Social Media, yes or no?
Why are RV Dealers driving their web visitors away from their sites to their social media pages?
Why have RV Dealers driven their internet focus towards social media?
Are RV Dealers in the entertainment business or are they supposed to be selling RVs?
What are the FACTS about Social Media that Marketing Companies are not telling you about?
How much time should your Internet Person spend updating your social media pages?
Are RV Dealers losing more than they're gaining with this new trend?
...Imagine you're in your dealership and a prospect walks in. You greet them at the door and tell them to join you and grab a cup of coffee at your local cafe. Take them AWAY from your dealership because you want to talk about friends and facebook. Really? Would you do that? OF COURSE NOT! So then why in the world would you drive visitors away from your website to visit your social networking pages...
Why are RV Dealers driving their web visitors away from their sites to their social media pages?
Why have RV Dealers driven their internet focus towards social media?
Are RV Dealers in the entertainment business or are they supposed to be selling RVs?
What are the FACTS about Social Media that Marketing Companies are not telling you about?
How much time should your Internet Person spend updating your social media pages?
Are RV Dealers losing more than they're gaining with this new trend?
...Imagine you're in your dealership and a prospect walks in. You greet them at the door and tell them to join you and grab a cup of coffee at your local cafe. Take them AWAY from your dealership because you want to talk about friends and facebook. Really? Would you do that? OF COURSE NOT! So then why in the world would you drive visitors away from your website to visit your social networking pages...
Before we
even start, we would like to stress that you can never ever have enough
links to your site. Traffic to you is a wonderful thing. It's when
you're driving traffic away that hurts. This page is dedicated to help
you understand the importance of social media, but the risks you may be
taking while thinking you're social media presence is helping your
ranking. Our purpose is not to discredit any marketing company but to bring this topic to light and allow you to have a full understanding before you pay for a service that is free. Remember, it's not magic...it takes hard work. Know what to expect from your marketing company. Know what to expect from yourself if you are not using a marketing company and internally your team members are working on facebook and twitter.
We here at UVS have locked horns regarding social media, primarily with marketing companies and those that self manage their social media pages. Read our string of comments and facts, and you decide. You can trust that we never mislead our clients. Our objective is to give them all the tools they need to be front runners in their market...so what's all the hype about social media?
First...the industry has changed. Marketing companies that have serviced our industry for many years with print, radio, and television have been faced with challenges because the advertising market has changed. That's a fact...so they have learned to be creative with their marketing and have now moved over to the digital world. Also, most dealerships have a team member that works on their "social media" pages. Working on social media is not constructive. Apply that time to your website enhancing content, working on descriptions, creating incentives. Stop playing with facebook. Facebook is cool and serves a great purpose but does not warrant the hours we've learned are spent on it collectively among our client base.
So what does this all mean to you? What will social media marketing do for you...anyone can set up a hot link from your homepage to your social media page...it takes a lot more than that to create a true social campaign.
Before you spend a penny with any marketing company or a team member that is making promises as a result of social media campaigns...READ THIS. Most importantly remember that you can't integrate what you don't have access to. So unless your marketing company is also your web provider they are not truly integrating. They are SIMPLY POINTING. There's a big difference. We'll explain true integration at the bottom of this page...
What we all need to embrace is that the only way any third party site whether it be social media or third party classified will benefit you is if traffic is driven FROM them TO you. What do we mean by this...
Many of our clients have contacted us as a result of marketing companies wanting to start campaigns and they are wanting to put these oversized and distracting social media icons on their homepages with the facebook and twitter links. Here's our point of view on this...
Our opening comments on the top of this page say it all. So impacting, we're saying it again: Imagine you're in your dealership and a prospect walks in. You greet them at the door and tell them to join you and grab a cup of coffee at your local cafe. Take them AWAY from your dealership because you want to talk about friends and facebook. Really? Would you do that? OF COURSE NOT! So then why in the world would you drive visitors away from your website to visit your social networking pages?
Can ANYONE OUT THERE confirm that they are SELLING units from their facebook pages? ARE WE MISSING SOMETHING HERE?
Does ANYONE OUT THERE realize how much competition dealers are now faced with and how hard it is to drive traffic to your website...so then WHY would you drive them AWAY?
