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Proven: Buying Facebook Likes Is Wasted Money

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As reported today by Mashable, Facebook has started weeding out and deleting “bogus Likes caused by compromised accounts, deceived users, malware or purchased bulk Likes..”

I’ve written countless times about why buying Likes is not only useless but bad practice. There are companies whose entire social media strategy is a numbers game. The more Likes you have, the more likelihood that you’ll reach people who could do business with you. Well, that house of cards just crumbled.

I wrote an article in July 2010, an article in June 2011, and an article in June 2012 (must be a summer thing. Go figure.) detailing why I think this is bad practice and why social media companies that utilize this strategy offer nothing of value to their clients.

Just like buying fake reviews, buying Likes is bad practice. The only way to have effective, lasting, meaningful social media marketing that will engage your clients and bring you business is to build your social media networks organically. It may be slower, but you shouldn’t ever have to worry about it vanishing into thin air.

Rarely is the easiest way the right one.

[Disclaimer: As many readers know, I work for a company that offers a managed social media solution and work in a position in which I craft social media strategies for our clients. All my posts are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my company.)

The Only Way To Do Social Media Right

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Yeah, Yeah… I know what you’re thinking. Here’s another social media “expert” that’s going to say “this is how you do it”. Actually, I’m not. (As an aside: What does it mean and can anyone really be an “expert” in a field that’s relatively new.)

I, like any other social media person, have my opinions, methods and strategies that I believe work well. I believe these methods work well through many tests and practical implementation. These are, obviously, what I teach and advise. That being said, there are many other social media “experts” that have different opinions, different methods, and different strategies. Whether I agree with them or not is irrelevant. In most cases, when I hear other social media people say “this is how it should be done”, I cringe inside.

Because of the ambiguousness of what it means to be an expert in combination with the fact that this field is constantly changing and new, many dealers (or clients) don’t really know how to judge/evaluate whether a social media consultant/company is “good” at what they do. The easiest way (and how many dealers do it) is to judge a person or company by their own social media presence: How many “likes” do they have? How many followers? Etc.

I personally, don’t believe that either one of these things constitutes a valid assessment point when considering who to partner with in your social media efforts. “Likes” and “followers” can be bought. Does that mean they’re good at what they do? No. It just means they have money to spend. The same philosophy I have in regards to using “likes” to determine the success (or not) for a client’s social media identities applies. You can have a million followers but if none of them would ever do business with you, you’re wasting your breath and your efforts are worthless and a waste of time. If you are a dealer (or business) in Florida, would you pay for traditional advertising in California? Why not? Exactly.

I’m not going to go into what my philosophies are as that’s not the point of this blog post. The point is that there IS no single way to do it right. Numbers of likes and followers or a consultant’s/company’s Klout score don’t mean anything. If you’re looking for a social media partner, for the love of God, please do not use these factors in your decision-making process.

Find a partner who fits well into your company’s strategy, is willing to integrate with your existing marketing, collaborates with you and, most importantly, is willing to make a personalized plan and strategy geared towards your specific audience, not one who fits YOU into THEIR cookie-cutter template process.

If their sales pitch centers around how many “likes” they’ll get you and how many more followers they’ll get you and the reasons they give you for hiring them in any way involves how many likes or followers they have, run away. As fast as you can.

Keep in mind, this person/company is you in the online space. There is no differentiation from a customer’s perspective.

You better be sure that the voice they use is YOURS, not THEIRS.

Facebook Enters the Search Engine Marketing Market

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Today, it was announced by Facebook that they would begin offering “Sponsored Results” that would appear when consumers are searching within Facebook. These results will appear above the organic results. The “results” can then be driven to a Facebook page, tab or canvas application but not off-site. Depending on the geo-targeting capabilities, this could mean that someone who types “ford dealer” into the search bar within Facebook could end up seeing Sponsored Results which include Ford dealers in their area.

Does this pose a threat to Google Ads? I certainly don’t think so but with almost a BILLION users, it certainly might be worthwhile to appear in these results or, at the very least, to test them and see if they are appropriate for your business. Many people “search” on Facebook. It’s the types of searches that are occurring that will dictate whether appearing in those results are worthwhile or not. Facebook does have some pretty healthy data that can help you make that decision but you’ll probably have to try it to see if it works.

 

This is an example image from the TechCrunch article showing the search results for a dating app named OKCupid with Match.com showing as a Sponsored Result.

Inflatable Gorillas vs. Social Media

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The question I hear asked the most by dealers when talking to them about social media is “What’s the ROI? How do I measure that?” The problem with getting a buy-in from them is that they want to see a straight line between a Facebook post or tweet and a sale. Sometimes that’s possible but most of the time, it isn’t.

gorilla

My rebuttal is, “What’s the ROI on the inflatable gorilla on the roof? How do you measure that? Do you have a source in your CRM for “Gorilla” similar to the infamous “Billboard” one you have?”

