Social media is our conduit to the global conversation. For businesses, the inclusion of a social media strategy into a company’s marketing strategy is essential but setting up a company Facebook Fan Page or getting Twitter followers can be daunting in the beginning, especially if your company doesn’t already possess a strong online brand.

So how do you get your name out there? How do you get other people to follow what you’re saying and join in the conversation? How do you get people in the door?

There isn’t a simple solution but there is an often-overlooked weapon in every business’ arsenal: your employees. Hopefully your employees have friends. If they don’t, well, that’s a whole other blog.

There are many companies that don’t allow their employees to have personal social media accounts. The obvious benefit for the company is the protection of their online brand. I give credit to these businesses for understanding the importance of what is being said about them online, however, that same company is damaging it’s image with it’s employees by limiting an employee’s action outside of the office.

An employee is your ambassador to the world. They represent you beyond the walls of your business. The main concern for a business should not be what your employees are saying but why they say what they say. Deciding the outlet for their frustration is not the best way to manage their opinions.

If your employee is unhappy and they aren’t able to tweet about it, you can be sure they are talking about it to everyone they know. Which is just as detrimental to your business.

Your company’s social media strategy is a great way to include your employees. Inclusion is a great way to build employer/employee relationships:

• Simply ask your employees for help building your networks. If an employee feels needed they will respond positively.
• Build a team through competition. Encourage employees to complete a task, whether it be refer a hundred fans or participate in a weight loss competition within the office. Showcase the winners on your networks.
• Offer rewards for referrals. If an employee brings in a new customer, reward them. Give gift certificates, cash bonuses, or anything else that will encourage referrals.

If you follow these simple ideas you’ll be able to show the world and your employees their value to your business’ success. Consumers are more likely to respond to companies with happy employees.

What are some other ways of including employees?

Allan Mulally, CEO of Ford

Ford and Microsoft introduced Sync, the in-car communication system, in 2008. Yesterday at the Consumers Electronic Show in Las Vegas, Ford’s CEO Allan Mulally announced an updated version with a long list of new features for the successful Ford feature.

On top of increased voice recognition capabilities, Internet radio, maps and personal settings is a Twitter feature.

The feature reads Twitter messages to the driver and Mulally said that eventually the voice recognition technology in the Sync will allow drivers to dictate their responses and even their own Twitter updates.

Concerns are being raised about the danger of increased distractions for drivers. Doug VanDagens, Ford’s Global Director of Connected Services responded by saying that driver’s already read their Twitter feeds but because Sync reads the messages, drivers will be able to keep their hands on the wheel.

Ford has been very successful with their ability to recognize the influence of social media in today’s culture. They’ve created successful social media campaigns like Fusion 41 and the Fiesta Movement.

The updated Sync will be included in 2010 Ford models.

Trending topics (TT as they’re known in the tweet lives of many) can be great resources for dealers to interact with their followers. Trending topics are the top ten keywords or phrases used in tweets and can be found on the bottom right of your Twitter’s Home or Profile screen. Think of trending topics as windows into what is current in popular culture. Though trending topics range in seriousness from #HappyBeiberYear to #IranElection, they are all indicative of consumers’ interests and opinions. For that reason, trending topics should be taken seriously for their value to potential interactions with your dealership’s followers.

The creation of a trending topic is somewhat of a lightning-in-a-bottle concept. With Twitter’s surging popularity and ever-increasing membership, it is difficult to wield enough influence to incite a trending frenzy. Trending topics are born organically through the interconnected web of the Twitter community, not made. The tipping point needed to begin a trending topic is a fickle combination of hashtag (#) or keyword, frequent usage, and the participation of an engaged crop of followers.

Instead, dealerships should focus on using trending topics for:

• buzz monitoring

• social engagement

With each trending topic, dealers should ask themselves:

• How can this promote my dealership’s brand personality?

• How will this interest my followers?

• How can this extend the reach of my Twitter presence?

Remember, every tweet from your dealership doesn’t need to revolve around automotive news and special promotions. The use of a trending topic is a great means to diversify your tweets with topics related to popular culture. Just keep it classy and avoid any discussion of the three R’s: religion, race, and reproduction.

Happy tweeting!