Do you know that your dealership or fan page will never result in any prime position organically on any of the search engines when it is business related based on your inventory, products, or service. NOTHING gets noticed that is living on your wall. They've blocked that out. It will never happen. If it did, it would flood the engines with tons of garbage.
Of course if you search your name on the internet and you have a facebook page you'll come up somewhere. That's a page associated with your name. And of course, if someone knows your name and searches you, they'll go to your website not facebook. With that said test drive it. Search a piece of inventory. Search by year, make, and model. Search for an RV Dealership by state. Nothing. So then perhaps we are trying to understand all the hype.
This simple test mentioned above clears the doubt in one paragraph. So then what is facebook marketing really doing for you? Is it a billboard in the middle of the desert sucking up marketing dollars and wasting precious time? Don't get us wrong, facebook is a cool tool and a great alternate way to communicate. But a creative marketing company or team member will get your friends list to grow at their expense, not yours. THEN when you have tons of friends, their mission should be to drive visitors to your website FROM facebook or twitter. Make sense?
The only way any social media page will ever BENEFIT you is if traffic is driven from THEM to YOU.
So here's our challenge...if these marketing companies are so good have them report traffic to you FROM the media site TO YOU. Right now they are more than likely reporting clicks to your facebook or twitter account. OF COURSE YOU ARE GAINING FRIENDS. You're paying for them dearly. Every new friend could be costing you a sale because they were distracted and LEFT your site to visit with facebook. Heck I LOVE facebook. Doesn't take an awful lot to distract me. I guess what I am saying is if I were a visitor on your site and saw a facebook link, I would leave in a heartbeat. Most will. Not to see your stuff, but theirs. You're sending them a gentle reminder to go out a play...
The marketing company you've hired is driving traffic AWAY from your website right into the lap of facebook and twitter. The only winners here are facebook, twitter, and your marketing company. Do you really need friends? As far as we can see, we thought you were wanting to generate customers. The marketing companies are shining because their campaign is BENEFITING FROM YOUR TRAFFIC...NOT THEIRS.
Are we in the ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS or are we in the business to SELL RVS?
We also have clients that want to embed YouTube videos on their pages following the lead of their marketing companies. WHY? So your visitors will click and leave you to visit with YouTube? Do you know that in some cases your site is at risk of getting a malicious virus from third party links? Did you know that here at UVS we have the same video logic built right into your site and you never have to embed any video into your website from YouTube...your video lives on your site.
So in a nutshell, here are the facts...like it or not...
- Traffic driven FROM your site TO any social media or third party classified DOES NOTHING FOR YOUR RANKING.
- Traffic driven TO your site FROM any social media or third party classified BENEFITS YOUR RANKING.
- Inviting any third party links into your site can put you at risk for a malicious virus.
- Why would you drive your visitors AWAY from your website...it's hard enough to get them there!
- You're not in the entertainment business. Your objective is to SELL RVS from your website, not entertain your visitors.
- Marketing companies are benefiting off YOUR TRAFFIC misconstruing actual results. You're doing all the work and they're getting all the glory.
- Unless your campaign LIVES and/or POINTS TO YOUR SITE, it means nothing.
- SAVE YOUR MONEY. Why would you pay for a service that is free. There ISN'T A MAGIC WAND.
- We've learned that some marketing companies that offer social media DON'T EVEN HAVE a facebook or twitter account themselves! Really? How can they know it works...how can they set an example.
- No matter what, your facebook pages will never show up organically on any search engine.
We tell it like it is. We are approved facebook developers and have built a tool to drive visitors from them to you. No fluff.
Here's our spin on integration...
To us here at UVS integration means total connectivity. That means from a social networking page your clicks are talking directly to your website inventory, parts page, etc. Anyone can hot link from your homepage to facebook or twitter. That doesn't take rocket science. We've built our social media platforms with total connectivity. So much so that you can actually edit your facebook page right from your website console. Imagine that! It's true. Remember...Junction means to connect...and every step of the way we continue to keep our RV Dealer clients connected!
Below is a link to our sample facebook page...there you'll see TRUE integration. All UVS clients get our facebook platform FREE. It will show you how inventory is living on facebook and how it clicks through right to the dealer's website. Integration with eBay, and craigslist. That says a bunch more than POINTING, don't you think?
CLICK HERE to learn more about our social platform.
