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| Social Media—the Auto Dealership’s New Secret Weapon |
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| Written by Jared Hamilton |
| Tuesday, 01 December 2009 14:49 |
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How Dealers Are Collaborating Their Way to Success
Within the last ten years, the internet has become completely mainstream; connecting our world like never before, it has become an incredible, vast social network. With a reported 67 percent of the global online population now visiting ‘member communities,’ including social networks/blogs1, it is no surprise that social media is proving to be a powerful business-to-business tool.
As we all know, the economic realities of the automotive industry have been bleak, with shrinking car sales, disappearing margins, and the inability of dealers to turn a profit on new car sales. These challenges, however, are proving to be a catalyst for the adoption of social media by our industry, starting with B2B social media on websites that offer open, objective, collaborative forums. These networks are not only useful in helping our industry navigate through the crisis and into the future, but they also help foster a familiarity with the advantages of this powerful form of communication.
There are multiple ways that B2B social media platforms can benefit dealerships. For example, on DrivingSales.com, dealers can collaborate with each other through forums, discussions, and blog postings, solicit advice about industry challenges and issues—such as Cash4Clunkers, contribute and rate industry news, ‘Tweet,’ Facebook, and RSS, post and watch videos, network with each other, and, perhaps most importantly, utilize vendor ratings.
Dealers struggle on a daily basis to make smart spending decisions on the scores of vendors and best practices solutions they are bombarded with, getting more information through social media can be a significant benefit as Matt Haiken of Prestige Volvo of New Jersey found out: “With all the forums and postings, not only was I able to get more educated about SEO in general, but the precise vendor ratings gave me an invaluable industry reference point on how each vendor was performing and who I should be talking to.”
Online vendor ratings are a classic B2B example of user generated content and are proving to be a great way for dealers to experience firsthand the credibility of this kind of content. While consumer reviews have provoked a lot of controversy in the industry, they are an integral part of the social media and, more and more, the way consumers and business people are able to assess value—something that Andrew DiFeo GM of Hyundai of St. Augustine put into action to great effect: “One of our industry’s biggest challenges is consumer trust, and our high volume of positive customer reviews provides us with tremendous credibility. Because of things we’ve learned online at automotive B2B blogs and forums, our web traffic has increased by 40 percent, we’ve nearly doubled our monthly sales, and are having one of our best months, when the industry is experiencing one of its worst.”
By December 2008, 32.5 percent of business professionals were reporting that they use online social networks for professional purposes daily—with 80 percent using them at least once a week2. Today, auto dealers are quickly becoming some of the most passionate, engaged, leading edge B2B social media users—using that experience not only to learn and collaborate, but to understand how to use social media to communicate with the car buyer of today…and of tomorrow.
(1) Nielsen Research Report 4.2009
(2) Biz Info & Blackline Survey 12.2008
Jared Hamilton is a third generation auto dealer and founder and CEO of DrivingSales.com, the auto industry’s leading social media platform and largest online community. To read about how other dealers are benefitting from B2B social media, you can access DrivingSales.com’s Social Media Case Study at www.drivingsales.com/casestudy.
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