With all of the buzz about the new “Facebook” initial public offering or IPO, I started to dig a little deeper into my own personal usage of this online media. I use the term online media instead of social network because I’m not convinced that people are really socializing  when using these networks.

When I socialize with friends and family, our topics range from things that happened in the past, current events and what the future will bring.  Depending on whom I am with, the boundaries and privacy of the conversation can expand or contract.  Who or what we talk about can be good, bad, or just plain gossip and hearsay. Many times, we even give and take advice from our friends and family on some very personal subjects.  But the online media is different; I rarely hear anyone complain or ask for personal advice. What I do see (and post) are “look what I just did” pictures or a quick phase of the day.

There are a few tricks I have seen over the past 30 years that parts managers have come up with to make the counting process run a little smoother. The most efficient way is to use portable data collectors. A data collector is a barcode scanner with the ability to store what has just been scanned and uses a small keyboard to allow the user to type additional information. In its simplest form, the user scans the barcode and then types the quantity and bin location on the scanner’s keypad.  This process is repeated until all parts have been scanned. Once all the parts have been scanned, the scanner is connected to a computer and the data file is downloaded. This file is then imported into the parts inventory management system which updates the system with current parts quantities. 

Twitter has finally grown into the full potential of its unique niche within social networking.  Up until recently, many businesses (RV dealerships included) have been quite unsure of how to harness the branding and selling power of this social network messaging site.  Facebook is still the place to develop "strong-ties" with potential customers if they are willing to let you into their personal space, but unfortunately not all potential customers are willing to do this.  In turn, Twitter has become a great tool to help businesses fill in their social media advertising gaps.  Twitter creates effective, but less intrusive "loose-ties" with potential customers.

Twitter has evolved into a method of casually engaging potential customers and building your dealership’s brand rather than being just a convenient way to blast out press releases or featured units.  A great example of a company expanding the use of Twitter is JetBlue.  They use their Twitter account to handle customer service questions along with asking for feedback from their followers about things like what new cities they should fly to.  If JetBlue customers have questions on delayed flights, baggage carry-on sizes, or anything at all, they can simply message JetBlue and they will quickly Tweet back an answer.

Currently, the Federal Trade Commission estimates that as many as 9 million Americans have their identities stolen each year.  With this many occurrences, it’s likely that you already know someone who has had their identity stolen.
 
I have put together a list of common best practices that will help you protect yourself and your customers from identity theft.  Passing this information on to your customers and prospects ultimately benefits your dealership:  A prospect who has a stellar 800+ credit score one day, could be surprised to find that score knocked down or flagged for fraud alert when they try to finance an RV, making the sale tougher than it needs to be.  In addition, customers will give you kudos just for passing on these helpful tips to secure their identity.
 
Start by searching for your dealership name and phone number on Google, Bing, and Yahoo! search engines.  You might find that someone else has a website with your name on it.  Recently, thieves have created fake dealer websites, offering unbelievable prices and convincing customers to wire deposits for securing fake deals.  When the customer shows up at your dealership to take delivery of that 2010 diesel pusher they paid $8,000 for, you will have more than a case of mistaken identity on your hands. 

Twitter, the creator of the 140 characters or less social network, has finally disclosed part of its plan to start paying the bills after its $55 million dollar venture capital is exhausted.  This plan will open the door for dealerships to use targeted advertisements similar to other popular social websites.

Much like Facebook and the other social networking websites, advertisements will begin being displayed on Twitter.com based on the keywords included in a user’s incoming and outgoing tweets.  By doing this, it should allow Twitter to accurately target paid advertising, based on a user's interests and hobbies - for example, RV, camping, etc..   These advertisements should start appearing as "promoted" tweets throughout the site for users.

Google has added new search tools to help users find the information they are looking for easier than ever.  But the real question is - will these features benefit or hurt your dealership’s current online performance.

The most important new Google search feature is the ability to filter results by time.  When searching, displayed information can be outdated from years past.  To solve this, Google users, with only one click, can search by different timeframes, including; the last 24 hours, week, month, year, or even a designated date range.  This means that having regularly updated units and fresh information (content) on your dealership’s website is even more important than ever.  In addition to this filter, there is a timeline feature that will actually display search results in a graph for the year that the data is relevant to.

Next is a feature that will limit the Google search results to a users immediate area.  Since an RV shopper can narrow their search to only their surrounding areas, this could hurt some RV dealers who obtain prospects from all over the US.  On the other hand, this should help dealers keep more of their local business.

To continue with my “Don’t be Unsociable” blog series, this week I will be going over how to get your dealership recognized on YouTube.  

YouTube is the single largest online video site and provides over 300 million visitors worldwide with over 5 billion video streams monthly.  This means that on average, every user that visits YouTube watches over 16 videos a month.  YouTube also is the 4th most visited website on the Internet.

YouTube, like all other social networking websites, requires that you to create a free account in order to start posting videos.  Once your account is created, you will be presented with your “Channel” page.  From the tabs at the top of this page, you can customize the colors, theme, and features to be displayed on your page.  Please note that under the settings tab there is a place to enter your channel’s title and tags.  These two fields are extremely important for the SEO (search engine optimization) of your channel, and your words and phrases should be selected carefully.  If your dealership’s website has already been optimized, refer to the title and keyword tags from your homepage to help decide on a good title and tags.  YouTube users are able to follow you from your channel page and receive updates of your new videos and announcements.

This is the fourth installment of my “Don’t be Unsociable” series, and is dedicated to teaching your dealership to leverage the power of the professional networking site LinkedIn.

For those of you not familiar with LinkedIn, it is the worlds largest business professional networking website that is host to over 65 million users.  The site allows users to keep in touch with co-workers, network with people in the industry, find new prospects, ask/answer industry questions, and post available job positions.

A successful strategy on LinkedIn differs greatly from Facebook and Twitter because the LinkedIn social environment is far less casual.  All communications should be fairly formal and business in nature.

Here are the top 5 uses that every dealership can benefit from by signing up for LinkedIn.
 

If you have been following my “Don’t be Unsociable” blog series thus far, your dealership has probably already started down the road to Facebook success but don’t forget about Twitter.  Twitter is still a hugely popular and efficient way to spread the word on just about everything.

Twitter is designed for text message blasting and like Facebook is a free social networking website!  Messages sent out through Twitter are called “Tweets” (both are forms of communication between birds)  which are brief 140-character messages that are displayed in chronological order on your follower’s profile pages and they can automatically have tweets forwarded to their cellphones.  Due to most cell phone providers capping the text message character limits of cell phones at 160-characters, the guys at Twitter decided to limit tweeting to a 140-character message and an additional 20-characters to add the sender’s username to identify the source of the message.

Understanding Twitter is about as easy as understanding how, when and what you should be sending your potential customers.

Last week I covered a few basic techniques on how to get a dealership Facebook account off the ground, so this week I will be expanding on some techniques you can use to keep your newfound Facebook friends coming back for more.

The main drive of your Facebook page should always be meaningful and constantly changing content. Unless you have a fun viral advertising video or an amazing custom widget you have developed, consumers will only keep coming back to your Facebook page if there is regularly updated information. Educate consumers on how to maintain their RV's, what processes set you apart from all other RV dealers, or maybe offer periodic reviews on destinations that all RVers should make a point to visit.

Remember to post messages on your wall consistently but not incessantly. Try to avoid direct marketing statements such as a specific unit for sale at this price but instead invite your fans to come see updated information, or this weeks RV destination of the week. Try to involve your Facebook fans to post messages/pictures of their most recent trips in the RV they bought from you. Nothing is better marketing than a potential customer seeing happy past customers describing their perfect vacations.