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Facebook Hashtags and Personal Posts

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A couple of days ago, I wrote an article about how dealerships (or any business, for that matter) can use hashtags in their social media posts to potentially increase exposure.

The biggest question I had was regarding hashtag visibility from personal posts so I thought I’d write a short article with that answer.

Facebook privacy settings trump everything.

What does that mean? If you put a hashtag in a post on your personal profile that is public, anyone clicking on (or searching) that hashtag has the ability to see your post. If your posts are limited to friends of friends, only those people can see those posts. If your privacy settings are “friends”, then only your friends would see your post in a hashtag search.. you get my point.

Unless your friends are hashtag-using people, hashtags have the most possibilities for businesses and Pages. That being said, it could be useful to create a hashtag for a conversation amongst friends (or a common interest or event.. say a birthday party or other group event) so that all of those involved in the conversation/event would have the ability to view all the posts, pictures and other related content easily.

So, there’s your answer. The visibility of your personal posts with hashtags rely completely on the privacy settings of THAT post so don’t freak out and think that everyone can see your hash tagged personal posts should you decide to use hashtags.

(Except maybe the NSA, but that’s a different story).

Facebook Hashtags and Dealership Page Marketing

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As you probably heard, Facebook has integrated hashtags into their system. This provides another way in which your dealership has to get exposure for their Page. The old rules still apply, though. If you have crappy content, it’s not going to help. However, if you’re posting good content, not only is it another way to get exposure but you might even pick up some new “likes”. Yeah, they’re not necessarily going to be people in your geographic area.. they could be from anywhere in the world. However, my guess is that Facebook users are more likely to click on an easily-clickable hashtag “just because” than to do a full on Facebook search for a brand name.

Obviously, it’s a brand new feature so who knows if people will use it or not. My guess is they will in the same way they do on Twitter, Instagram, etc.

My advice: start adding hashtags to your Facebook posts. Use hashtags that people would search for. Don’t worry about hash tagging your dealership’s name.. people will search for that if they want to see YOUR posts specifically. Hashtag your brands and model names (that are in the content posted, of course). Think about what people would be interested in and, if applicable, use those hashtags. Think minimal and relevant in your use of hashtags. Save the “reactionary” and “opinion” oriented hashtags for Twitter (ie. #justsaying or #noms or #FML) unless you’re going to try and hijack a hashtag a la Jello.

Hashtags (for me, at least) went live today. I decided to search #Ford and these are a few examples of what I saw. None of these are Pages that I “like” with my account. Keep these examples (of which there are MANY) in mind the next time you’re posting content to Facebook. Do you want your Page’s content in the mix?

P.S. The last one’s my favorite. 😛

Why No Social Media Vendors Exist In Automotive

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Before you get all huffy (especially the social media vendors that may read this), I want to narrow my definition of “social media” for the purposes of this article down. Social media encompasses a lot of things but I’m specifically talking about Facebook and Twitter management.

There are not many people who would argue that, given the choice and means, any company has the ability to do their own social media better than any vendor. You know your company better than anyone. You have the access and availability to create instant, company-specific content on-site and all the content you need to do it.

That being said, if you find yourself either in a position where you don’t have anyone to do it in house, or you don’t have the time to do it yourself and you are considering outsourcing your social media, consider a few things.

Being familiar with many of the social media services directed specifically at the automotive industry, whether those services are from a company that only does social media or as a service offered by a vendor that has multiple services, in my opinion, there aren’t any social media companies and/or any true social media services offered by companies.

What, exactly, do I mean by that?

In my opinion, every company that exists and works within the automotive space that offers social media services are, in reality, offering content marketing services. The basic idea is that they will set-up and/or manage your social media properties and provide content for those properties on a daily (or less) basis. Yes, chances are that they will respond to comments left (hopefully) and engage with fans when fans engage with you. They may offer to help you grow your fan base and followers – some via methods with which I agree and some using methods which I think are idiotic. Keeping in mind that I’m only talking about Facebook and Twitter management (not reputation, location-based services, etc.) that typically encompass the scope of work.

Content marketing is NOT social media.

I’m certainly not trying to imply that there is no value in content marketing. There are lots of benefits to it especially with well run blogs with great, relevant content… but it’s not social media (at least as defined for the purposes of this article).

So, what is social media?

