Automotive Social Media

by JD Rucker on October 19, 2009 · 12 comments

A large part of my job as Chief Marketing Officer for TK Carsites is to help those in the automotive industry better understand how to use social media. While we have been embedded in social media for over 3 years now, most car dealers are just recently emerging into Web 2.0 and experimenting with the various services.

We have put together 3 packages that are designed to help dealers get the most out of social media, regardless of what level of engagement they are seeking. Some are wanting to take the bull by the horns and ride it for everything they can get out of it. Others prefer to get in, keep it simple, and make sure they have a presence without spending a lot of time or money doing it.

While we prefer to customize automotive social media services to fit the dealer’s needs, resources, and budget, here are the three packages that can be considered “standards” from which to work:

Automotive Social Media Integration Package

$2500 or $99/mo with a website package

For those wanting to establish or enhance their presence on a dealership blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, and Flickr, this is the place to start. If you don’t have accounts, we’ll create them and build them up with quality content, designs, and establish a credible list of friends and fans to get you going in the right direction. If you already have some or all of these accounts created, we’ll enhance and improve on what you’ve started and give you guidance to build your local network and start engaging with customers.

The package includes:

Profiles – Creation and/or enhancement of a Facebook fan page, Twitter account, YouTube channel, MySpace page, and Flickr channel.
Blogging – Creation of a self-hosted dealership blog (find out why you need a hosted blog instead of a free one in this article on Dealership Blogs)
Integrated Buttons – Link to your blog and profiles from anywhere. Put them on your existing websites, microsites, landing pages – anywhere you have a web presence, let the world know you’ve gone Web 2.0.
Social Media Road Map – A copy of “The Car Dealer’s Guide to Social Media” – a step-by-step, regularly updated publication that works as a simple road map to guide car dealers through the world of social media.
Optional: The Rolling Start – 1-time $399 charge – Get your social media presence rolling with 2 blog posts, 2 video posts, 5 Flickr images, 5 Facebook and MySpace status updates, and 20 Tweets.

Automotive Social Media Partnership Package

$12,000 or $399/mo with a website package

It’s possible to operate a strong automotive social media presence in 30 minutes a day or less. Still, having the support and expertise to grow as the industry grows is important. This, our most popular package, includes everything in the Automotive Social Media Integration Package, plus:

Daily Monitoring – We’ll keep track of all communications users have with you through these sites and either respond for you if it’s “chit chat” or inform you via email or phone if it’s a potential “hot lead” communication.
Engagement – 2 blog posts, 1 video, 2 images, 4 Facebook and MySpace updates, and 10 Tweets per month to maintain a level of engagement and keep the profiles and blog “fresh”.
Monthly Training and Evaluation – Social media is mercurial in the way that it changes. New sites move up, old sites lose favor. The only thing that is constant in social media is change. Keep up to date with these changes with a monthly review call that discusses what’s new and effective in the world of automotive social media.

Automotive Social Media Exclusivity Package

$45,000 or $3000/mo with a website package

Are you ready to own your market online? Own your name on search engines? Engage with hundreds, even thousands of potential customers per month? The Automotive Social Media Exclusivity Package is designed for you. It includes everything in the prior 2 packages, plus:

Search Engine Reputation Management – Own Google searches for your dealership’s name. Through advanced automotive social media techniques, we’ll be able to make certain that negative reviews, competitors, and 3rd party sites are not ranking on the first page of Google for your name.
Social Media Growth – Take your accounts to the next level with ongoing growth that finds people in your area (potential customers) and engages with them in a way that will get them listening to what you’re saying through social media.
Ongoing Profile Management – This is a tricky one. Many services offer “hundreds of social media profiles” to bolster your online presence. This is a huge mistake if it isn’t handled right. We will manually create and regularly update 30 additional social media profiles monthly to increase your presence. More importantly, we’ll monitor and enhance these profiles to avoid the major flaw in most other services: stagnation. Having a ton of profiles is one thing. Letting them sit there doing nothing is worthless.
Engagement Plus – An additional 3 blog posts, 2 videos, 5 images, 10 Facebook and MySpace updates, and 30 Tweets per month to truly engage with your customers.
Exclusivity – The power of this package makes it impossible to have more than 1 dealership per market and make. When you sign up, you’ll have the strongest social media presence in the area.
Optional: Onsite Training – 1-time $12,000 charge – Have an industry social media expert visit your store for 2 days to train everyone at the dealership know needs to be involved on how to make the most out of social media both online as well as within the dealership activities themselves. Get your customers talking about you through social media with this powerful training program.