Social Media experts, are they real?

I am going to say yes, but in no way claim to be one. I’ve never met one. I’ve Tweeted and Facebooked with a few, or I assume I have. The problem lies in the fact that most of us aren’t being paid to Tweet, Blog and Interactively Socially Interact with our customer base. In the Auto Retail business, most are there to sell. It’s taken many years for dealers to even accept that the Internet is a viable dedication of a persons undivided attention. Dealer Principles are beginning to accept it as a process of business, and most are dedicating departments and budgets to the internet. This is great stuff.

How do you integrate Social Media into that operation. The first step is education, it can be hard to overcome the thought process that Twitter and Facebook are for playing online. If that can be achieved the next step is to follow. Follow other dealerships, follow other Auto Industry people, follow other Social Marketing people. The goal is to pay attention to what they are doing, learn from others. That’s really the whole point of Social Media.

This is the first step in any hopes of developing a Social Media Marketing campaign, learn from others. Social Media is being developed by us, the users. While you may not be, or know, an “expert”, give it 5 or 6 months of learning and doing and you can be the expert.

The most important thing to realize about this new outlet is that everything we know today, will all be different come next spring. It’s a moving target, and it’s moving fast.