In my opinion, if someone says they will manage your social media properties, these are the types of things they should be doing:

  1. They should be optimizing your pages/profiles to achieve maximum exposure via search engines.
  2. They should be teaching you how and helping you grow your fan base organically through in store signage, marketing integration and other means in which to capture your existing customers.
  3. They should be providing fresh, relevant and timely content and posting this content to your properties on a daily basis.
  4. They should be creating, finding and seeking this content daily. Yes, every day. Not creating some monthly calendar of content 30 days in advance, re-using content amongst clients (whether they are geographically close or are competitors doesn’t matter)… and they certainly should not be using a “content library” of canned posts.
  5. They should be analyzing the performance of different content types on a daily basis and tailoring the content they are posting to what the page audience wants to hear, not what they want to tell them… on a daily basis.
  6. They should be available and ready to react almost instantaneously to any issue, event, request, problem, comment.. anything and everything… on a moment’s notice. If a customer tweets or posts a complaint, there better be someone to respond.. and fast. Not just between the hours of 9am and 5pm.
  7. Most social media companies are reactive in their engagement. Their engagement is in response to an action taken by a fan or follower. Social media companies should be proactive in their engagement. They should be seeking out relevant conversations happening in your market area (whether that’s by region, state or national) and trying to insert themselves into relevant conversations in a non-threatening and engaging way.
  8. Anyone that tells you that social media is all about branding and that “selling” shouldn’t and/or can’t happen is an idiot and you should run away from them. Bottom line is that everything you do – whether its traditional or digital advertising – is about selling your product or service. Sales can be, and are, made on social media all the time. Revenue is there. There is an ROI (albeit it’s hard to track). Anyone trying to convince you otherwise is setting you up for that future conversation where you say you’re not selling anything from it and they say social media isn’t about selling. I’m pretty certain you’re not in business to not make money.
  9. When people follow you on Twitter, they should be thanking those people and, if appropriate, following them back. In addition, they should be finding new and relevant people to follow on your behalf. On top of those two things, they should be identifying your influencers as best as they can (and that doesn’t necessarily mean the ones with the highest Klout scores) and seeking to engage with them.
  10. They should be using methods and techniques designed to maximize your reach on both Facebook and Twitter. There are many things you can do that are free. Some that cost money. There are some things that I believe are worth the money they cost and some that I believe you might as well be lighting your money on fire if you use them. Whatever the case may be, they should be including these in their offerings to you. They should be doing this in real-time as the situation warrants.
  11. They should be providing you with detailed analytics monthly including detailed Facebook reports, Twitter reports, overall performance reports, response times, interactions, and even be able to show you how your social media may have influenced website traffic (which it can, and is possible, if you provide your Google Analytics code to them). These reports should NOT be simply how many new fans/followers you got, how many pieces of content they posted and the engagement metrics associated with that content (likes, comments, shares, etc.)

How do I know that there are NO social media companies that do this? Well, I’ve talked to many of them. Heck, it was my JOB to research competitors. I also attend trade shows and pay attention.

The reason they don’t do it is that it is not a scalable business model. Bottom line. I get that and agree that it probably isn’t but that doesn’t mean they’re providing social media services.. they’re providing content marketing. That’s all well and good but let’s keep it real.

Just because doing it right isn’t “scalable”, that doesn’t justify calling your service something that it isn’t. Many dealers don’t “get” social media. Some “kind of” get it. The ones that actually “get it” will agree with everything I’ve just written (or at least I hope they will).

So, remember two things about your social media: First, that you can do it better than any vendor whether you believe that’s true or not and second, that, IF you’re going to outsource this to a company, at the very least know the difference between a company offering you social media and one offering you content marketing.

[Note: If you know of a vendor that does all of the things I described above and/or even more, I’d love to hear who they are.]

Are You Being Cheated By Facebook Promoted Posts?

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Cheater

Let me start by saying that I’m a fan of Facebook’s Promoted Post feature in general. If your goal is to increase your Page exposure and reach not only more of your fans but penetrate their networks as well, I’ve found that they accomplish that goal. They are especially useful for smaller pages with a fan count under 1500 where the typical cost to promote a post will be in the $5-$10 range.

In the past, on a particular Page which has 164 fans, the options available for promoting a post were $5 and $10 with an “estimated” reach of usually in the 2,000 range for the $10 option. Considering that a typical Page post will reach an estimated 16% of the Page’s fans (in this case approximately 27 people), this is a considerable difference. This Page typically gets good engagement and has a slightly large reach per post – typically between 40-100 with some posts even reaching into the 700 range without promotion (although this is rare).

Recently, Facebook decided to increase the available options to Pages with a smaller number of fans. I noticed this and decided to try testing it out to see what the results were.

