Yesterday, Bruce Etzcorn discussed a feature we’re adding to our 1.11 Service Update that allows Dealer HD customers to tweet your inventory for free. Today I’d like to dicsuss it a bit further and tell you a few more reasons you need to be using this service. I also want to go over some social networking “Best Practices”.
We discussed that Twitter is a search engine. You can’t afford to be missing from a search engine. Customers have the ability to search twitter for content that interests them. Let’s take a look at a quick real world example.
I want to buy a 2005 Mustang because I know that this was the first year of the new body style and I feel I can get the most for my money by picking the oldest “updated model” available.
So I start at Google and do a quick search. I don’t really find any specific cars. One or two yes, but most of the results are for review sites. Great if I’m in the research phase but what if I want to know what inventory is out there and at what price.
Next I perform a twitter search (Your results may be different because twitter is a time based search) and my first result is an actual vehicle with pricing and photos. I can scroll down and find similar links to compare a few different vehicles on Twitter. Cool so I’ve done a search on my own terms and found exactly what I was looking for.
Twitter is NOT a classified service so I will see a mix of results, which is great. I may find another person talking about the 2005 mustang and befriend them. Now I’ve got a buddy to chat about cars with. I may see a customer who says “Looking for a Red 2005 Mustang GT with black leather”. As a dealer, it just happens that I have that car in stock. I send a message to that customer letting him know I have it with a link back to my dealer website. The customer then follows my dealership on twitter and I gain a little additional exposure.
This is the Lewis and Clark phase of Twitter. It’s very experimental. Dealer HD realizes the enormous potential that Twitter brings to the automotive marketplace and has integrated twitter into your dealer websites so you can market to your customers on their terms.
Tweeting inventory is very important and it needs to be done the RIGHT way. Alter the message so that you aren’t spamming customers with 10 identical phrases. Tweeting your inventory should only be one component of your social stream. Try and make sure to post as many, if not more posts related to your dealership and who you are. Make it personal. You need to also communicate news, events, sales information, incentives and other relavant information to your followers. Leave the tweeting your inventory to us. It’s already built in to your Dealer HD web site. Get invovled on a personal level. Focus more on the relationship building and the customer service end, rather than trying to make a quick sale. The sales will come, but they shouldn’t be the driving focus behind your twitter identity. Keep it real and connect with the world. We’re all getting a little more social every day.