If your company is struggling to figure out how to measure ROI from jumping into social media, (or if you should invest in people and money to do it at all,) check out the following slides.

Everywhere you turn, online marketing experts in every industry are letting you know the importance of Twitter, Facebook and social marketing. Being savvy car dealers, many of you have signed-up on these platforms to see what all the hoopla is about. Unfortunately, this also leaves proof why 99.9% of you guys are doing it wrong.

While compiling our list of car dealers on Twitter, we’ve came across a number of NUMEROUS examples showing why dealers are failing miserably on Twitter. If your dealership is currently on Twitter, see how many of the following examples apply to your Twitter account.

5. You Act but You Don’t Interact

Social media is called that for a reason – in order for it to work, your brand must be social.  Being socially acceptable on Twitter means engaging in conversations.  Furthermore by conversations, I mean BOTH speaking and listening. While the above may seem like common sense, the amount of accounts we found violating this basic rule pretty much made our heads explode.

Your plans for world domination in the social media world will not work if you are a wallflower. On the flip side, it will also not work if all you do is scream.

4. You Falsely Believe You Have Fans

You sign your dealership up for Twitter and before you know it you have a hundred or so followers. Heck, you have no idea where they are coming from but you are happy to get them.  Despite your lack of activity on there, this social networking thing must work because you have a small fan base by simply being on there right? WRONG.

Here’s the secret – your dealership is attracting followers because your Twitter name is popping up when people and bots are searching for car manufacturer names.  These automated scripts are looking for people with interest in cars to respond to their follow with a follow back so they can spam and shout their own agendas.  I’m sorry to say you don’t have any real fans.

3. You Hide Behind a Curtain

One of the fundamental elements of being social is human interaction yet many dealers do not reveal who the real people behind their websites or Twitter accounts are.

If the peoples’ desire is to interact with other humans, why do so many of you have Twitter accounts that hide the people behind the brand?  Am I supposed to believe I’m speaking to your building, your website, a logo or worse yet, your manufacturer’s mascot?

2. You Are Serving Old SPAM to an Empty Room

Ford, Honda, etc. have done a great job of putting real people behind their social initiatives and spending millions of dollars to promote their brands.  As a potential car buyer, many of us already know the various make and models that are available for purchase but what many of us don’t know is where to look locally to acquire the vehicle.

Many dealers have resorted to shouting out weekend specials (to nobody) and become echo chambers of their manufacturer’s tweets. Why is that? Just because you tweet about an award Scion or Ford wins, does it mean we’ll be rushing into your particular dealership to make that purchase? The answer is no.  If you’re not personalizing your tweets and speaking as an individual to other individuals, you are just adding noise to the room.

1. You Gave Up Before Understanding It

Most of the dealership accounts on Twitter suffer from lack of sincere interactions. However, it’s a lesson that most of you will never learn because you never gave Twitter a chance.  Most of the accounts we have seen have been started and neglected – some even as short as 2 DAYS!  Unless you are giving cars away for free, I don’t think there is a campaign out there that can help you move metal with a 2 day running time.

If what you have been doing on Twitter hasn’t worked, why not try something different instead of abandoning it? Do you even care that your potential customers are finding your failed attempts online?

What grade would you give your dealership’s current Twitter account?

If you guys want some help, let us know in the comments below. With enough demand we will do a follow up on how your dealership can actually use Twitter to bring people in the door and make money with it.

Social media is the next big thing on the internet but many dealers are dropping the ball on taking advantage of it. Social media is not just about brands such as Facebook, Twitter or Youtube but rather how these platforms are changing the way customers are communicating with businesses and each other. If you are still not convinced investing in social media is the right thing to do, check out the following video.

Is your dealership already taking advantage of social media? What are some of the things you are doing to connect with customers?

If you read our previous post outlining 10 reasons why car dealers need to engage car buyers online , than your next logical question would be, “Where is the best place online to engage these car buyers?”  We’ve crafted a list of where we believe are the 10 best places to engage car buyers online.  Depending on the make and model your selling, one online community may make more sense than another, but this list should at least get you started on finding where the relevant conversations are taking place.

