Louder Than An Engine: Social Media in the Car Industry and Reaching Customers

Social Media has come a long way in the past couple years, especially for the Car Industry. A few years ago we started a micro social media site called <www.MyJeepCommunity.com> We started getting users to sign on in the hopes of communicating with one another. The task seemed too daunting as other sites like Facebook and Twitter garnered millions of users to their sites. Now, rather than individual social media sites, Auto execs must scan through thousands of Facebook and twitter users looking for potential customers. Well with all of these users its easy to get lost in the crowd, especially when no one knows who your are. Many businesses are trying extremely hard to use social media to convert users into customers and computers into gold mines. Much of the online success has occurred through parts websites, selling car owners parts to their cars depending on models and makes. But social media has seemed to be stagnant. How can you track a customer coming from a "like" on a Facebook page or a "re tweet" from twitter. I believe real customers will come if you offer them something to engage in and some rich in content. Re-blogging or "retweeting" the same old Auto News Articles may get you a 100 likes on Facebook or maybe even more, but without new and orignal ideas about the industry no body will listen and they will scan you out of their news feeds. Rather than going and searching for customers ONLINE, i believe creating rich content will have customers searching for you instead.

Be new and creative and don't follow the mold.