If you have ever heard me speak or heard one of our webinars, you’re most certain to have heard me say this. I believe it so much that I have it on the back of my business cards.  Every opportunity I get to have the ear of a dealer I try to stress this point. Social media is not just a sales tool; it is a marketing/relationship building/reputation management tool.

Erik Qualman wrote an amazing book about social media entitled Socialnomics and one of my favorite quotes that he says is this: “Why are we trying to measure social media like a traditional channel anyway? Social media touches every facet of business and is more an extension of good business ethics.”

This quote speaks to two important facets of social media. First, trying to measure results which is obviously one of the largest challenges, we will be addressing in coming editions of this magazine. Second and more important to this article is that social media is good business ethics which is not a sales or a service thing, it’s an entire dealership thing.

Let’s look at a common situation that happens in most dealerships across the country and add a social media strategy to increase the impact.

Dealership Sponsors Little League Baseball Team

Most dealerships will sponsor a local team at some point or another. How does this process normally go for a dealer? First the dealer writes a check. Then, he forgets about it until the coach of the team brings a team photo to the dealer as a sign of the appreciation. Last, that photo ends up on the wall of the service waiting room.

Nice, shows community involvement which is extremely important for a local business but who sees this picture? Your existing service customers, the people that already love you! Let’s see how we can influence some other people and get people talking, all while not coming across as a self promoter.

At that meeting where you hand the check to the coach, ask him for game photos, updates on the team, winning pitchers, star performers, pictures of the team training, after game pizza party photos, tournament and league updates; basically everything that is happening with the team.

Now you have constant updates and content being sent to you about “your” team. Take this information and share it on your social networks. Post about the home run Johnny hit and congratulates him. Imagine Johnny’s proud parents are going to be telling everyone they know to go check out the publicity Johnny is getting from ABC Motors.

You can also create a page of your blog about following the team through, on their road to greatness. Post a link on your website and this is sure to get traffic to your blog.

Invite the team to your dealership for a pizza party and autograph signing party. Treat “your” team like they are super stars. Again, every parent will be singing the praises of your dealership to every one of their friends!

Getting Other Departments Involved

What about getting video testimonials in the F&I department? Ask a handful of customers a month if they would let you shoot a quick video of them explaining why they purchased a service contract or GAP or financed with the dealership instead of going to their credit union. Take these videos and share them on video sites as well as upload them to your Facebook page.

How about getting Google reviews from your service department? Your service writers see a lot more customers than your sales people do, have them ask for reviews. Ask if a customer has a Gmail account and if so let them put a review in right there on an iPad or an iPhone with the Google Places app.  If they don’t have a Gmail account, have business cards printing up customers asking them to give you a review on Google when they get home.

How about having Facebook day in parts and service? Create a coupon that can only be found on Facebook for people to print out and bring into the dealership on a certain day. Chose a day of the week that historically slow in the back of your dealership so that you will be able to handle the increase in traffic.

How about getting pictures of before and after work from your body shop? Take these and share on all your social networks. Create a page specifically for these on your blog. Put them in a slide show and share them on your video sites. Bonus tip: Every new car delivery says to introduce new car customers to the service manager, add the body shop manager. A lot of people probably don’t even know you have a body shop. Everyone likes to do business with people they already know, like and trust!

How about finding new Fleet customers through LinkedIn? LinkedIn is the number one professional networking site and there are big opportunities to interact with decision makers of companies.

How can social media help you hire better quality people? Quality people want to work for quality employers. Your reputation, how you’re viewed in the community, will play a role in some people looking for a career with your dealership.

This is only scratching the surface of what can be accomplished by incorporating a social strategy throughout your dealership.  What are some of the other ways you are using social media in your dealership?

365 Days Of Engagement

Influencing Word of Mouth & Creating Customer Loyalty

Reminder: Clicking on any picture will take you to where the picture is being hosted, you can either share the link or save the picture on your hard drive before uploading it.

Easy to remember and easy to say: Funny Is Money! Today is all about humor and making people laugh. If you take a look at what most people are sharing you will notice that a huge percentage of them are funny pictures, videos and even jokes. Humor has it’s way of making a dealership seem less sterile and more human. Below you will find a bunch of ideas, all aimed at getting your community to engage you, we’ve even included a section for Twitter (140 characters or less)

Keep in mind that each social network has its own terms of service and as such you must be careful with what you post (contests mostly). If you’re doing a giveaway on Facebook, try the Wildfire App.

