Holy set it and forget it Batman.....I would think that even if you were to outsource you Social Media 100% you would still be watching. To piggy back on Jared (sorry I'm trying to lose those extra pounds) if you don't know the babysitter wouldn't you set up a babysitter cam???? As Brian points out 5 mins a week. At the least take that 5 minutes and set up some Google alerts. I complain about how busy I am but I'd rather complain about that then being unemployed!!!!
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When Your Dealers Social Media Goes Extremely Wrong
- Thread starter Jeff Kershner
- Start date
It just proves that dealers are still buying the bright shiney "this will solve all your problems" objects. There are so many options available for dealers to handle their social media, reputation management etc. in house. What it boils down to is a willingness to learn and grow. I love Jareds analogy, but these folks just left the kid in the car while they sat at the bar playing joker poker.
Dear Jeff and the DealerRefresh Community:
My name is Alex Luft and I'm the E-marketing and Social Media manager at Phil Long Dealerships. Firstly, I would like to thank you for your article, as it sheds a considerable amount of light on the issues I've been having in attempting to delete the accounts you outlined -- include the Twitter account as well as the Community Page.
In short, I've been trying to remove the Ning Community page (PhilLongCommunity.com) and its associated Twitter account (@phillongcomm) for the last month and a half. Needless to say, neither is a shining example of communications -- or social media. As far as I know, both were created by third parties; since that time, we've brought all of our social efforts in-house. The third-party in question can not find the logins for either account -- and for the last month, I've been hard at work trying to remove both accounts via the proper communications channels with Twitter and Ning.
This has proven to be more difficult than expected -- since reporting the Twitter account to Twitter's @Spam bot has not resulted in the account being removed -- and contacting Ning is nigh impossible. The moral of the story is that things go down hill when
1) you don't have access to an account
2) the third party that created the accounts in the first place can't find the login info, and
3) getting in touch with someone at busy startups such as Twitter and Ning is a greek legend
It goes without saying that I will continue in my quest to remove these accounts from the face of the internet -- and would appreciate help from the DealerRefresh staff and community in bringing Twitter's and Ning's attention to the matter.
Having said that, here are some examples of Phil Long Dealerships' newly-established social media efforts:
facebook.com/mbcoloradosprings
facebook.com/phillongford
We're starting our social efforts slow and steady and will be picking up steam over the next two months. By that time, we certainly hope to be "knocking it dead," with an article on the front page of DealerRefresh.
Sincerely,
Alex Luft
E-marketing and Social Media Manager, Phil Long Dealerships
My name is Alex Luft and I'm the E-marketing and Social Media manager at Phil Long Dealerships. Firstly, I would like to thank you for your article, as it sheds a considerable amount of light on the issues I've been having in attempting to delete the accounts you outlined -- include the Twitter account as well as the Community Page.
In short, I've been trying to remove the Ning Community page (PhilLongCommunity.com) and its associated Twitter account (@phillongcomm) for the last month and a half. Needless to say, neither is a shining example of communications -- or social media. As far as I know, both were created by third parties; since that time, we've brought all of our social efforts in-house. The third-party in question can not find the logins for either account -- and for the last month, I've been hard at work trying to remove both accounts via the proper communications channels with Twitter and Ning.
This has proven to be more difficult than expected -- since reporting the Twitter account to Twitter's @Spam bot has not resulted in the account being removed -- and contacting Ning is nigh impossible. The moral of the story is that things go down hill when
1) you don't have access to an account
2) the third party that created the accounts in the first place can't find the login info, and
3) getting in touch with someone at busy startups such as Twitter and Ning is a greek legend
It goes without saying that I will continue in my quest to remove these accounts from the face of the internet -- and would appreciate help from the DealerRefresh staff and community in bringing Twitter's and Ning's attention to the matter.
Having said that, here are some examples of Phil Long Dealerships' newly-established social media efforts:
facebook.com/mbcoloradosprings
facebook.com/phillongford
We're starting our social efforts slow and steady and will be picking up steam over the next two months. By that time, we certainly hope to be "knocking it dead," with an article on the front page of DealerRefresh.
Sincerely,
Alex Luft
E-marketing and Social Media Manager, Phil Long Dealerships
Jeff --
We noticed SPAMMY feed coming from the "community site" in our Twitter feed and looked into it back in September 2010. Purely as a courtesy, we brought it to this automotive group's attention thinking that they would want to take action or take down the site as it clearly reflected poorly on the group and their excellent reputation as a community oriented business. We forwarded a SlideShare presentation to management (http://bit.ly/gvgjlb) and communicated with them about it. We were told they had outsourced the "community site" but would be handling social media internally in the future. I am glad to see that Alex Luft has been brought in and is working so diligently to get the Ning site down. It is unfortunate that it is such a challenge to correct the problem.
There is nothing wrong with getting help with maintaining your social media presence, but it is simply not realistic to think that there is a solution out there that will let you just "set it and forget it." The lesson for all of us in this is that if you can't allocate internal resources to minimally keep an eye on your business's social media presence, you're better off not venturing into those waters.
We noticed SPAMMY feed coming from the "community site" in our Twitter feed and looked into it back in September 2010. Purely as a courtesy, we brought it to this automotive group's attention thinking that they would want to take action or take down the site as it clearly reflected poorly on the group and their excellent reputation as a community oriented business. We forwarded a SlideShare presentation to management (http://bit.ly/gvgjlb) and communicated with them about it. We were told they had outsourced the "community site" but would be handling social media internally in the future. I am glad to see that Alex Luft has been brought in and is working so diligently to get the Ning site down. It is unfortunate that it is such a challenge to correct the problem.
There is nothing wrong with getting help with maintaining your social media presence, but it is simply not realistic to think that there is a solution out there that will let you just "set it and forget it." The lesson for all of us in this is that if you can't allocate internal resources to minimally keep an eye on your business's social media presence, you're better off not venturing into those waters.
We will 
-- but we'll do it all in-house -- and will have complete control of the content and functionality.
Alex Luft
E-Marketing and Social Media Manager, Phil Long Dealerships
-- but we'll do it all in-house -- and will have complete control of the content and functionality.Alex Luft
E-Marketing and Social Media Manager, Phil Long Dealerships
A lot of industry folks are capitalizing on this dealers misfortune... ; ( No tweeting or reposting of links to promote this mishap from this direction... To point out that the real issue here is that the dealer did not control the keys (passwords) to their kingdom is hind sight... Every dealer should retain / have the ability to alter / cease their digital marketing efforts at a moments notice. Good Selling, DTG
First, I would never use Ning for a reputation based community. It's probably one of the worst "white labeled" social platforms out there. SPAM runs a muck, if you aren't on top of it day and night.
Twitter are hard people to get a hold of. Ning, a little less harder--but still, sometimes-challenging.
Always keep an up-to-date list of vendors, login links, the account's email address, usernames and passwords. Demand it from third party vendors and NEVER let a vendor register a domain name for you.
Twitter are hard people to get a hold of. Ning, a little less harder--but still, sometimes-challenging.
Always keep an up-to-date list of vendors, login links, the account's email address, usernames and passwords. Demand it from third party vendors and NEVER let a vendor register a domain name for you.
woops, posted that too early. What I meant to say was
If you run a blog for your stores, BEWARE phishing attack on your CMS systems like wordpress!
I've had 2 attacks. Need to check your webmasters account to see if your AOK.
If you run a blog for your stores, BEWARE phishing attack on your CMS systems like wordpress!
I've had 2 attacks. Need to check your webmasters account to see if your AOK.
