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?

I decided to write this post after a comment I left on my Facebook Profile. it stated:

The Law Of Profitable Returns: As long as the value of your goods and services exceeds what was paid for them, then the profit received will always exceed your expectations.

The idea behind this law came from a comment that Bob Burg left on LinkedIn, it was a link to a blog post he had written that said: “Business is mainly about two things; providing truly exceptional value to those you serve…and making a profit.”

I responded to it by saying, “As long as the value given exceeds your profits, your profits will exceed your expectations. There is some kind of law we can create out of that I’m sure!“

He agreed and that’s when the idea of The Law Of Profitable Returns was born.

As I’m writing this I’m reminded of something I was told long, long ago, while selling Fords in Florida. I honestly don’t remember who said it but I remember the words very well, “David, selling cars is easy, all you have to do is show your customers why the car you’re trying to sell them is more valuable than their big stack of money.”

In other words, build so much value around your product or service that your customer desires or needs it more than the actual money it costs. Seems simple enough doesn’t it? That’s because it is! Value can be built in the product, yourself and the company, you should do whatever you can to build it in all three.

Always keep in mind that it’s one thing to build value and another one to exceed all expectations by building untold amounts of perceived value. I’ll give you a great example, Maggiano’s Little Italy in Denver. I’ve never been to a Maggiano’s before when my wife and I, along with our two children, were driving back home to Colorado Springs from Denver. We saw the building, and decided that we would take a detour and have some Italian for dinner. At first glance, you would think the prices would be insane because the restaurant’s exterior is absolutely beautiful. In fact, the picture doesn’t do it justice… you’ll just have to take my word for it!

In fact, my wife asked me, “you okay with taking the kids to an expensive restaurant?” I said yes and as we walked through the doors I noted that the inside was every bit as beautiful as the outside, for those of you that have been to this particular Maggiano’s, you know what I’m talking about. I remember walking in the bathroom, seeing the bathroom attendant and wiping my hands on hand towels that had the restaurants name on them and thinking, I wonder how much the lasagna is going be? After opening the menu I was shocked, not only was the the lasagna just $12.95 they would even give me another piece to take home!

That’s the kind of perceived value that I’m talking about. I was expecting to pay at least $20 for the lasagna and was blown away when I got two pieces for $12.95. You better believe that the next day, while I was eating some yummy lasagna, I couldn’t help but feel that I ripped Maggiano’s off.

What kind of perceived value are your customers leaving with? Are you following up after the sale as well to give them even more value? Are you giving them ample reasons to keep coming back and to tell others about you? Just look at what I just did, I wrote a blog post about Maggiano’s Little Italy, would your customers do the same? If not, why not? What can you do to build value, what can you do to make YOUR customers feel that they have ripped you off?

Always remember: As long as the value of your goods and services exceeds what was paid for them, then the profit received will always exceed your expectations.

Where are you building value?

Related posts:

1. Exceeding Expectations and Influencing Word of Mouth

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.

I created a video around this same topic geared toward auto dealers, check it out HERE.

In a future post I will be discussing how to connect along side a social cause, in the mean time, what are some social objects that you envision your business connecting around?

Related posts:

1. Social Objects – Connecting Around An Already Engaged Community
2. Three Ideals For Social Marketing Success, Part 1
3. [VIDEO] Creating Influence On Social Networks

Talking about the profit of social media I went into detail about how to find and connect with social objects in order to engage your community to influence both word-of-mouth and create brand loyalty. I had camera issues at the last minute so I decide to redo it and upload it for all of my awesome readers!

If you have any questions or comments, lets have a conversation in the comment section below.

In September I presented one-half of a workshop at the Industry Summit in Vegas titled, Profits and Pitfalls, Joining The Social Media Revolution.

Talking about the profit of social media I went into detail about how to find and connect with social objects in order to engage your community to influence both word-of-mouth and create brand loyalty. I had camera issues at the last minute so I decide to redo it and upload it for all of my awesome readers!

If you have any questions or comments, lets have a conversation in the comment section below.

Related posts:

1. Connecting With Your Customers On Facebook – Automotive Social Media Video
2. Finding Social Objects To Connect And Become Synonymous With
3. Creating Word-Of-Mouth Through The Creation Of Community

In both parts 1 and 2 of the Three Ideals For Social Marketing Success, I mentioned that success in social media boils down to three things:

1. The Development Of Relationships,
2. The Creation Of High Touch, Emotion Based Connections, and
3. Customer Enchantment (think customer service to the Nth degree).

