Does Facebook work for dealers

[Brian Tucker]

Wait a minute this looks much more pleasing, is this the same car?
2008 Volkswagen R32 - Reviews

 

[hagen85]

I've been working it for a while and have had some positive response from it. Check out this article.

Car dealership using social networking sites to help drive business | Business | Star-Telegram.com

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Wait a minute this looks much more pleasing, is this the same car?
2008 Volkswagen R32 - Reviews

Yup..same car. Still want it.

 

[DogbertBH]

Yesterday a friend on Facebook (Whom I have not seen in over 20 years) made a post about his dissatisfaction with the CARS program and how hard it was to understand. I replied and engaged him in a chat where we set an appointment.

He and his wife came in last night and bought a used van and traded in the one he had because it would have been a 1MPG difference and did not qualify for CARS.

Later last night he told his 356 facebook friends how much we rock and people should come here.

One response was a friend of his who I found out uses us for service and agreed.

I have no doubt we will get more from this.

It works if you work it - like everything else we do.

-Bobby

 

[hagen85]

Yesterday a friend on Facebook (Whom I have not seen in over 20 years) made a post about his dissatisfaction with the CARS program and how hard it was to understand. I replied and engaged him in a chat where we set an appointment.

He and his wife came in last night and bought a used van and traded in the one he had because it would have been a 1MPG difference and did not qualify for CARS.

Later last night he told his 356 facebook friends how much we rock and people should come here.

One response was a friend of his who I found out uses us for service and agreed.

I have no doubt we will get more from this.

It works if you work it - like everything else we do.

-Bobby

That's exactly what it is all about. Gaining people's interest thru networking = opportunity of engagement.

 

[joe.pistell]

Finally! I get the FaceBook connection. Some times I am as dumb as a rock.

thnx Dog.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Alex posted this on another thread. I thought it was relevant to this thread as well...of course many of us are not technically Gen Y but there is an overlap and I also believe that there are influences between generations.

JD Power Gen-Y Webinar

Thanks for my old intern for bringing this to my attention. Unfortunately if you wanted to listen, it is too late. It happened yesterday, but here are some highlights:

* Generation Y will trump the economic impact on America that the baby-boomers had
* In their teens (from 2007 statistics) Gen Y spent nearly $2 Trillion
* Gen Y is more about spending big on technology than spending big on a car
* Gen Y averages 3 hours per day online - mostly on facebook and other social media sites
* Gen Y cares more about reviews than advertisements
* Gen Y does not respond to advertisements like previous generations - they like to build relationships
* Gen Y does more research on purchases than any other generation

Sure sounds like our kind of customers!

-----------

Another reason why social sites are having a tough time monetizing.

 

[DogbertBH]

I was surprised to read the line "They like to build relationships"

Everything I've ever seen regarding Gen Y (And Gen X for that matter) is that they do NOT build relationships and continue to research and price everything every time.

In any case - I know I'm trolling Facebook and Twitter for the next hot lead :P

-Bobby

 

[NickCybela]

I agree with Jeff that sales people should be the ones social networking. However, dealers should be monitoring their reputation and continuing to further their brand presence and appeal. That can be a great opportunity with the right staff, image, or managed solution (like ours. *end shameless plug*).

Bobby, generation Y is an information generation. They're looking at you, your competitor, and your competitors competitor before they even consider giving you a call. Given that, price is a losing battle anyway. By telling your story and engaging them you're more likely to have the opportunity to close the lead, really, regardless of price. The feedback I've directly gotten when I was working on the dealership level was extremely positive specifically on Twitter.

 

[JohnScott]

I agree with Jeff that sales people should be the ones social networking. However, dealers should be monitoring their reputation and continuing to further their brand presence and appeal. That can be a great opportunity with the right staff, image, or managed solution (like ours. *end shameless plug*)..

I agree with all of the positive comments made, and also agree with Nick, in that you do have to be careful.

The moment you start using your page to promote your business it no longer becomes a personal page, you really have to be careful about your user settings, your friends. If someone were to post something to your wall that was inappropriate it could backfire on you. Same goes for comments, it is the internet, and like email, or forum posts, yours or someone else's comments can sometimes be taken the wrong way. You just have to be careful, set your options up correctly, and MONITOR your page more than you may currently be doing.

Also, dont forget about joining groups, and networking that way, there are thousands of automobile related groups.

Last but not least, DIGG. If you could manage to get your dealer to the front page for some reason you would probably find your website crashing from visits that day. Not only that, from that point on whenever someone did research on dealerships in your area there's a good chance you would have better placement in the search results.