Facebook, Google + and Others

It’s always a good idea to ask an engaging question in order to get some sort of feedback and to get a conversation started. If you were to post this picture, along with the first part of the comment, you would get a bunch of likes, but by asking the question you will get comments, thus a deeper level of engagement.

Comment: “HELP! I need a caption for this picture, be as silly as you want!“These types of pictures are a great way to not only make people laugh but to get people that would normally not engage you, to engage you. Sometimes you will have to give you own captions to keep things moving along. Here’s an idea, once you have a 5 or so people leaving captions offer up a $25 gift card for the caption with the most likes (if you are doing this on Facebook). This will get everybody involved petitioning on their own profiles and will land you more likes.

Comment: “Mad Lib Time! Give me an adjective, type of job, verb, color, animal and another verb. I’ll give you the script in 3 hours, funniest one wins a free oil change! (Keep it clean please!)”

3 Hours Later Post: “Plug your answers in and re-post on our wall. Mad Lib Script (Personal Ad): I’m a <adjective> well to do <type of job> with <color> hair that enjoys long <verb> in the park. If I were an animal I’d be a <animal> because I <verb> well.”

You can be as creative as you like with these, just keep it clean and neutral, as a side note you can Google “Mad Libs” and find pre-made scripts! What makes these so great is that most people remember these from when they were kid, they’re different and they can be really funny!

Comment: “What’s your favorite comedy of all time, movie or sitcom?”

You can follow it up by placing a link to a YouTube video, such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjbN6CqK7oc <– You’re going to have to click on it to find out, you know you want to!

Twitter

While you have 140 characters to use on Twitter, try to keep it less than 120 if possible, this will give people room to RT you without the end being cut off.

• Tweet: I’m amazed, how did my grandfather ever get through school without Google and Wikipedia?
• Tweet: I think Gillette should start making toilet paper, we would be up to 6 ply by now!
• Tweet: Would you rather exercise at the gym or exercise restraint at meal time?
• Tweet: I’m curious, what did Lady GaGa dress up as this Halloween?

This module was written a little different than the rest. It wasn’t written from a dealerships point of view because I wanted to take it out of the car business for a moment so that you can better grasp the idea behind connecting around a social object. Sometimes it’s easy to talk about a product we aren’t as familiar with to really drive the point home.

What is a social object? A social object is a conversation piece that inherently generates conversation and action around itself. A social object can be just about anything, it can be a news piece, a cause such as ending world hunger, a passion such as the love one has for their favorite football team, or even a lifestyle such as surfing.

A great example of a social object, one that we are all familiar with, is the iPhone. Have you seen the number of forums and groups dedicated to iPhone owners? There are thousands of them, all based around the iPhone, and there are literally hundreds of conversations going on right now about them. I’ve seen conversations happen between complete strangers surrounding the ever present device and its many apps.

All social objects have 3 things in common, they are:

1. Conversational: people want to talk and have conversations with other people connected with the social object.
2. Brings People Together: people want to be around other people that are connected with the social object. They feel part of a community, that they belong with each other.
3. Talk Worthy: people feel the desire to tell other people, who may not know about the social object, so that they, in turn, become part of the community.

When a person, place, thing or idea has all three of these things, it will grow bigger due to rampant word-of-mouth and the growth of community. There are two main types of social objects out there. The first is the actual brand, businesses such as Nike and Apple, Ford and even open source software such as WordPress. All of these command attention and get people talking, each one, in and of themselves is talk worthy and they bring people together.

Most business don’t have a strong enough brand whereas their product or business demands the kind of attention that really gets people talking. In that case it’s best to take a look at the product or service they sell and figure out what their customers are interested in, this is the second type of social object, one that already has an engaged community around it, let me give you an example.

