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Slide 1: marketingsolution RalphPaglia WHY DEALERS NEED A SOCIAL MEDIA AND REPUTATION MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, PART 1 Social Networking: An Introduction I’ve been selling cars for more than 28 years, and using digital marketing to do it for 23 of them. I first started using digital marketing in 1986 by posting “liner ads” on defense contractor Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) while working at a Volkswagen dealership in San Diego. Car guys who have known me for any length of time know that almost everything I have predicted over the years in regards to how the Internet would affect selling cars has come to pass, and within the time frames I predicted. So, here’s what I know is coming at us right now, without any hedging of bets or wavering. 2.0.” This Web-empowered social evolution is building up to a tsunami-sized wave, and the impact will make any previous influence the Internet has had on the car business during the past 14 years look mild in comparison. Over the next few issues, we’ll be looking at how to harness these new tools to build more business. Before we go any further, consider these words of caution: For many dealers, this type of social media initiative will attract the attention of customer segments that your sales and management teams may have had very few previous opportunities to deal with. Because many of these customer segments have not been interacting with your sales people in recent years, your team will need to develop some new skills and get used to communicating in different ways if they want to successfully engage with them. What is Social Media Marketing? I have learned that, for car dealers, “social marketing” is essentially whatever tactics can be used to engage automotive consumers in a positive way when they are spending time in various social networks and UGC sites. This can be as simple as placing an advertisement on Facebook that targets people in the dealer’s local market, providing an invitation to join the online community of like-minded consumers that is sponsored by the dealership. In this community, there are no ads, and it is free to local owners of the dealer’s brand. Today, automotive consumers spend far more time online visiting their social networks and UGC sites like YouTube and Flickr than anywhere else on the Internet. The amount of time automotive consumers spend here dwarfs the time they spend looking at Google search results, automotive Web sites or any other type of online site. This means that social marketing is fishing where the fish are. More on that next issue. Ralph Paglia is the director of digital marketing at ADP Dealer Services. He can be contacted at 866.883.9250, or by e-mail at rpaglia@autosuccessonline.com. Social media is changing the way people get their information. It’s moving customer information sources further away from marketers and their advertising channels (that would be you), and closer to the people that they relate to and interact with in their online communities. Social networks, usergenerated content (UGC) sites, and all their variations make up what people call “Web the #1 sales-improvement magazine for the automotive professional 1 5