Why OEM’s Should Be Helping their Dealers with Social Media

Recently, a debate has been brewing within Corporate America regarding social media. How active should a corporation with franchise locations be with helping in local social media initiatives?

Using automotive social media as the example, many would say that the manufacturers should avoid working with their dealers in their social media activities as it would taint the local “flare” of a dealership and potentially hamper their efforts. Others would argue that franchise dealers are extensions of the brand and therefore should be not only monitored but controlled to make certain they are putting the best message out in the potentially volatile world of social media.

The best answer (in our opinion) lies somewhere in the middle. It’s not a cop-out answer, either. There’s no diplomacy involved here. It’s just a simple statement (of our perception) of facts.

Car dealers need their OEM’s to help them in every way they can, then get out of their way as they go with it.

Manufacturers Helping Dealers the Right Way in Social Media

While dealers have been accused in the past of being “behind the times” when it comes to anything Internet, many have done a tremendous job at embracing social media in this, the tipping point. While few were early adopters (I know – I was looking for them back in 2007) there are plenty who have caught up tremendously and helped the industry have representation in the upper echelon of local social media marketing.

Still, there is another 90% who want to get involved but do not have the tools, expertise, and resources available to them. Rather, they don’t know where to look. One of the bad parts about social media marketing and strategy is that now that it’s a hot item, there are those in and out of the industry who have the best pitch of their products available. They just don’t have the best products themselves. Many dealers in the last 6-8 months have been burnt.

It’s not their fault. In many ways, it’s the fault of the manufacturers themselves who have not been their to guide them.

Manufacturers who are willing to help and willing to “know that they don’t know” everything about this unique marketing opportunity are the ones who will succeed. How? By hiring experts, whether in-house or through outsourced consultation, automakers will be able to put together a dealer strategy that can work. The challenge they now have is in finding the right company to help them.

They need the right strategy and a partnership that will give confidence to their dealers. Many times marketing initiatives rolled down from the manufacturer are viewed with skepticism, especially in something like social media. Having a credible outside source will help them to “sell it” to their dealers and get buy-in.

Once they have this, they can move on to the real meat and potatoes: getting it done and rolled out. Bringing a strategy to the table that dealers will embrace should be comprehensive without slowing progress. It must be flexible enough to change with social media itself (which changes every other day it seems) while still having enough substance to guide them along the path. It must include initiation, monitoring, and help with management through support.

The best way to look at it is like coaching a football team. While a coach can do everything they can to help their players get better and follow the playbook, they must be willing to let the players make the decisions on the field. If they juke right when they should have juked left, they should show the play why that is after the play. They should give them reasons why they made the wrong decision on the field, but they can’t say something absolute like “always juke left”. That will slow them down and make them less effective, which is why manufacturers should…

Let the Dealers Make Mistakes

Regardless of the reason, many corporations get in the way of their franchises’ success. Whether it’s in the name of maintaining the proper brand image or to justify money spent on corporate-level research and development, many feel that they must micro-manage their franchises.

The same holds true in automotive, perhaps more than other verticals. Some manufacturers think they are doing well by putting their dealers in various boxes when it comes to marketing to protect the sanctity of the brand. Sometimes they’re right.

Not in social media.

Unlike every other marketing venue on or off the Internet, social media is the most diverse when it comes to what works and what doesn’t. It’s possible for dealers in the same market to have completely opposite results with identical social media campaigns. The reason for this is simple, so simple in fact that it’s often overlooked.

Social media is about personality. Locking dealers into a single message across the board is like telling them that they all have to sell vehicles with the exact same process. It just doesn’t work. People are different. What works for one will not work as well for someone else and may work better elsewhere.

They will make mistakes. Without fail, failure will happen. Some of the most thought-out and tested social media marketing campaigns have flopped, while others have become successful before it was even known that they were social media marketing campaigns.

The first manufacturer that puts together a proper roadmap for their dealers, one that is flexible enough for multiple routes towards an end goal, will be ahead of the game. To my knowledge, no manufacturer has done this, and sadly, nobody has pounded on our doors to see our roadmap.

Monitoring and Support are Key

While rolling out the right campaigns and strategy is the most important step (in social media, you often don’t get a second chance) the keys to longevity are monitoring and support. As insane as it may sound, someone should be watching everything that is coming out of every social stream of every dealer in the country. Impossible? No. Expensive? Of course. Worth it? Every penny.

Support is one area where, as of now, nobody offers. How this can be in the early stages of 2010 I have no idea. I remember rushing to get together a plan to help our dealers as well as the dealers of any large group or manufacturer who needed our help. We were rushing because we believed that at that time, the industry was on the verge of recognizing social media and its potential and would soon be looking for a proper solution. We thought we were in a time-crunch because that recognition of social media was just around the corner.

That was August, 2008.

Since then, we have continued to build our strategy, perfect our initiatives, and currently have the ability to scale to any size company that knocks on our door. We have an impressive collection of dealers using social media, but nowhere near where we thought the industry would be. The interest just hasn’t happened as much as we thought. It was my fault for believing that by early-2009, manufacturers would start rolling out social media strategies for their dealers and by 2010, it would be reaching a tipping point in the way that all of social media would.

One part was correct – social media has reached a tipping point. Automotive, however, hasn’t.

We look forward to the opportunity to work with the manufacturers, but for now, we’re happily helping our dealers to see their own successes. Maybe 2010 is the year.

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Read more about Automotive Social Media or JD Rucker on this social media blog.