Recently, I had the pleasure of consulting with a company called Magna Manufacturing, who manufactures and sells EPS foam based products, such as their LoBoy Foam Cooler. Most of us are familiar with those cheap, easily broken foam coolers but what Magna Manufacturing brings to the table, with its Loboy brand, is something totally different. Their foam coolers, while a couple dollars more, aren’t easily broken at all, in fact they have a few images on their site of a truck resting on the tops of these coolers, needless to say their product trumps the competition. So, how would we use the idea behind harnessing the power of social objects, around a product that people don’t put much thought into? Easy, we take a look at what the coolers are used for and we identify with the ways they are used. In other words we ask ourselves three questions:

1. What social causes can be supported by the use of our EPS foam coolers?
2. What lifestyles are supported or made easier through the use of our EPS foam coolers?
3. What are our customers passionate about that relate to the use of our EPS foam coolers?

It’s in the answers to those question about social causes, lifestyles and passions that help us to identify a number of different social objects, that we are able to connect around. Let’s go ahead and answer them now so that you get a better idea of how to discover your own social objects.

What social causes can be supported by the use of our EPS foam coolers?

Since Loboy coolers are stronger, more durable and don’t leak, Magna Manufacturing can donate a few hundred coolers to the Red Cross for domestic disaster relief. If you’ve ever been in a disaster area (I was during Hurricane Ivan and Dennis in Pensacola Fl.) you know the importance of ice and keeping things cold when there is no electricity for weeks at a time. So, Loboy can connect with groups, which there are hundreds of, that are dedicated to helping people in the U.S with disaster relief.

What lifestyles are supported or made easier through the use of our EPS foam coolers?

Fishing can be both a lifestyle and a weekend hobby, for those that it’s a lifestyle for, they are a tight knit group that loves to talk fish! Since Loboy coolers are made for life and not just the weekend they are a perfect complement to a fisherman’s already wide repertoire of equipment. I remember going finishing with my grandfather growing up, each week we would stop by the bait shop, grab some ice, along with a foam cooler or two before heading out to sea. Usually, at the end of the day the coolers were either leaking or broken and we would just throw them away.

What are our customers passionate about that relate to the use of our EPS foam coolers?

Easiest question of all to answer… sports! People are passionate about their teams, game watching parties and tailgating! There are many ways to connect with this social object, one that comes to mind would be to throw a tailgating party and invite people for free to partake of all the grilled goodness with cold drinks available in Loboy coolers!

It’s important to note that when connecting around social objects that you don’t use it as a way to pitch your product, rather as way to connect with, and become part of the community, by giving to it, not taking away. By connecting with the passion, cause or lifestyle related to the use of your product or service you are better able to identify with your customer and thus influence both new sales and word-of-mouth like never before. Remember, a social object is inherently talk worthy and if you, as a business owner, are able to promote the cause, passion, or lifestyle that your product or service promotes then you are well on your way to becoming synonymous with that particular social object. In other words YOU become more conversational, talk worthy, and gravitational.

By anchoring your social initiatives in something larger than your brand, a higher calling, you drive community participation through passion. By building a purpose-driven community you create a common bonding point between the dealership and it’s community, this is the surest way for community growth, participation, and an increase in ROI (return on influence).

The appeal to a higher calling builds organic growth that unites employees and communities behind a common cause that’s larger than both the dealership and its community members. The higher calling can be a shared passion, a way of life or a cause, as long as it’s something that people can rally behind and feel like their part of.

The Union County School Pride Project Example

Recently we put on a contest at Metro Honda of Union County, using the 4X4 Method of Social Contests Creation, connected with a cause and saw these results:

1. 6,182 likes were added by the end of the contest.
2. Facebook Insights (75 Days)

              a. 2, 765,886 Post Views
b. 44,178 Post Feedback

1. Collected over 18,000 canned goods for area food banks.
2. 487 Images Were Created
3. 138 Blog Posts Were Created
4. 91 Videos Were Created
5. Traffic to the blog averaged almost 4,000 per month during the contest.
6. 513 People showed up in person for the “Settle It On The Courts Challenge.”
7. 239 People showed up at the dealership for a Facebook Fan Appreciation Event
8. 18 Computers were donated by other businesses as well as lunch catered for the winning school (for the staff).

 All of that, for just $5,000!

