounts?

What service are you using for your email marketing campaigns?

Alec (L) and Kasey, Filling Out New Hire Paperwork

About a month ago, my friend Alec reached out to me in a private Facebook message. “I feel like a clot for asking,” he began, “but I figured I would anyway. If you ever hear of any openings at your job...please let me know.” Reading this made me nervous.

As it turned out, I had heard of something. That very afternoon, I had written a help wanted ad for an online inventory manager, someone who photographs the cars in stock and writes descriptions for them. I liked this guy and knew he was intelligent, but could I really recommend him as an employee? These situations can be so awkward. What if he got hired and didn’t work out? Would I look bad? What if he didn’t get hired?

Would he blame me?

I was tempted to just tell him no, we didn’t have anything, but I took a chance and shared the ad instead.

To my surprise, not only was he an experienced photographer, he’s a camera repairman. Not only is he a good writer, he’s been a car enthusiast his entire life, and Subaru is his favorite brand. So, the day he decided to ask me about a job was the same day I had unknowingly written a posting that fit him perfectly, and within a week, he started his new position without the ad ever hitting the internet. Anyone want to take a stab at figuring the odds of such a sequence?

In 2010, I started writing down the coincidences that occurred in my daily life. The only requirement, I decided, was that the coincidence was strong enough to strike me as such, and if it did, I’d write it down. The goal was to document each event without attaching any sort of cosmic significance to it, and then at the end of the year, I’d read the list aloud to anyone who wanted to listen. I find this to be a great way to reflect on years past, and it can be fun to see how the various coincidences interact with one another.

Because of this, I’m good at letting go of crackpot theories (usually), but I’ll admit, this one got me thinking: Was Alec’s coincidence just fantastic luck or a reminder of the importance of asking the right questions of the right people?

It would seem that, with social media, we do a lot more asking than ever before. I recently posted on Facebook:

“Anyone have a working VCR they’d be willing to sell for cheap? Both of ours are broken.”

Click to expand...

A few people responded. But for the important stuff, the kind that makes me feel the slightest bit vulnerable, I usually just don’t ask. I’m overpowered by feeling like a clot, to borrow Alec’s phrase, and since I don’t, how do I know what I’m missing out on? I’ve got plenty of excuses, but they’re all pretty boring. Mostly just variations on the theme that I don’t want to be a bother. 

Here we see a universal truth of asking on social media -- not all questions are created equal. We all have those people in our news feeds who gamble on the goodwill of their entire network with one appeal after another for this or that. It’s tiresome. Then there’s a personal note from someone real for something real. That’s refreshing.

I see professional social media going exactly the same way. People are tiring of being just one of a multitude of followers. The questions to “stimulate engagement” you’ve been told to ask (“what do you think of this beauty?”, etc) are little more than gussied up cattle prods, but since your following is not a herd, they shouldn’t be treated that way.



New SX4, New Insurance Agent

Recently, my wife and I bought a Suzuki SX4 before they were gone, and I posted our delivery photo on Facebook. It turns out that my friend Alan Martin from high school now sells insurance in Kansas City, and with his congratulations, he asked me if we needed help insuring our new vehicle. Coincidentally, I was fed up with my then-current insurance agent, who seemed to always be out of the office when I dropped in, leaving her helpers to answer my questions. In less than 48 hours, I had transferred my business to him. What did I get from my old agent for my fifteen years of business? Nothing. Not a thank you card or even a phone call. Clearly, switching was the right choice.

I’m certainly not suggesting anyone start stamping other people’s pictures with unwelcome solicitation, but on the other end of that spectrum, sometimes we’re so afraid of sounding spammy that we miss out on opportunities to contribute value.

In the car business, we all spend a considerable amount of time at our dealerships, and because of this, it’s easy to let the proceedings of any given day become mundane. It’s also easy to forget that your dealership is a place where lives are changed -- not just for your customers, but your coworkers, too. So often, the key to uncover something transcendent from the seemingly banal is just a question away.

So, what do you plan on asking today?

 

"We need more women in the auto industry!"

We hear it said all the time. Well, it's time to stop wishing. We're taking things to the next level by showcasing one of the brilliant women car dealers we know and highlighting her success, in hopes of attracting more women to the industry.

First, though, let's look at the facts and amp up the need...



Fortunately, some dealerships are starting to take notice of these numbers and are doing something about them. They’re not just offering positions to women; they're changing the dealership culture to make those positions more attractive.