Here were my options:

Facebook Promoted Post OptionsAs you can see, the potential reach increased from a maximum of 2,000 I was offered previously to 17,000. I decided to take the plunge and test out the $50 option and let the ad run its course over the 3 days (which, in case you didn’t know, is how long a single post will run in a promotion) so that I could see what the results were.

Here were the results:

Facebook Promoted Post ResultsAs you can see, this is considerably less than the estimated exposure Facebook promised me in their “estimate” of between 9,100-17,000 for $50. In fact, this should have been the results if I had chosen the $20 option.

I find it completely unacceptable (and false advertising) that Facebook would deliver the post to about 33%-50% of the estimate I was promised for my $50. I have noticed this disparity in the past but since I’m working with some Pages that have a smaller audience and the reach promised was much less, the disparity between the “estimated” reach and the final number has never been that large.

Bottom line is that, while I still think Facebook’s Promoted Post (or Boost Post as they’re now calling it) option is a good value for exposure, I will no longer have any confidence in the “estimated reach” promised.

Yo, Facebook. You owe me $30.

Twitter Tip: Why Do People Put Periods In Front of Tweets

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In the past month or so, I’ve seen several people that are very socially active make a simple faux-paus in their tweeting that is restricting the audience of their tweets. After explaining the action (as it wasn’t really an ‘error’) all of them said something along the lines of “I never knew that” so I thought I’d write a quick blog post to let everyone in on the secret that’s not a secret.

When you compose a tweet that begins with a mention (@), Twitter considers it a conversation between you and that user.

An example tweet: @VelocitySales Bacon is king! It is so yummy! #bacon #nom

In this tweet, because it starts with a mention (@VelocitySales), Twitter interprets this as a conversation between the tweeter and that user. This is true even if the tweet is meant as a tweet and not as a reply like if you are simply mentioning a company/person in your post as in:

@Ford has the best cars in the universe!

You may just be tweeting your general sentiment about Ford cars but Twitter thinks you are having a conversation with Ford.

Why is this important?

The only people that see those tweets in their Twitter stream are COMMON FOLLOWERS (i.e. people that follow both you and whomever you mentioned), NOT everyone who follows you.

This obviously decreases the visibility of the tweet.

Don’t fret though. There is a very simple solution to this:

Put a period at the beginning of the tweet, like so:

.@VelocitySales Bacon is king! It is so yummy! #bacon #nom

OR

.@Ford has the best cars in the universe!

Now, Twitter interprets these as actual tweets (vs. a reply or conversation) and will show these to all of your followers.

Sometimes, it is appropriate to have a conversation with a person and only include yourselves and common followers. However, there are many businesses who think that when they are tweeting back to consumers or answering a question to a tweeter that all of their followers are seeing it… and they’re not.

I see many people doing this in tweets that are obviously meant for a general audience (their followers) … some very prominent social media personalities.. so don’t feel bad or stupid because you didn’t know this. Who knows how many informative or interesting tweets I’ve missed because of this…

Don’t make yours one of them.

 

 

 

Facebook Threaded Comments – Replies – Not Necessarily Limited to Pages with 10k Fans

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Facebook is rolling out a new feature in which people are able to “reply” to comments on your Page’s posts creating a threaded comment so that replies to other comments aren’t mixed in with this big long (hopefully) chain of comments. This is great for Facebook pages with a ton of fans and is designed to help those Page administrators manage the conversations better.

To qualify, you are supposed to have a Page with over 10,000+ fans BUT, I was able to turn it on for my blog’s Facebook page and it only has (at this point) 624 fans.

If you’re a Page administrator, you may want to go into your Admin settings and see if you can turn this feature on or not. It’s super helpful in encouraging comments and keeping track of who is responding to whom and managing, responding and engaging in these conversations.

This is how you do it:

  1. Go to your Facebook Page.
  2. Click “Admin Panel”
  3. Click “Edit Page”
  4. Click “Manage Permissions”
  5. Scroll down and you will see a checkbox that says “Replies”, check that box and click “Save”.
If the feature is turned on, you should have “Replies” enabled. Find one of your posts and comment on your own post. If replies are enabled, an additional option to the comment will be “Reply”.. Ouila! Let me know if this is working for you or if I just won some sort of Facebook lottery or they consider me a superstar and are just getting me ready for this huge influx of fans in advance. (crossing fingers).

This is what your post comments will look like if you’re able to activate this feature on your Facebook page:

Or you can watch this video (or read this article) by Christian Karasiewicz that will walk you through it.

Can You Hear the Words That Are Coming Out Of My Mouth?