Want to know the secret behind creating rampant word-of-mouth? Wait for it… wait for it: Give people something positive to talk about! I’ve blogged about this topic a few times before and the importance of going above and beyond your customer expectations, but in this post I’m going to be laying out the ground rules for customer enchantment.

Remember: it’s the difference between what your customer expects and the level of customer service received, that will dictate whether or not your customer talks about you. Failing to meet those expectations will create negative word-of-mouth, going above and beyond will create positive word of mouth, the choice is yours.

What does customer service have to do with social media? Simple, if you want to be part of the conversation that is happening in your customers social graph, with their connections, then you have to give them something worth talking about. This doesn’t just happen by chance, it happens by design. Design excellence into your daily routine, every employee, everyday, all the time, no exceptions.

Always be on the lookout for chances to show exceptional customer service. In the service department, if you find out that a customer is having a hard time coming back in to pick up their vehicle, take it to them. Salespeople, offer your customers a concierge service where you schedule all of their service appointments and offer a pick-up-drop-off service.

The Golden Rule Of Customer Service: Never forget that you do this every day and just because you see it all the time doesn’t mean that it’s no big deal to your customers. Never glaze over an issue and act as if it’s not a problem, always reassure your customers that it’s a genuine concern and that you will personally take care of it.

In a study conducted by Bain and Company they found out that an increase in customer retention of just 5% improves profits by 25 to 95%! The logic behind this math is predicated on the fact that customer turnover is enormously expensive. The high cost of acquiring new customers can only be offset by maintaining profitable, long term relationships.

Creating Long Term Relationships By Creating High Customer Satisfaction

We’ve always known that word-of-mouth, by far, is the best form of advertising, but then why do some businesses, and whole industries (the auto industry among them), struggle to achieve it? Look at the car business, people don’t expect much, in fact they expect to be treated bad and to be the subject of high pressure sales techniques, which leads me to:

• Set yourself apart from the competition by displaying uncommon courtesy. In the auto industry it’s not too difficult to set yourself apart because people expect so little, so take advantage!
• Know your customers. If you expect repeat business then at least remember your customers names! I know what you’re thinking, how can I remember them all? You don’t have to, that’s what CRM’s are for, use them. Each visit, if you learn something new about you customer, put it in the database for other employees to use. For example if your customer mentions, during an oil change, that their in-laws are coming to town, put into the CRM. That way, during their next visit you can ask them how it went. Talking about being different!
• Smile… duh! I know that sounds simplistic but by having a genuine smile on your face your customers will feel more welcome and invited.
• Be polite. Say thank you, please, yes ma’am and no sir. Use proper salutations such as Mr. and Mrs. In fact keep using their last name until they give you permission to use their first.
• Be genuine. Obviously generosity can’t be faked so don’t fake it. If there are people on staff that can’t be genuine them maybe a job with the public isn’t for them.
• Always over deliver. You will notice that I didn’t say under promise and over deliver, I said over deliver. Do it as often as possible.
• Empower your employees to make a difference. What that means is, within reasonable bounds, empower each employee to be able to fix a mistake, that way they don’t have to go to a manager.
• Make customer service ordinary, build it into your daily processes and reward employees that go above and beyond.
• Create an enchantment budget, more on that here. Go so far and above what your customer expects that they will be forced to tell others about you.
• Do a touch point analysis at least every other month. What I mean by that is be your customer. Call in as a customer, walk in as a customer, go through the sales process as a customer and even go to the bathroom as a customer. What do you see? Is everything as you would expect it to be? If so, scrap it and start over, be exceptional!
• Call back! Too many times we have the intention of calling back but something comes up and we just don’t get around it, stop that! Treat every return call as if it were your wedding day, you wouldn’t forget that would you? Yes, it’s that important!

Final Thought

Create an environment of exceptional customer service into your dealership. Make it mandatory, tell your employees up front, at the interview, that you only hire people that puts the customer first. You need a staff of people that are quick to smile, want to serve, and understand that a happy customer breeds other happy customers. We all know how expensive it is to create a customer, so keep them happy, keep them coming back and keep them talking about you!