Finding Your Purpose It’s important when finding a purpose that it’s aligned with who or what the dealership is. It’s important that the cause be the focus and that community members don’t start to think that the only reason you are pushing that specific cause, way or life or passion is because you are trying to earn more business. While that is most certainly the case, don’t approach it with that thought in mind. Instead just give, promote and grow the higher calling. I know that sounds counterintuitive, especially since marketing is all about pushing the dealerships agenda but if you spend your resources pushing fighting hunger, as an example, then you create a bonding point between the dealership and the community. It’s that bonding point that will spur organic growth and create good will.

Going forward, 2011 will see the rise of the human business and dealerships will be wise to approach social media this way or they run the risk of going by the way of the dinosaur. We are in the midst of a relationship economy and more and more people are putting emphasis on what others are saying, what others are thinking and what businesses are part of. Keep in mind that there is more to a dealership than the brick and mortar building, the lot, and the inventory, there are also people, people that make up the business and its the connection between those people and the community that will drive the dealership to new heights in the new year.

Starting today it’s time to redeveloped the core message of your dealership. Make it something community oriented, something that people can rally behind and become part of, something bigger and more grand than all of those involved, an ideal that goes beyond selling cars, beyond selling service and F&I products and becomes part of what people are passionate about.

ACTION STEP: I’ve asked this a few times now because it’s very important, what makes your community tick? What social objects is your community centered around? I really want you to dig deep and find out what social causes, locally, your dealership can rally around.

Instead of taking the time to explain this in the analytical sense, let’s get a little creative and create a fictional dealership, we will call it Next Gen Motors. Now, Next Gen Motors has an idea for a contest and in this contest they are giving away an iPad (not too imaginative I know but watch what they do with it!)

Two weeks out from the start of the contest they let everybody know through email, in-person, radio and their electronic billboard that they will be having a contest to win an iPad on their Facebook page. The contest rules state that there will be a series of challenges that will each account for a certain number of points, at the end of the contest (one month) the person with the most points will win the contest.

Now, keep in mind the four levels of engagement:

• Consumption
• Curation
• Creation
• Collaboration

Obviously we aren’t going to start right out having people create content, of course there will be some people who will but if this is done the right way we will be able to move people up the ladder of social engagement and generate more user generated content than if we went right for content creation. Remember, the 4 types of people that make up the online community as well:

• Consumers
• Engagers
• Influencers
• Brand Ambassadors

So, the first challenge would be something simple such as a trivia question(s). The reason we start off this way is because we want to get the consumers involved, if we asked for a video right up front, we would alienate some people that would have created a video if they already had some points assigned to them.

After a few days of trivia questions, Next Gen Motors decides that they want to ask an open ended question that has no wrong answer, the challenge sounds something like this:

For 10 points tell everybody what your dream vacation is, then get as many people to like your answer, on our page, as possible. We will give you one extra point for each like you receive. (Make sure that you take a look at the TOS of the social network you are using. Facebook wouldn’t allow this type of question to be asked so instead you could use a third party app such as the Wildfire App. There is a cost associated with it but not a whole lot.)

Think about what that does for a moment. First, it allows everybody to get 10 points, then it prompts people to ask all of their friends to like their comment and of course their friends can’t like their comment unless they first like Next Gen Motors page. I’ve seen this type of challenge alone add thousands, it all depends on how well you hype the contests ahead of time and how good the prize is.

Now that Next Gen Motors has a few players, they decide to up the ante a little bit by asking people to upload pictures of themselves  next to an iPad display in the next three days. Again, they gave points for the picture and points for each like on the picture. (Again, use the Wildefire App for this type of contest.)

Next Gen Motor then decides that they want to ask a few more trivia questions to bolster some points on the board. In fact, they even decide to give away giftcards for right answers, whether or not the right answer is in the contest or not. What this does, is enables the people that were invited by the people in the contest, to like their pictures, a chance to win something for themselves, thus creating more community engagement.

Now that there are 4 dozen or so people playing (some dropped off because they were too far behind) , it’s time to ask for videos. Next Gen Motors decides that they want to get as many videos created as possible so they word the video challenge like this:

For 50 points create a video explaining why you should win the iPad, somewhere in the video there should be the words Next Gen Motors. Then, receive one extra point for each person that likes it and an extra 15 if you are the most creative, as voted on by the employees of Next Gen Motors.(You guessed it, use a third party app such as the Wildfire App)

Since Next Gen Motors spent time building up the challenges, there was 24 videos created (We’ve seen hundreds in larger promotions), 62 images uploaded and 3,182 people added in 4 weeks. Thats the 4X4 method of running successful social media contests.