Inevitably, they can’t answer that question. Funny thing is that even Google got into the “gorilla” game when they posted an ad for PPC advertising stating that Google Adwords would have “tons of customers headed your way” and implying that the gorilla would not (which they were promptly sued for by the makers of inflatable gorillas).

googlegorilla

The most common thought is that the giant inflatable gorilla gets people’s attention (just like the weekend tradition of “ballooning” the cars. Nobody that I ever know of said that they stopped at a dealership and bought a car because they saw a gorilla on the roof. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve seen many comments by consumers that say inflatable gorillas are insulting to them. Some have even said that they are an indicator of an “old-school” dealership and would avoid these dealers at all cost.

Social media, on the other hand, when done properly, can increase customer loyalty, satisfaction and referrals through engagement with your customers. There are TONS of examples of this result from HUGE companies (Ford, Southwest Airlines, etc.). I’ve NEVER heard a customer say those things about a dealership using social media (with the exception of dealers that spam their customers with inventory).

Let’s assume that you can’t track ROI on social media (which is incorrect) and that you can’t track it on an inflatable gorilla, which end of the spectrum would you rather be on?

There’s only one way I could see an inflatable gorilla actually working and that’s if it can do this:

….jump off the roof and physically drag customers in.

So, if you’re willing to put an inflatable gorilla on your roof, balloon-up your lot every weekend, have a “hot-dog food fest” or any of the other things that surely have people (presumably) slamming on their brakes on the freeway to come to your dealership and buy a car, then why wouldn’t you have a presence on social media whether you can measure it’s ROI or not?

What do you think of giant inflatable gorillas on car dealerships?

Stan Sher, Public Figure, at the Innovative Dealer Summit

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I recently attended the Innovative Dealer Summit in Denver, CO. One of the highlights was a session by Stan Sher, President of Dealer eTraining. There were so many sessions at the Innovative Dealer Summit, and I had so many friends speaking, that I ended up jumping from room to room to hear small bits of everyone’s presentations rather than limit myself to only one session per hour block of time. 

Once I hit Stan’s session, however, I was completely riveted and ended up watching the whole thing, unable to leave. Kicking myself for not thinking about it sooner, I whipped out my iPhone and started filming to preserve this moment in all of its glory. My brain hurt at the end from the information that was shared. I hope you get out of it what i did. 
Some of my favorite sound-bites:
“I’m a public figure. I let it out there.”

“I personally don’t like to have cable anymore in my house because it’s a rip-off” (There was an attendee in the room from the local cable company. Check out the guy’s reaction at 7:20 in Part 1.. Whoops!)

(in reference to Twitter) “I don’t think anyone’s gotten to it yet…its still one of those things where it’s still like.. is it going to go? Is it not going to go?”

“Parts always seems to be the one department in the dealership that doesn’t seem to get a whole lot done.”

(on branded personal profiles on Facebook) “Do not accept friend requests for anybody.”

(on how Facebook’s news feed is a distraction) “It took me 25 minutes to respond.. to try and actually get my job done. I wasted 25 minutes of work..myself. I’m a pretty serious individual.. I’m very strict about a lot of things and I was still goofing off.”

..and don’t miss the “Angelina’s Crab Cakes” story in Part 4!

Part 1:



Part 2:



Part 3:



Part 4:



Driving Sales Executive Summit Live Twitter Feed

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Knowledge is Power!

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As Digital Dealer approaches, I’m reminded of how important it is to stay knowledgeable and current on industry trends and best practices.

The speakers at  the conference offer a wealth of information that are invaluable to dealers and present an opportunity to pick the brains of the best and brightest. I know that whenever I attended, I left with ideas and strategies that I could implement immediately upon my return to enhance or improve my online marketing strategies.

We should all strive to learn continuously and better ourselves. If you get so set in your ways that you think you know it all, that’s when you become stagnant. Stay sharp and on top of your game. There’s not a lot of job security in our industry but the more indispensable you make yourself, the more security you will have. Rather than being the hunter in an economy with a 10% unemployment rate, you will be hunted.

Whether you are able to attend conferences or not, use the tools available to you to enhance yourself. If they’re not provided for you, don’t use that as an excuse. Get them yourself.

I had the opportunity to attend a Grant Cardone conference early in my career and made an investment in his training material. Prior to that, I had not been provided with any tools. It was the best decision I ever made and I can tell you that I went from making an average salary to six figures within 2 months.

Recently, I’ve been reading Seth Godin. He offers a lot of great self-motivation and practical advice on how to think about things in a different way.

Be powerful. You are your own best resource.

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