Related posts:

1. Three Ideals For Social Marketing Success, Part 1
2. Three Ideals For Social Marketing Success, Part 2
3. 5 Ways To Work Your Way Into Your Customers Social Graph And Influence Word Of Mouth

There’s a moment, in most generations, where an event comes along that is so important that it forever etches a memory in the collective conscious of that generation, defining both who they are, and what they stand for. September 11th, 2001 was no different. I remember that day vividly, as most will say. I was working for a medical equipment company at the time and I had just pulled up to Sacred Heart Hospital, in Pensacola, Florida, to deliver oxygen to a patient that was about to be released, when the news of the first plane was announced on the radio. Honestly, I didn’t think much of it, I just remember thinking, “That’s horrible, I hope everybody gets out okay. “

As I was getting back into the company van there was news of a second plan hitting the towers and the possibility of it being an attack. I remember sitting there, in the parking lot of the hospital, listening to a  frantic deejay trying to explain what he was seeing on the news. That day I must have spoken to every family member and friend that I’ve ever known, each one as frantic as the deejay.

As I sit here writing this, reflecting on my feelings of that day and all the days between then and now, I can’t help but to think about my family. It reminds me that there are evils in the world and that no matter how safe you feel, you should always be vigilant. I’m not talking about being paranoid but about being ready for the worst, while at the same time expecting the best.

I think back about all the people that were killed, the thousands upon thousands of family members that, to this day and forever, feel an emptiness that will never be filled, a sadness that will never abate and an anger that will never subside. I can’t imagine the pain a son must be feeling because the last words to his father were harsh, or the last words of a mother to her daughter was about a bad choice in men, when they should have been… I love you.

Mothers, Fathers, tell your children how much you love them, how much they brighten your day. Children, hug your parents, let them know how much you appreciate them. Husbands, wives, love one another, know that times will get tough, that’s a given, but promise each other that instead of pushing each other way that you will instead embrace the love that brought you two together. Never go to sleep or leave the house without saying I love you, you may not have a second chance.

Live your life with no regrets, work hard, play hard and love hard. Life is short, often times too short but if you pay particular attention to what is going on between the beginning and end, you can make the most of it.

To all those that lost loved ones on that day my thoughts and prayers go out to you, I will never forget!

No related posts.

In part 1 of The Three Ideals For Social Marketing Success I mentioned that success in social media boils down to three ideals, they are:

1. The Development Of Relationships,
2. The Creation Of High Touch, Emotion Based Connections, and
3. Customer Enchantment (think customer service to the Nth degree).

In this post, part 2 of 3, we will be exploring the importance of creating high touch, emotion based connections within your online community. Keep in mind that the goal of social marketing is to influence word-of-mouth and create brand loyalty, in other words we want to create brand advocates; customers, that create other customers.

In order for that to happen though you must work to create three types of emotional based connections, they are:

• Employee – Community
• Employee – Employee
• Community – Community

Most of the time social media is used only to create a connection between the dealership and it’s community members, when in reality that connection must between the employees of the dealership and the community. The reason is simple: it’s nearly impossible to form an emotional based connection between a non-living entity, such as a dealership, and the greater community. I know that last sentence may have come across a little weird but too many dealerships have an unknown person (at least to your online community) in charge of their Facebook page, as an example, and as such they are missing out on the influential bond that is created by being high touch.

High Touch

When it comes to your customers, I want you to always think in terms of high touch, which isn’t necessarily high tech. In fact, I want you to evaluate any technological advancement that may come along by asking yourself, will this help me stay in touch with more of my customers or will it just look that way by mimicking high touch? Be careful here because sometimes they look the same.

With the advancement of technology, and the onset of social networks in particular, it may be easier to connect with your customers and your online community as a whole, but those connections usually lack the quality necessary to create the type of relationship with people that influences word-of-mouth. So, you must augment what you do online by being more human, by creating as much you-me time as possible. What I mean by that is instead of spending all your time conversing with the community as a whole spend time getting to know the individuals as well.

Here as some other high touch ideas:

• Have Facebook appreciate days where you give away free oil changes or invite them to the dealership for a meet-up with music, food and games.
• As time progresses you will notice certain members of the community are engaging you more consistently than the others, call them, ask their opinions on an upcoming event.
• As a salesperson, instead of just sending out a birthday card, they can send out a short 30 second video wishing their customers a happy birthday. I’m not talking about creating the video once and sending that out each time, no, I’m talking about an individual video that uses the customer’s name within the context of the video.
• Empower your employees to be human and connect on a personal level. This requires a level of trust but with the proper training and the right people you should have nothing to worry about.
• Care. That’s right, care. Do whatever you can to show compassion towards your customers, treat them as people, not a transaction. Help out the community, become one of us instead of being just one of them.

