Lead Generator or Time Waster?, from Auto Dealer Monthly.
Social media is here to stay, but dealers are struggling to quantify the return on investment
In 1995, a 12-year-old kid went online and stayed there. Fast-forward to 2014, and this now-adult is accustomed to reading the news, shopping, looking at vehicles and even looking for service — all online. “We don’t talk, we text and Google,” says my Millennial daughter.
So why are so many dealers asking whether social media is a lead generator or time waster? I was tasked with answering that question at September’s Industry Summit, and I will tell you what I told the crowd in Las Vegas: It all depends on how you look at it. One of the major challenges dealerships are facing is that social media hasn’t worked for them in the past. So they’re ignoring it, abandoning it or just doing the absolute minimum and then getting on with their days.
The reality is that it didn’t work the first time because it wasn’t done right. We took a shotgun approach. It was the same old “spray-and-pray” mentality. Dealers signed up for Facebook, Skype, Foursquare, YouTube, Twitter, VEVO, Instagram, MySpace, Blogger — wherever they thought social media was, they felt they needed to have a presence.