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1. Your links can be used to track your customers so companies like Facebook can show tailored made ads from your competition to your customers.
   
   This is not entirely true. Plus - you WANT customers to go to social so that YOU can serve them targeted ads. No one converts on the first visit to a dealer's site, so retargeting is a key part of any dealer's digital marketing strategy
   
   
2. They are off topic links
   
   How so? The dealership's social accounts are an extension of the brand of the dealership. Once a customer moves far enough down the funnel, part of their buying decision is which dealership they want to purchase from. Checking out social media can be a huge asset here. Plus, what about returning customers? Dealers should get as many customers as possible to their social profiles so they can get follows - then they can share targeted messages with customers AND run retargeting ads.
   
   
3. They bleed link juice to social media sites that should be going to pages on your website and helping you rank.
   
   "link juice" is a term that digital marketers made up - Google doesn't have any equivalent value or metric. But even so, linking to a site related to the dealership site would not "bleed" link juice (if it was a real thing, that's not how it works)
   
   
4. They break the visitors flow
   
   No, you're making the assumption that every visitor would click on them. People will CHOOSE to click on them to check out the dealership's accounts - which means it would be PART of the flow of their decision journey
   
   
5. Social media sites make billions with your content and will bury a post that links back to your website so why would you link?
   
   Sure, organic reach is pretty small nowadays - but they don't bury posts that link back to your site - plus, as mentioned in answers above, it's more about being able to run ads anyway
   
   
6. You should use social media sites to drive traffic back to your site.
   
   Not true - social is more for keeping current customers engaged. Sure, you can sell there too, but if dealers use it correctly, it's the best way to answer questions from people who are already customers - and the best way to keep them engaged so they'll come back for service and to buy again in the future. So - how will people find out about your social profiles if you don't have a link to them on your site?
   
   
7. Adding social media links can redirect visitors away from your site, undermining the primary goal of engagement, clicks, and conversions. This is likened to "sending guests off to someone else’s house" after inviting them to your party.
   
   The primary goal of your site isn't engagement, clicks, and conversions. The primary goal of your site is to provide answers to the questions that potential customers and customers are asking, so they'll end up buying from you. A dealer could have a ridiculously converting site that gets ZERO clicks and ZERO engagement and ZERO conversions... and again, you're making the incorrect assumption that everyone will click on the social media links. Check GA4 - it's a VERY small percentage of people who click on them, but that's why it's important to have them there. For that small percentage, they WANT to click the links because they're helping the customer to make a purchase decision.
   
   
8. Social media feeds or links can distract users with "shiny elements," reducing their likelihood of engaging with key website actions like exploring product pages or completing purchases.
   
   Same answer as the previous question
   
   
9. Social media platforms constantly change their algorithms, meaning traffic from these links can diminish unpredictably. Furthermore, embedding social feeds can create a disjointed branding experience if the visual styles don’t align.
   
   Google changes its algorithm all the time, you don't see dealers deleting their websites... Traffic could increase unpredictably as well - but the important thing isn't the traffic, it's engaging with customers to answer the questions they have...
   
   and no one is talking about embedding feeds - that's definitely not a good idea, because the feeds are irrelevant to anyone who's not far enough down the funnel
   
   
10. Embedded social feeds may inadvertently share user data with social platforms, raising privacy issues that could harm customer trust.
    
    Dealers shouldn't be embedding feeds on the site anyway...
    
    
11. Replicating social media posts on your website could lead to search engine penalties for duplicate content, negatively impacting SEO rankings.
    
    This is absolutely not true. Google doesn't work that way - and there's no such thing as a duplicate content penalty