3 Main Reasons Why Dealerships Should Use Foursquare

[ed.brooks]

Hi defcon5,

I feel a little silly saying "Hi defcon5", but I do appreciate your thoughtful response. I don't believe a dealer should just stick to the basics (nor did I say that), but I do appreciate that a dealer needs to prioritize. I also think they need to master the basics before chasing the next unproven shiny object.

My thought is, once your inventory is standing tall, then working on a (well thought out) Social Media Strategy makes a world of sense. Facebook and Yelp look to be adding location-based services very soon. I'd absolutely take advantage of those. And I would certainly "claim" my business on Foursquare even if I did little else with it for now.

Finally, you and I are in complete agreement that if a dealer can have a solid presence on Facebook, Twitter, their blog, and YouTube for a few hundred bucks - that's great. My point is if they end up devoting a disproportionate amount of time, in comparison to the potential short-term return, then they have a problem. Dealers needn't jump on every fad that is being peddled to them by some "guru".

And I honestly don't think that there will be a whole lot of catch up necessary , even if Foursquare really takes off. Also remember that even with the recent growth, they are still less than 1% of Facebook with much less usage per user - an average of 0.5 check ins per user per week.

 

[joe.pistell]

I believe ...snip... the real question is how much time should a digital dealership marketer devote to Foursquare (or even Facebook for that matter, unless you have a great strategy). When AutoTrader.com gets 15 million users a month, all of whom are actively shopping for a car, shouldn't that be where energy is spent? There, and at Cars.com and dealer websites? With only so much time in a day, if your cars aren't priced right, with lot's of solid pictures and great comments, why waste any of that time doing anything but getting those "basics" fixed?

Fish where the fish are and stop chasing shiny objects,...

Ed 100% gets It. He and I see eye to eye:

What many of us retailers need a mystery shopper that has a ranking system to score the quality of their internet merchandising. Look at this amazingly empty post: Colonie | Albany Chevrolet Dealer - DeNooyer Chevrolet - 2008 Chevrolet Suburban Sport Utility - $32,666 It's No options,no trim, nothing. Oh, but the comment for it is so helpful!

"Beautiful Suv!!! Very Spacious And A Great All Around Vehicle. It Has A Efficently Powerful Flex Fuel 5.3l V8 Engine With Four Wheel Drive. It's In Fantastic Condition And Drives Amazing. Retail Ready And Looking For A New Owner."
​

Talk about a profit sucker! Yuk. Oh! But they have a FB page!

This is one example of thousands of dealers all over the USA that have NO IDEA how bad their internet merchandising is. http://forum.dealerrefresh.com/f21/sm-rainbows-fairies-unicorns-1016.html

 

[ed.brooks]

Forrester Research just released a Report finding that most marketers should hold off on Foursquare and it's ilk. There's a good article in Advertising Age that looks at the findings. Forrester summed it up with "Potential Doesn't Match Hype . . . Yet"

I sure don't want to heat this thread up (again). I'm not a Social Media naysayer. I just don't think that Foursquare is ready for primetime... or a dealer's time. If you're a Starbucks, Pepsi or MickeyD's, you have the resources to play around with the bleeding edge. For the rest of us, resource allocation has to come into play.

@defcon - I don't think you need to keep your identity secret. If you can really take over a dealer's Social Media marketing for a few hundred dollars a month, and do a good job of it - be proud! (I assumed you were at LikeForce).

@Joe - Anytime I see eye to eye with you, I must be doing something right!

 

[merritt]

I'm not convinced with Foursquare. I see value to Yelp because the visitor's check in leaves a footprint on your Yelp page and the reviews are tied together nicely. But with Foursquare I can see the posts now:

"This POS car has gone in for service so many times I became mayor of the dealership on Foursquare."

That's pretty much my thoughts on it too. A dealership isn't visited repeatedly like Starbucks or the local tavern unless there is a problem.

 

[ktallman]

As you know, Matt - - I have been knee deep in this aspect of social networking for months. Foursquare, Gowalla and now Yelp. If you had asked me 18 months ago about Yelp, I would have rolled my eyes (as I was still trying to get the sound of chomping gum and the word "like" out of my head from a sales call with a 12 year old girl from Yelp in, um.. like.. San Francisco), but by adding the GEO Location check-in option as well as the "Duke" and "Duchess" titles, all within a site that has a purpose beyond stalker fooder... they really have changed the dynamic. Sure, you can't create locations in Yelp (like when my in-laws were in town and I created HELL as the location of my house and then checked into it for 6 straight days), but as legitimate businesses, we shouldn't be affected.

 

[kurbain]

Wow! This debate really heated up nicely!

Maybe it is too soon to say one way or the other how/where Foursquare is going to end up. It may die off. It may take off. It's hard to tell so early. If you can find a value in it, then by all means, give it a shot. It is important to believe in what you are doing so that you can give it the right amount of effort, giving it a fair chance to work well for you.

I was merely trying to let you know how it can be helpful, if you choose to give it a try. I did not cover every way in which it can be helpful, but gave you some ideas. I certainly know that Foursquare is not for every business, and very likely will have varying amounts of usefulness for car dealerships.These tools can have massive popularity in one city, and virtually no one using it in others. I recently began to do some work with a dealership in a small town in Texas - and there is literally no use in having a Twitter account there. So, you really need to plan for those variations.

Lastly, setting up Foursquare does not take much time at all. Once they confirmed my claim on my dealership, I was able to set up an offer in just a few minutes. Now, once it gains some momentum and you market yourself as being on Foursquare it will take a little bit more maintenance as you mark employees as employees and begin to watch your stats -- but this can be done efficiently if you set up a schedule. And everything is in one place - so a quick look-see and you are off to do other important tasks.

 

[DevBasu]

Foursquare's customer service definitely needs improvement, but I think it's a wise move to add in as much data to your dealership's 'venue' as possible to encourage customer loyalty, and to provide the search engines with good location info. Right now, Google's indexing foursquare locations at about 11,000 indexed pages a day, and you can bet this data will show up as local seo citations as well.

 

[Nathan Carr]

I remember seeing Foursquare show up in searches for our name. It started at page 3 then slowly moved all the way up to #11 then it fell back to page 4. I don't expect it to be real strong anytime soon.

 

[DevBasu]

Hey Nathan - One strategy we use for our clients right now is building links to not only their own site but to 3rd party sites such as Yelp and Foursquare. The IDEAL situation for any dealer would be to have multiple references to its website/business info on the same search result. Imagine if you could have your yelp, foursquare, merchantcircle, your own website, and other websites you advertise on on the same search for a search like "denver co honda dealer".

 

[merritt]

FTR: Foursquare says I'm the mayor of my house, but my wife still isn't convinced.