Autoengage

Social Media

“The collaborative environment facilitated by Web 2.0 is changing the way shoppers research vehicles, driving many to seek the experiences and opinions of other shoppers and owners. The opinions of other consumers are so impactful that we are already seeing distinct purchasing patterns develop between those shoppers who use consumer ratings and reviews, and those who rely solely on expert ratings and reviews.”
Arianne Walker, Director of Marketing/Media Research at J.D. Power.

Most web users are consumers of information, not creators. About eighty percent of the user-generated content on the web, including comments and questions, is created by less than ten percent of web users. User reviews drive product purchases, and despite the low content creation rates, online communities have enormous influence on automotive Internet users, and online comments and reviews are second only to word of mouth as a purchase driver for a dealership. Those personal reviews are far more influential than official reviews posted by an automotive website or magazine, or information posted online by a manufacturer.

These findings mean online community matters enormously to dealers, but not in the way that most would expect. Online discussion is a poor way to communicate with the average customer, because average customers don’t participate, but it is a great way to communicate to them, because average customers watch and listen.

Most content and discussion sites should be viewed as performances, in which the site’s organizers interact with a relatively small number of users in order to educate, persuade, or entertain everyone else. This means it is critical that dealers understand who the users are, and how to take care of them, because their comments can positively, and more often than not, negatively effect your business.

Most people know that Facebook and MySpace are the leading social networking sites in the US, but a good way to measure the value of a website is to ask users if they would pay a monthly fee to get access to it. By this measure, Google is the site web users value most, as expected, but Yahoo stands out as the clear number two. It is followed by three leading community-driven sites: YouTube, Wikipedia, and Facebook. The press coverage of Yahoo’s financial challenges sometimes obscures the size and loyalty of its user base, and its importance to a dealerships online marketing. Site valuation differs by age, and among web users over 30, Google and Yahoo are still the top two, but they are followed by eBay and MapQuest.

AutoEngage dealership clients engage in a long-term reputation building campaign, that effectively tackles the common issue of reputation management. Such campaigns are not only effective in providing a positive voice for the dealership, and its services, but, via geo-targeted key-phrasing, and posting of dealership customer testimonials, and press releases, allows a dealership to draw business from neighboring communities.