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Social Media - Keep In House Or Contract Outside???

CARBIZ

Made Draw
May 17, 2010
34
19
First Name
Evan
We have been at this Facebook and Twitter thing for a few years now and I am contemplating paying an outside company to take over. We are nervous it may not be quite as personal though. We finally reached 500 fans but I see other competitors that have a few thousand. I think we have the customers base so it is just a matter of the best practice.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Specific Companies?
 
I actually just sat through a product presentation with a facebook management company and what I found is that it matters not how many likes and followers you have as much as the information you're putting out there, combined with the quality of people liking you. These facebook company's can get thousands of people to like you, but it's often buy saying things like "like us to register for a free ipad" or something like that. Those people don't care what you have to say. If you gained 500 likes on your own and you're maintaining a personal message on a regular basis, there's probably nothing an outside company will do except free up your day. This is must my opinion, but I've been looking into this hard for the past few weeks and I can't come up with a reason to pay someone to administer our facebook page, and ours isn't even any good. I'll be interested to know what the rest of the community thinks...
 
I actually just sat through a product presentation with a facebook management company and what I found is that it matters not how many likes and followers you have as much as the information you're putting out there, combined with the quality of people liking you. These facebook company's can get thousands of people to like you, but it's often buy saying things like "like us to register for a free ipad" or something like that. Those people don't care what you have to say. If you gained 500 likes on your own and you're maintaining a personal message on a regular basis, there's probably nothing an outside company will do except free up your day. This is must my opinion, but I've been looking into this hard for the past few weeks and I can't come up with a reason to pay someone to administer our facebook page, and ours isn't even any good. I'll be interested to know what the rest of the community thinks...

Bingo!

In my opinion Social Media has to grow on its own and it has to be personal. We actually outsource our social media, however we do update it daily with a personal touch. Our outsourcing company writes our content and posts our inventory...we post the local pictures, videos and responses.
 
In my opinion Social Media has to grow on its own ...

In a perfect world it should
In a perfect world dealers should have thousands of positive reviews without even asking for it

I bet we can come up with a long list on things that should happen on its own...

I think you should outsource it. You should find a LOCAL company that understands your market and let them do it for you; however, make sure you keep an eye on it.

Like most dealers, you probably give lots of money to local schools, sport teams, charities etc, bring those donations on FaceBook, turn them into some kind of contest and get your local community involved ... you will be surprised how quick it can grow.

Or simply ask: http://www.dealerrefresh.com/does-social-matter/
 
My FB game plan is to ignore it as long as I can ;-)


Love this. Facebook isn't worth investing a bunch of time or money into. Setup your page, add content, photos, etc, build fans up a few hundred. Add content once a month or so when you have time and let it be. Facebook is good for only two things: Small talk with people who have way too much free time, and a portal to let customers rant about whatever you did wrong at the dealership. When in the first place, they should have just contacted the manager. 95% of companies have people complain on Facebook, they respond by call this number and speak to this manager, and it's done..

Anyone who says because of Facebook they are selling 10 or even 100 more cars a month is full of it, period. And if you want to argue retention value since you're "connected on Facebook" let's compare this. What's worth more? A salesperson calling them once a month to check in or a facebook page they post things on.. Either way customers are connecting. I would much rather calls be made than for social networks to be a form of contact. Regardless you should be doing call followups anyways, Facebook isn't needed.

I know we've had a 10+ page thread about this before, but just saying it again.
Put your money elsewhere..
 
Uncle Joe Rule #413

Your management might be clueless If...

... your company is investing time and resources building a FaceBook following and your sales reps don't take pics of their deliveries, tag & post them to their facebook, then, use the Customers smart phone to photo them in front of their new ride so the customer can post it right to their own page (while coaching the customer to mention their experience and drop your name)
 
Reality check: FB +Car Dealer = ignore

FaceBook success is partially measured by the number of fans you acquire. The real hallmark of a hot social media process is measured in how many replies and likes your FB content gets.

To put it another way...

Why give away ipads and trips to the tropics to jack your fan count If your FB audience ignores you days later?
 
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The sinning that is still taking place via dealer FB pages makes me rather annoyed, because the acceptable ways to go about getting legitimate user engagement (and thus some kind of positive result from your time being spent) is about as easy to find as tomorrow's weather forecast.

PseudoPro-Tip: engage your audience with hot-off-the-press current events and other worldly happenings that they will immediately be drawn into and then - if you've got your timing right - at the end of reading the story, they will also say to themselves "awesome, I'm going to be the first to share this with my friends!" and then BOOM 350 mostly-local people see "Johnny Rebel re-posted an article originally posted by Mr.DealerMan" and then 28 of them re-post, etc and your simple yet effective method compounds engagement and spreads your name like SARS through the crowded cyber streets of FB.

GOOD STATUS UPDATE:


"Cash Mobs" gather to splurge in locally owned stores

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Flash mobs have been blamed as a factor in looting during urban riots. But now a group of online activists is harnessing social media like Twitter and Facebook to get consumers to spend at locally owned stores in cities around the world in so-called Cash Mobs.



BAD STATUS UPDATE:

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