ACTION STEP: Create, on paper, a social media contest. Choose the prize, set up the challenges and assign points.

The Rule Of Reciprocation

The law of reciprocation states that one of the most widespread norms of human nature is the desire to repay what another has provided.  What this means is that if you give, people will feel obligated to return the favor.

Social Proof

Social media is all about social proof. Think about it: If people see you interacting in a positive manner with people in their peer group, they will feel more comfortable doing business with you.

Testimonials are a form of social proof and something you should proudly display for others to see. You could create a blog post for each sold customer along with a written or video testimonial. Never overlook the power of a testimonial! They are marketing gold, and each one should be displayed proudly for everyone to see.

Joining social media groups, such as those found on Facebook can be another way to gain social proof. If you live in Chicago and you are a member of a Chicago-based group that you are relatively active in, a potential customer can see you interacting in a positive way with other people and be influenced by the fact that you come across as being accepted by their peers.

Liking

People like to say ‘Yes’ to people they know and like. This whole book is about using social media to get people to know and like you. In his book Influence Robert Cialdini says there are a number of different ways to influence people to like you they are:

• Similarity: As a general rule we like people that are like ourselves, it makes us feel more comfortable. If we are comfortable we feel familiar and familiarity brings with it trust.
• Praise: Flattery is a very powerful motivator. Just don’t be transparent with it by doing it too often.
• Increased Familiarity: The more you interact with the people in your network, the better. Don’t be a single-serving friend! Give as much of yourself as possible by interacting more than once with people. Remember, building relationships takes more than a passing ‘Hello.’ Always keep your interactions as positive as possible. Be upbeat and personable at all times.
• Association: By associating yourself with things in your local market, that align with how you want to portray yourself, will influence others to like you that are also associated with that thing. For instance if you join a local group that goes out on a weekends to pick up litter then you are aligning yourself  with the other people in that group, this influences them to like you.
• Authority: We are taught from a young age to trust authority. There is a strong desire to obey orders. The reason for this is because an authority figure is seen as an individual that usually possesses high levels of knowledge, wisdom and power.

Treat Your “Online” Friends as “Real Life” Friends

A good rule of thumb is to treat your online friends as you would your offline friends. Never forget that just because you are sitting behind a computer or typing away on your cell phone that the people on the other end aren’t real. What you say or do in cyber space has real impact in real life.

One Sentence Persuasion

WARNING: This section may take you out of your comfort zone due to the shear depth it goes to, but I assure you if you were to master this one sentence and apply it to social engagement, powerful things will happen!

By Blair Warren:

Is it possible to capture and communicate anything of value about persuasion in a single sentence? It is and I’m about to prove it. But first, let me tell you why I’ve gone to this extreme.

Studying persuasion and influence is one of my deepest passions and has consumed an embarrassingly large amount of my time and energy for over a decade. I have family and friends who say my pursuit borders on obsession. They are wrong. It crossed the line long ago.

I know of no subject more fascinating, more empowering, more profitable, and unfortunately, more confusing. This confusion is more than unfortunate; it is also largely unnecessary.

Given the pace of today’s world, it has never been easier to be powerfully persuasive. Never. It doesn’t require good looks, a silver tongue or infallible logic. It doesn’t require confidence, charisma or a magnetic personality. It is a simple matter when one cuts through all the smoke. Cutting through the smoke is the hard part.

In fact, if you have yet to develop your persuasive powers to the level you want, it likely has nothing to do with you. Given the shell game of strategies and misinformation available, it is a wonder we’re still able to understand each other, much less persuade each other.

If this barrage of techno-jargon has left you more confused than empowered, take a deep breath and relax. We’re about to take aim at this confusion, blow away the smoke and make things as simple as possible. In fact, we’ll nail it down to a single sentence. Just twenty-seven words. And with these words we can work miracles.

But first, we must clear away some smoke.

Read The Rest Here: OneSentancePersuasion