Social media is not a silver bullet

The process of building trust in a business relies on having the right people coupled with a great vision statement. It entails setting out the stall and having all staff engage with delivering the same consistent message and level of service at every level of the business.

With the increase in the utilization of social media within the motor trade it has to be said that many managers still don’t ‘get it’. Many truly believe that it is some kind of silver bullet which, when activated, unleashes a stream of willing, compliant buyers. They believe that the mere presence of a Twitter and Facebook icon on the website means they are “social media savvy” and don’t really need to do much else. These same people end up completely confused, demoralized and bitter when it turns out, quite quickly, that that is very far from reality. Then the mantra is “social media? What a complete and utter waste of time, I’ll stick to selling cars!”

In truth it is about a very slow burn aimed at creating awareness with an ever increasing audience and a new generation of car buyer who will inevitably use social media as a matter of course to research potential dealers and contemplate a purchase. Not thinking a few moves ahead and working out a strategy to connect with these buyers of the future could be a costly mistake.

The “can’t manage what you can’t measure” attitude which has been prevalent in this business for ever is potentially why the use of social media is paid lip service by many car dealers when in reality they should be committing more resource now for a return in the future.

Unfortunately in a results driven business such as this there is often an impatience when there are few visible results of a marketing spend because working out how much a lead costs to generate is the basis of where a dealer spends his money. Without leads and more prospects coming down the funnel the dealership shrivels and for that reason many choose to invest in the now rather than the tomorrow.