Enter Jennifer Moran, Executive Manager of Carter Motors Group. When she opened a new dealership in Ballard, Washington during the height of the recession in 2009, Jennifer never dreamed that Carter Motors Group would go on to become #1 for new car sales in the state in just a few short years. How did she do it? Three words: Why Buy Messaging.

Why Buy Messaging (or WBM for our purposes) is based on a simple but rather revolutionary idea first offered by Simon Sinek - people don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it.

Applied to the automotive industry, WBM means using your core values to stand out in an industry where everyone is selling the same thing, often the same way, at roughly the same price. It's about building a successful business not based on finding people who need what you have, but rather finding those who believe what you believe. WBM is a radical departure from traditional price advertising, but it is light years more effective. Check out the results of Carter Motors Group's winning strategy:

Thanks to Carter's On the Road to Carbon Neutral campaign, which planted four trees for every car sale to offset the carbon footprint of the vehicle, Carter Motors Group went on to become the #1 dealer group for new car sales in the state of Washington in 2012, across all brands. Their Volkswagen store is in the top ten in the country for market penetration, and the two Subaru stores combined make Carter the second best-selling Subaru dealer in the nation.

Their digital results are equally impressive. A Cobalt website and PowerSEO client, Carter Volkswagen has increased monthly web traffic by 1,000 visitors year over year, and also ranks #1 in paid and organic search for top keywords.



Jennifer's "why buy" approach works for three reasons:

• It resonates with the eco-conscious Seattle community
  
• It aligns with the OEM brand equity while still achieving its own creative twist
  
• It inspires car-shopper loyalty by keeping Carter present throughout the entire shopping journey with powerful multichannel marketing

Jennifer Moran is a true thought leader and a successful business person. She also happens to be a killer speaker. Join us for her upcoming webinar...



Thursday, July 11th | 8:30am PST / 11:30am EST

Hear the rest of Jennifer's inspiring story and learn a three-step formula for building a winning “why buy” message in your dealership.

Register Today

 

 

How to Sell to Younger The Generation Using Mobile

Both your current and future buyers are mobilized. Almost the entire millennial generation will have mobile phones by the end of the year, 75% are expected to use smartphones and 8 in 10 affluent consumers over 21 already do. Mobile is even strongly embraced by the 35-44 and 45-55 age brackets.

And, while you might be creating mobile websites, ads or apps, appealing to the mobile shopper of any age isn’t just about the technology. You have to appeal to their mindset.

Give Immediate Attention

Look at your phone. You likely have zero unread texts and a heap of unopened emails, even though Forrester says 6 billion text messages are sent each day. Texts embody the right-here-right-now immediacy that people love about mobile tech in general...and are starting to demand when they’re car shopping.

One step toward meeting that demand is treating mobile shoppers like they’re on your lot. You wouldn’t greet a customer face-to-face, get their contact information, and send them on their way for you to call back. Yet many dealers do that with car shoppers in their virtual showroom who have questions. It turns a customer ready to talk about a car right now into someone you’ll get back to later. And mobile shoppers aren’t sitting still. They’ll thumb their way right on over to your competitor’s site.

Reach Mobile Users with Dealer Chat & Text

Several technologies allow you to converse with your mobile shoppers in real time so they rarely have to wait. Live chat and mobile text are examples, and both can appeal to consumers who may prefer texting and chatting more than phone calls.

Here are a few strategies to consider:

• Include click-to-chat or text buttons as calls to action on mobile banner ads. Google’s data shows that click-through rates improve 6-8% for mobile ads with click-to-call functionality. Click-to-chat (or text) offers even more convenience, especially to shoppers who simply can’t call at that moment.
  
• Add these buttons to your mobile websites, third-party ad listings and social media to capture any questions that pop up while shoppers view your inventory.
  
• Be more available to talk with shoppers by using mobile chat apps (offered by chat providers). You don’t have to stay in the office to respond to these leads!
  
• Don’t annoy shoppers (or abuse their privacy) with text blasts. Use an inbound texting solution that lets the mobile shopper text you questions for response.

Technology aside, it’s the quick, real-time conversations as they’re researching that mobile shoppers crave. Such conversations can influence their end auto purchases...and there’s just no app for that. Are you willing to make the change?

Take the Challenge!

Go ahead, right now...check your cell phone. How many unread text messages do you have versus emails?

Tell us below in the comments!

[highlight color="#F0F0F0" font="black"]You can learn more aboutcreating that live, 24/7 presence with live chat and mobile text over on the CAO blog.[/highlight]