I’m assuming you know what twitter is and you have an account (if not, it’s easy and free to setup). In this blog I will provide some ideas on how to use this technology.
What doesn’t work?
Tweeting about your latest inventory update isn’t going to yield results because who is going to buy cars on twitter? Users of that site are mostly there to share their opinions on EVERYTHING and everyone! So if you’re a one-way “new car uploaded” tweet factory you’ll just be a blurb of advertisements and be ignored. In fact I suggest you don’t do that at all – don’t even open a Twitter account unless you have a good plan. If they want to browse your inventory, they can visit your website. So unless you have the world’s rarest vehicle on your lot that Jay Leno would want to know about, don’t tweet about your vehicle for sale.
Golden rule of social media
The social media culture is all about “give first, and then receive?” Adding and offering value is a MUST if you want to win the attention of the web hordes. I will be repeating this message with most of my blog posts.
Conversation: let them talk because that’s what they want to do
The value with Twitter is allowing people to express their opinions and what they are doing. An amazing example of Twitter’s power, I’ve noticed just last week after an earthquake in my area: Using the tweets from twitter we could actually tell the epicentre of the earthquake by looking at the tweet density versus geographical location.
You need to spark the conversation, here are some amazing samples
Skittles: They put a live, unfiltered, feed to their main website. Any tweet about Skittles showed up on their website from anywhere in the world. This was to start a conversation about the brand in the hopes of bringing the product top of mind and getting exposure via viral means. They got lots of press exposure.
Maggiano’s: They made a time sensitive offer where respondents had to follow on twitter within 24 hours in order for them to receive a gift certificate. This generated excitement around the restaurant chain and gave an opportunity to win a great dinner at the restaurant.
Twitter games
The more creative you are, the higher the results. Emerging trends are Twitter games. Users are drawn in for the entertainment value they get from it; they are NOT being sold a product! Remember the golden rule of social media?
Here’s a cool example, Terminator Salvation: The campaign was designed to allow twitter users to join the fight against the machines. Users got involved in the “Struggle” and investing themselves into the story. The ongoing “missions” that are sent out to the twittersphere contained little tidbits from the plot and direct any Twitter user “freedom fighter” to any piece of marketing Sony wished. It was a win/win for both parties.
Not the end all of social marketing
Twitter is a phenomenon for sure but social marketing should be a perfect storm of twitter, facebook, dig, blog, video, etc… If you harness the power of this new, here to stay, social marketing you can take your dealership beyond the “kick the tires” stage and bring yourself into a whole new world of online success.
I hope this was helpful for your social media planning. Remember You don’t want to sell a car at this point, you want to start conversations. Advertising should be a side effect of good social media marketing.