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Blogging, in general, is about sharing information. There are many ways to do that in writing and it certainly depends on the type of information you share but no matter what the purpose of your writing, it should, in my opinion, accomplish a few goals.

First, it should be timely. People don’t want to read about things that happened 2 years ago unless you happened to find Jimmy Hoffa or discover evidence of a second gunman. I tend to get inspiration from social media. I don’t mean that social media alone as a subject inspires me, I mean that I use social media as a tool to find out what’s going on in the world, what people are talking about, and how those things may apply to my industry or profession.

Second, other than the fundamental goal of sharing information, I share how the current event, news article, etc. applies to social media, digital marketing or the automotive industry and what kind of takeaways or lessons can be learned from it.

Third, and sometimes most important, I try to be entertaining. Sometimes I aim for profound but that’s quite lofty unless you’re Seth Godin who could probably share his grocery list in a profound way. My ability to change lives through my writing is something that, while I would like to think I do, is probably minimal at best, delusional at worst (or vice versa). You can be the greatest thought-leader in the universe with the most intelligent and timely insight but if your message is only being heard by your goldfish, you might as well go play some video games.

I’ve read some super smart, well-crafted blog articles that are visionary and enlightening that, at the same time, make me feel like I was forced to read the ingredients of every box of cereal in the grocery store.  Dry reading (get it?) isn’t going to capture your audience and keep them paying attention. If you’re lucky, they’ll read the first paragraph, get bored, and click on the “Read Later” button that sends your wisdom into the desert of Instapaper that will, ultimately, never get read.

So, listen to your audience, no… really.. listen. Don’t write what YOU want to write, write what THEY want to hear but, at the same time, do it in a way that makes them want to keep reading.

If you don’t care what your audience thinks, why should they care what you have to say? Write for your audience, don’t write to them.

The FTC May Have Just Killed Twitter Marketing For Dealers

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Yeah, in the most absurd move ever, the FTC has determined that Twitter is not excluded from regulatory laws requiring full disclosure on products or services. The Wall Street Journal reports that any disclosures that would apply to any other advertising also apply to Twitter.

Hmm. Let’s think about that a moment. On a platform that allows only 140 character submissions, how, exactly, do you tell your followers about a great lease special, factory incentive or other promotion AND include the tiny, almost unreadable, 2 paragraph disclosure in 6 point font at the bottom of the ad? Well, you don’t.

So, what does that prohibit by default? Pretty much anything you want to promote that requires a disclosure and, for most car dealers, that’s just about everything. Heck, most factory incentives have disclosures. Contests, giveaways, or any other promotion (social media or otherwise) as well as coupons, service specials, and other customer offerings would also be excluded.

The easiest way to determine whether you can or can’t tweet something about any special, ad car, incentive, lease special, promotion, coupon, service special, parts special etc. is by following one basic rule:

If it needs a disclosure, you can’t tweet about it.

See, that was simple wasn’t it?

Now, all of the above being said, Facebook’s Terms of Service in regards to contests, promotions and such are violated, trampled over and ignored all of the time by both vendors (who know better) and by dealers (who may or may not).

That being said, Facebook can’t investigate your dealership and fine you for non-compliance with advertising regulations either.

So, has the FTC effectively killed Twitter marketing for businesses?

It depends on what you’re tweeting about.

If your tweets are informative, quality content or customer service and engagement focused then no. If your strategy is to blast your inventory and specials to Twitter on some sort of robotic RSS feed that forces everyone to not listen to you anyways, then yes.

You make the call. It’s your business but the U.S. Government has spoken.

Update 3.14.13

I spoke with Compliance expert Jim Radogna about this issue. He researched the actual FTC ruling & found the relevant passages and, in his opinion, you can still tweet specials, etc. as long as there is a clear link to the disclaimers included in the tweet. While the Wall Street Journal article seemed pretty straightforward, it’s in his opinion that they’re incorrect in their translation of the ruling and how it applies to tweets.

Business Insider reports that the FTC released more information outlining a way that businesses can continue to use Twitter to market without actually needing the disclaimer physically present within the tweet. Just use “Ad:” within the tweet

How Your Social Media Use Could Begin To Affect You (and Your Business) Financially

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Recently, there have been several cases in which employers were requiring job applicants to give them access to their social media profiles to be considered for employment. This practice has been shut down by a few states already but not all of them and, in some states, the FTC has even backed the employers. While this is certainly one way social media could affect you financially, it is not in this way that this article is about.

What if banks started looking at your social media profiles to assess your credit-worthiness?

