At last week’s Google I/O conference, Director of Google Maps Daniel Brath announced that Google Maps ratings are going to return to a 5 star scale. The move helps simplify listings, and in doing so will likely motivate car shoppers to leave reviews for their dealerships of choice. It’s also part of ongoing enhancements to Google plus. Here’s what dealers need to know about the change.
92% of consumers trust ‘earned media’, including unpaid recommendations, tips, and social media check-ins (In contrast to 47% of consumers who trust television, representing a 24% decline since 2009). In other words, social credibility matters to your reputation.
Google+ has more likes than Facebook in terms of how users rank it, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Google’s social layer, which includes location based search tool Google+ Local, tied Wikipedia for top social media site in the survey. Why do customers approve so overwhelmingly of Google’s search plus social mash-up?
Think blogging is a waste of time? Think again. When done regularly, quality blog posts introduce fresh content to websites. This entices search engines to crawl sites, which in turn helps to promote overall visibility, page rankings, keyword rankings, conversion rates – even backlinks. Of course, it’s not all about key performance indicators (KPIs)..
Let’s discuss the move away from Google Places towards the new Google+ Local pages, how they affect your customers, and what you need to know about the shift in local search. The good news is that this change is gradual. The better news is how much more valuable your reviews have just become.
Who are the most important people in your social media community? If you’ve read ‘The Rise of Loyalty, Advocacy and Influence’ study, your answer is probably ‘key influencers’.
Limiting your advertising and conversations to the social web is like a pizza delivery chain spending big bucks to run a TV ad and forgetting to include their phone number. You have to carry the message forward into the social customers research phase, or risk losing out to competitors who freeload off of your initial investment.
How do shoppers reach a buying decision in today’s socially connected digital landscape?More important, how much more profitable would your business be if you could be first to market reaching these potential customers? Before you invest time, money and energy attending (or following) the upcoming NADA convention in Las Vegas, let’s arm ourselves with a better understanding of how social purchases occur (and the specific ways you can frame the buying conversation before a competitor does).
The rise of social media has broad implications for retail businesses, especially the automotive sector. Consumers now have the ability to broadcast their opinions and recommendations to their networks via social media. To understand the effect of social media on dealers and manufacturers, DriverSide and Dealer.comTM partnered with GfK Automotive Research to study the impact of social media on the automotive shopping process.
Long gone are the days where our only media choices are limited to the big three: Print, TV and Radio. With the rapid growth of social media and digital advertising, marketers have more choices than ever before. Now we have text ads, paid placement & display advertising, social media advertising, social media marketing, and mobile advertising to add to the mix. All are important and each has a place in your marketing plan, but it’s a little overwhelming isn’t it? So what is a marketer to do?