10. Edmunds Carspace – “The Car Enthusiasts Automotive Lifestyle Social Networking Site”. Edmunds Carspace is one of the most popular forums on the web. As such, finding what you want can be a bit daunting and the conversations can be long. However, there’s a lot of great advice to be had and a wealth of information in archive. The interface is clean, but there are a lot of ads.

9. AutoMedia – “Car Advice You Can Trust”. Whereas Edmunds does forums by car, AutoMedia does it by topics. From car care to automotive performance, AutoMedia displays all sorts of information about making the car you already have, better. There’s lists on proper driving techniques, restoring tired cars, how to get better gas mileage, amateur motorsports and hundreds of other topics in addition to a simple buying guide for new cars.

8. Yahoo Answers – A specific section for questions about buying and selling vehicles. Yahoo Answers gives you the opportunity to ask questions to an entire community at once through their main page. Not only will members of their community answer your question, other members will rate the answers to give you a “best answer”. The incentive to give the best possible answer means there’s a lot less “noise” in Yahoo’s forums.

7. Ask.Cars.com – “Our Experts Answer Your Questions” Ask.Cars.com has one of the best interfaces of any forum out there. A simple “Question of the Day” takes up a majority of the homepage and subsequent answers are at the bottom of the page as “Recent Questions”. The unfortunate problem is that most questions only have a few answers. The questions jump between tax issues, new cars, problems with cars and hundreds of other things.

6. Cargurus – “Got a question about your car? Ask the CarGurus community and get a response within hours!” CarGurus is a sort of car rating site. It’s not so much a way to ask and answer questions as it is a “raves” vs. “rants” site. If you’re looking for what people who actually own cars think of them, this is a good place to go. Though, there is a very large gap in the models actually reviewed and those still awaiting reviews.

5. DealerRater – Allows dealers to promote their quality customer service. When searching for a new car, that moment comes when you finally say, “Yes. That’s the car I want.” Who are you going to buy from? DealerRater helps you decide by letting users comment on the quality of service they receive. Consumer Reports has noted that new car shoppers rate quality second only to safety as the aspect of owning a car most important to them. DealerRater helps you make sure you get quality service.

4. EasyAutoSales - The first and only social classifieds for cars! EasyAutoSales ties community to car classified listings with Facebook Connect. This allows questions and comments to be broadcast and interesting cars and topics to be shared with your network of friends on Facebook and beyond. EasyAutoSales’ free platform connects car buyers, car sellers and car experts to create one of the most exciting and fastest growing car communities.

3. MySpace – 62,192 automotive related groups. Most people know MySpace as merely a social network for communicating with friends, but MySpace also has one of the largest car communities too! With over 126 million users, MySpace can be a huge ally in discussing cars and, if utilized properly, selling cars.

2. Twitter – People talking and asking questions about cars in 140 characters or less. Twitter allows you to talk about cars in a very real-time, open forum with people who you know or associate with. As opinions on a car, where to get the best deal or what’s popular. Twitter is a great place to discuss cars as well as taking advantage of ancillary sites like TwitPic, where you can share pictures from your cell phone real-time.

1. Facebook.com – With over 500 groups related to “car buying” alone and 175 million users, Facebook is the final frontier in social networking. The combination of fan pages, applications, media sharing and a simple way to interface with all your friends and family on a daily basis, Facebook is a powerful marketing tool. Whether is be via Facebook Connect and sites like EasyAutoSales that use their technology or simply sharing a story or a picture, Facebook has the power to make your car buying or selling experience much easier and more fulfilling.

If you’ve had experience interacting with potential car buyers on any of these sites, or feel like we are missing one, please share in the comments below.  Remember, be helpful, be transparent, and be authentic.  Good luck engaging!

Well?… What are you waiting for?  Your Facebook social graph is pulsing with potential buyers, and friends of potential buyers as we speak.  We only just launched our Facebook Connect Integration and already there are 67 regulars syncing up their EasyAutoSales Account with Facebook.  Check out our user stats below:

Facebook represents an untapped pool of car buyers. Social communities do NOT respond to spam, but the occasional “car for sale” popping up in your news feed just may hook you a few leads. Here’s where you can login with your Facebook account. Good luck!