What if lenders started using your social media accounts to assist in deciding whether to approve your car loan?

What if credit card companies started changing your interest rates based on your social media use?

Well, these aren’t “what-ifs” anymore. According to a recent article by The Economist, these practices are already happening. “There is a start-up that assesses the credit worthiness of car-loan applicants” through social media presences including LinkedIn contacts under the theory that the character of the people you are connected with are an indicator of your character and can help predict how quickly you can get another job should you become unemployed.

Lenders are recording your Facebook data which is being used to secure loans overseas. They’re analyzing usage patterns of personal mobile phones. A Hong Kong start-up is even requiring “loan-seekers to ask their Facebook friends to vouch for them.”

An online bank in the U.S. “will use Facebook data to adjust account holders credit card interest rates” and, while most banks tend to avoid social media in analyzing a loan applicant, there are many “employees of small banks [who] often search social media or the web for the names of loan applicants.”

Lenders are using the social media data to find correlations between that data and an individual’s credit worthiness. For example, ZestFinance, an American lender, says that “Applicants who type only in lower-case letters, or entirely in upper case, are less likely to repay loans, other factors being equal.” and they are continuously using increasingly advanced algorithms to find more correlations. They claim that their default percentage is 40% lower than similar lenders.

An overseas lender of small loans has found that “An applicant whose friends appear to have well-paid jobs and live in nice neighborhoods is more likely to secure a loan. An applicant with a friend who has defaulted on a Kreditech loan is more likely to be rejected.”

I expect that banks in the U.S. are paying close attention to these activities. All of the actions above (save for the web and social media searches) are done with the permission of the applicant. It’s hard to believe that a US court would prohibit an opt-in component used to extend loans to individuals but that’s up in the air since my guess is that if you opt-out, you’d have no chance at getting approved. I would think that courts would find that it’s certainly up to the bank who they decide to loan money to (excluding certain exceptions for people in protected statuses).

This is another example of how social media is increasingly affecting not only our personal lives but those of businesses that rely on banks extending loans to consumers to make sales.. like car dealerships.

 

The Little Gopher That Could: How Being Not So Normal Paid Off Big

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Humans are competitive by nature. Throughout history, as a species, we’ve been competing in one way or another whether that’s with each other or nature. So it came as no surprise to us when one of our clients – Princeton Mini – approached us and said that they “had to” win a regional OEM contest being held in conjunction with a national sales event, and enlisted our assistance.

The “Not So Normal” sales event held by Mini was designed to advertise the exceptionally high gas mileage that Mini Coopers have. The contest itself was between the dealerships and they were given little guidance other than being creative and not so normal.

The dealership already had a huge head-start in the contest deciding on building a custom-made miniature golf course (Mini golf course, get it?). The employees themselves built this very creative and elaborate 9-hole course spending their own free time to do so. The contest was to culminate in a dealership event promoting the “Not So Normal” sale and was to be judged by the regional representatives from Mini via pictures and videos of the event.

After brainstorming with the General Manager, Robert Ogust, we came up with a “Caddyshack” theme to build up on the miniature golf course they had created. We scripted out the video based on scenes from the classic movie and incorporated the infamous gopher and make the event even less “normal”. The plot was that the gopher was going to infiltrate the dealership and they needed to get rid of it.

We attended the event and filmed the scenes needed with the employees playing the various roles and to photograph the event. The dealership really went all out for this event. It was very apparent that they had put a lot of time and effort into it. They had given each golf hole Mini-inspired name such as Mini Mulligan, Fore Wheel Drive and Cooper Chute. The employees were all wearing these, for lack of better words, not so normal golf costumes. They had music playing, catered food (including a chocolate fountain), a bounce house and even threw in some large, stuffed sumo wrestling outfits at the end. They were even successful in getting customers to participate in doing some “not so normal” things on camera!

The event was a great success with everyone attending – from employees to customers – having a great time and the dealership making sales. In the end, Princeton Mini ended up winning the contest. Instead of keeping the $3500, the staff at MINI decided to donate their winnings to the Red Cross to help the many people in NJ impacted by Hurricane Sandy. Princeton MINI’s generosity was matched by their parent company, Asbury Automotive Group, and MINI for a total donation to the Red Cross of $10,500.

It goes to show what a little imagination, commitment, elbow grease and fun can earn you. Sometimes it pays to be “not so normal”… and have a pet gopher.

…and if you’d like to see the fun video, you can check it out by clicking here!

Originally published in the January 2013 edition of the 3 Birds Marketing newsletter

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