Too many dealerships are afraid to trust their employees to be human, they would much rather be hands off and let technology help them connect in a sterile, but in their eyes, more efficient, manner. Just take a look at all these so-called loyalty programs out there, they use cards and point systems to offer something free after a certain amount of money is spent at the dealership. What is that really doing? It’s creating a hands-off approach that may be efficient, but where is the human element? Where is the high touch? If you truly want to create brand loyalty then go high touch.

Emotional Based Connections

Connect around an emotion. Are you married? If so, is the person you are married to the only person you’ve ever dated? Odds are the answer is no. So what caused you to have the type of connection with your spouse that lead to marriage? The answer is emotion, because without an emotional based connection the relationship is ultimately doomed to fail. The same holds true for the relationship that you’re creating with both your customers and your online community.

I’ve said it before, it’s almost impossible to create a connection between a business and their community if the only thing they have to connect around is the business itself. Instead, focus on something that the community is passionate about, such as their children’s education, sports, or even a local cause. For instance, Metro Honda of Union County put up $5,000 for area schools, which they had to compete for. In all, there were about 40 schools involved, as well as  thousands of people from the local community. Because Metro Honda connected with something that was emotional based, their children’s education, the bond created between the people of the dealerships and the greater community of Union County has lasted, and will continue to last, long after the Union County School Pride Project announced the winning school.

Your day to day interactions with your community should be emotional based as well. Ask questions that illicit an emotional response or bring up a fond memory such as the question, “What is your fondest childhood memory?” I’ve had so many great conversations around that one question alone, here are some other emotional fused questions to ask:

• When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
• How do you feel when your child comes home with an A on a test?
• If you could do one thing without the worry of failure what would it be?
• If you were granted one wish that had to be used on a complete stranger, what would that wish be?
• What makes you jump up and scream for joy?

Of course there are thousands of other questions you can ask to start an emotion based conversation, but the idea behind it is to make people feel good about conversing with you. Don’t just stop there, questions that bring up moral dilemmas are good questions to ask as well, questions such as “Would you lie under oath to protect a friend you knew was innocent but couldn’t prove?” Of course you have to be careful with these types of questions but the depth of conversation that happens surrounding them is nothing short of magical! Remember, if you want to elicit emotions then you have to hold a conversation. Don’t just throw out a question for people to answer, ask more questions around their answers, probe. For instance, using the above question you can ask, after a few dozen or so people have answered, what if it was your spouse, not a friend? Well… would you?

Related posts:

1. Three Ideals For Social Marketing Success, Part 1
2. Three Ideals For Social Marketing Success, Part 3
3. [Webinar Recording] Developing A Successful Social Marketing Strategy

FInd Me On Twitter By Clicking The Pic

I thought I would do things a little different this week. That way I can show my gratitude for some of the people that I am connected with on Twitter.

@Automax_ I consider Craig Lockerd a good friend. He is a caring person that puts God and family first. He is the founder and CEO of Automax Recruiting And Training, but even more than that he is a motivator, trainer of sales trainers, and just an overall good person. I highly recommend that you follow him on Twitter, his insights are absolutely priceless.

@BobBurg Bob Burg is one of those individuals that cares more about others than he does himself. He gives of his wisdom freely and will do whatever he can to help others. Being a highly sought after speaker, best selling author and a prolific blogger  Bob takes the time to answer questions and for that alone makes it a necessity to follow him on Twitter.

@RaplPaglia Ralph Paglia may have been in the auto industry since I was in diapers but he is no dinosaur! In fact, he has shown all of us, time and time again, that he is the king of online marketing and internet sales. He is a fount of knowledge that always takes the time to teach other what he knows. You really should follow him on Twitter

@Ryan_CarChat24 While I haven’t known Ryan Thompson that long he has proven time and time again that he has a zest for the auto industry that few others posses. He writes thought provoking posts that always keeps me coming back. Like the others I listed above he goes above and beyond to help others and for that alone he’s okay in my book, even if he’s Canadian (You know I love Canada Ryan, I’m just joking!) Check him out on Twitter you will be glad that you did!

@VelocitySales I’ve never personally spoken to Ed Brooks over the phone or have seen him in person but we have shared stuff back and forth on Twitter a lot. Ed is the sales director at VAuto and is a great person to follow on Twitter. You can find his daily, The Car Folks Essentials Report, right here.

While there are many other people that I feel you should follow, I’ll save that for next Friday!

Related posts:

1. Guest Post: Follow Up… Why Even Bother With it?
2. It’s All About The Engagement
3. Social Media in the Auto Industry: Are we done with the “whys” yet?