Social Media Marketing CAN Fuel Auto Sales – If Done Right

The headline of a May 2nd story at AutoNews.com was sure to rev the engines of social media marketing professionals everywhere: “Facebook: Fun – But Sells Few Cars.”

The story by David Barkholz cites two studies: an AutoTrader.com/R.L. Polk and Co. survey from summer 2010 showing that of 4,000 new and used car buyers polled, only 3 percent said social media had an impact on their purchasing decisions, and a Dataium study that tracked 1.5 million car shoppers online. Only 9,400 of them came to a dealer’s website from social media. (Dataium specifically targets the auto industry in its research on website visits.)

Representatives of two major auto dealers in Ohio and Connecticut are quoted in the story. One of them says he’s been experimenting with social media for four years with not a whole lot of success to show for that effort. The other is actually more optimistic, saying he’s selling about five cars per month via social media, although Barkholz points out that’s just 3 percent of his annual sales.

The gist of the story is that “vendors” (social media marketing agencies?) are hyping the impact of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube on actual sales. Yet AutoNews’s link-bait headline casts its own hype-shadow over key points in the story:

* The Dataium representative recommends that auto dealers should use social media like Facebook, saying in effect that nearly 600 million members is kind of tough to ignore;

* The Ohio auto dealer representative points to social media’s growing impact on search engine results. That’s a fairly recent development in algorithm research as Google and Bing have just begun to work Facebook and Twitter influence into their rankings;

* The AutoTrader.com/R.L. Polk and Co. survey is almost a year old.

Driving Auto Dealer Success

The real problem with the AutoNews story lies in the perception of how social media fits into any businesses’ overall marketing strategy, much less that of an auto dealership. Social media isn’t a fad or trend; it’s shifting the communications landscape and empowering consumers in a new and vital way. Social networks are recommendations engines that can be primed through tactics like brand monitoring, rapid real-time customer service, compelling non-commercial content and incentives/discounts.

Full disclosure: Splash Media has several auto dealer clients. Just two examples of how we jump-started their sales:

* Toyota of Irving, Texas used its email database to encourage customers to “Like” their Facebook page to access a $750 coupon. Result: five cars sold in one week.

* Those who were already Facebook fans of a Garland, Texas Volkswagen dealer could win an iPad by encouraging others to “Like” the Facebook page, test-driving a VW or having their car serviced at the dealer. The contest winner enjoyed the experience so much, she ended up buying a new Jetta.

The Right Social Media Fuel For Car Dealers

It’s our take that the research data in the AutoNews story might be a little…well, dated, considering how fast small, medium and large companies have adopted social media just in the past year. There’s also the question of why the Ohio auto dealer, after four years of social media experimentation, has only 322 fans for its Facebook page.

It may be because, as Gary Vaynerchuk says, they and other dealers may not be putting enough energy, people or resources into the mix. They haven’t really committed to social media – and may indeed need outside help. Vaynerchuk, social media consultant and video blogger extraordinaire, says as much in Chapter 3 of his new book, “The Thank You Economy.”

The chapter’s title, “Why Smart People Dismiss Social Media, And Why They Shouldn’t,” lists 11 excuses businesses give as to why they won’t use/are no longer using social media, and Vaynerchuk knocks down each one in order. The one that may apply to auto dealer naysayers? “We tried it: It doesn’t work.” The real culprit here is a lack of patience, says Vaynerchuk, since social media requires longer-term thinking. And those outside critics who continue to label social media as hype, he adds, are “like people who have never seen a bicycle who try to pedal with their hands, then toss the thing aside, declaring it a waste of time and impractical for transportation.”