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In the year 2011 It still fazes me how so many car dealers have little or no web presence. Many small dealers still rely on the Auto trader self host three page spread. This is understandable for a two man operation with 15 cars in stock, it still doesn’t make it ok. What actually shocks me is how, what I would consider large companies i.e. several staff, large or multiple premises have an un-promoted sad sack of a basic html website and no further interaction with the public through social media.
Lack of understanding of technology is a tired excuse, you are capable of spending a few hours in front of a computer examining what you like and don’t like. You can spend a few hours going through competitor’s websites; you don’t have to rob ideas just scan for features that would work well with your companies way of doing things. Lack of money is no excuse either you don’t need to have some mega flash video embedded site that costs a fortune. As the web has matured flashy graphics sites have become tiresome to navigate, customers just want to be able to access your content easily.
There are a lot of web coders and designers knocking about who can put a site together for small money. If you want to waste money call in a media company throw your hands in the air tell them you haven’t a clue what you want and watch them burn your cash. Or you can work out on paper roughly what you want your site to contain, what features you are keen on having and what you definitely don’t want. The more detail you can provide the better. Then you can send out the specs to freelancers or freelance websites which are easily found, and be surprised how inexpensive it can be. Your website is your interactive business card; have a good look at your site, is that how you want your company to look? Are you happy at how you are being presented? Because if you’re not then you are handing out your business card to potential clients, hand written with black marker on a piece of cardboard cut out of a cornflakes box.
If you don’t have a web presence you need to start today and even then you will be playing catch up. If you have a company with any form of profile you need to sign up to all Social media companies now, even if you are not in a position to promote your company you need to be in a position to protect its integrity. “Cyber squatting” is a nineties phrase and you would think it only applies to large multinationals, not anymore I’m afraid. As web crawlers look to find niches and backlinks from anywhere, if your company is known to more than a handful of people then somebody will set up an account and purport to be you. Example? I thought I was following respected Irish motoring Magazine “Auto Ireland” on twitter I must admit their tweets seemed spammy and uninteresting so I didn’t pay much attention. Only recently I have noticed their output getting more and more bizarre. In the last week I have received updates about a homeless Canadian footballer, Duke Nukem video games and this morning a link to some eastern European “babe” site with a picture of a BMW being the justification for the tweet. Only when I then decided to actually investigate did I find that this account is based with a hosting company in the U.K and is obviously nothing to do with the real magazine. In the meantime this account has several hundred bemused followers and the real magazine has no presence at all on social media sites. It is not alone, thousands of companies are being cheapened in this way.
So you have now spent half an hour setting up your accounts or have barked orders at somebody to do it for you, what next
The purpose of Social Media is to promote your company, interact with customers provide them with information that they seek, and to inform the public of something good that they will want to hear. This could include a competition with a decent prize, an invitation to a product launch, a 10% off weekend, a buy one get one free offer that is actually good value. It is not an opportunity to treat your customers like dopes and fill their inbox with spam and generic rubbish. A couple of car supermarkets and Car sales Magazines think they are supposed to post a live feed to their stock lists , this is a bad idea. It is very hard to sell to people on social networks and if you try too hard and look like you are selling then you will fail. Any goodwill you receive will have to be built up organically, for example if you have studied the market and can claim that your Maidstone branch is currently offering the cheapest 59 plate mondeo in the country then this is newsworthy and will spread around by itself and next time you inform the public of similar news it will be taken seriously.
If you have something to say then shout it. Don’t send links out to pages where people need to register with your site to get the info; this is just frustrating and reflects badly on your company.
Do it yourself or at least try. There are companies that offer to take care of all your social media marketing for you. “Take care of it”, like it’s something that needs to be done, like an oil change? You and your companies’ personality should be unique and should come across in your site, blogs, posts, tweets etc. If you are big enough to have employees then you can assign the job to a trusted staff member and try to keep involved and pay attention to what’s being put out. Don’t pay someone for the quantity of their output; pay them for their quality of output.
You can have several different accounts: If you have a few business interests then set up accounts and target these sectors independently, customers to your mot centre don’t necessarily need to know about your 10 session for £50 deal at your tanning salon. Unless you are a bit larger than life and have a personality, then keep your business and private life separate. I have numerous accounts for varied interests all set up for business, on each of these accounts there will be interesting characters that remain followed or friended because I enjoy their occasionally funny and usually unrelated updates, unless you are one of these people that can happily live in public then give it up. Nobody needs to hear “rough night last night, going to the bog” etc(and I’ve received much worse from professional people) A bit of humour is great but the joke that went down well with friends in the restaurant on Saturday will not be so well received by customers or associates on Monday morning.
People are constantly bombarded with “free”. The amount of “free” that now exists has cheapened the word. Volvo are running a face book campaign where they are offering a free car. I want to be part of that! People like free cars, People will degrade themselves in public for a free car, so this is a viable campaign. It might cost them a car but if they collect and use the data they acquire correctly, then it will be cost effective and valuable publicity for them. Now we don’t all have the budgets to offer free cars but don’t think offering free brochures or stickers is something people get excited about in the 21st century. Before you launch any online campaign ask yourself is this something that I genuinely want to subscribe to or follow. If the answer is no then scrap it and only go at it when you actually have something to offer.
© 2011, MD. All rights reserved.