Your mother always told you not be a follower, right? Well, when we’re talking about Twitter, dealerships should forget mother’s words of wisdom. Unless you are Oprah Winfrey or some other outrageous celebrity, you must follow other twitterers to attract followers. You follow me?

The development of a Twitter following is based upon creative content. Three core principles will attract others to your dealership’s brand identity on Twitter:

• interesting and recent tweet activity,

• brand personality, and

• consumer engagement.

So, who should you follow? By following your target demographic and automotive industry insiders, your dealership demonstrates your interest in what is current and what consumers want. Be in the know and see what Ford is tweeting every morning. Notice that Suzy Sunshine loves her new car from Blankety Blank Automotive Group and reply to her post.

As tweets from these twitterers introduce you to hot topics and comment on your customer service, your dealership has the opportunity to promote its identity and culture through your every retweet and @reply. The return on investment from these interactions can be seen realtime. Other twitterers will take notice and follow you, broadening the reach of your dealership’s brand. So, start following. Search.twitter.com/advanced is the perfect research tool to find followers in your target demographic.

Remember this: Everyone wants to feel special. In order to maintain your following:

• Consumers will follow you for hot deals and promotions. 44% of people that follow a brand on Twitter cited exclusive offers as the main reason.

• An occasional @reply or direct message to a consumer makes your dealership socially accessible. A dealership that caters to a consumer’s needs will be first in that customer’s mind when a purchase must be made.

• Your tweets should be informative and unique enough to encourage other twitterers to retweet or share them. Pack those 140 characters with enticing language and link bait that will prompt sharing. When another twitterer retweets what you have said, you feel special. When yet another twitterer retweets what they retweeted from you, they feel special. Everybody wins as each retweet compounds the value of your original post.

Patience is essential in the development of your Twitter following. Although you will not be a Twitter celebrity overnight, keep posting regular and interesting content.

Businesses of all kinds utilize Twitter to update and engage followers. Now, Twitter is working on a feature that will make business tweets even more relevant. The new feature, “contributors,” is in the BETA test phase. It will allow multiple contributors from one account. As @Anamitra, a Twitter product team member says, this will make business to consumer tweets more personal.

What does this mean for a dealer?

If a dealership asks an employee to tweet on its behalf, that employee will be included in the tweet byline. So, employees can address tweets in their specific field.

The contributor feature is on of many in development for businesses at Twitter. Twitter is looking for feedback from a subset of users right now, but a full launch is expected.

According to SheSpeaks Second Annual Media Study the number of U.S. women with at least one profile on a social networking site grew from 58% in 2008 to 86% in 2009. Of the 86% of women on a social networking 72% log in daily. In 2008 only 53% of women logged in daily.

The biggest number is that half of those active in social media say that social networking sites influence their shopping habits and 40% have used a coupon code.

Here are more of the studies findings:

Site Popularity:

• Facebook saw an increase in popularity from 42% in 2008 to 87% in 2009. With 95% of all those active in social media claiming a profile on Facebook. That’s an increase from 65% in 2008.
• MySpace dropped by 33% to 42% of women active in social networking. However, the site remains popular with women between 18-24.
  Twitter was added to the study just this year with 38% of particpants active on Twitter.
  LinkedIn also saw an increase from 17% in 2008 to 22% in 2009.

Results Based on Age:

• Women under 30 saw an increase of social networking participation from 86% in 2008 to 95% in 2009.
• The largest increase was with women over 50, which saw a 126% increase in usage from 31% in 2008 to 70% in 2009.

Popularity of Online Activities:

• Watching Videos Online
• Commenting on blogs
• Posting product reviews
  

Effectiveness of Social Networking Ads:

The percent of women that click on advertising on social networking pages increased from 2% in 2008 to 9% in 2009 and the percent of women that ignore ads on their pages decreased from 26% to 21%.

Purchasing Influence:

The study found that the leading influence in whether a women buys a product is and email from a friend or family member, however, this method saw a decrease of 7% from 2008. The only two methods to increase from 2008 were:

• “A blog post I read,” which increased from 27% to 53%
• “Information obtained on a social networking site,” which increased from 27% to 43%.

The study was compiled based on responses from 1,500 SheSpeaks members.

Everyone is talking about the monetization of Twitter.  The site boasts millions of unique visits a day and astronomical growth from 2008 to 2009. But are they making any money? The answer is who cares if Twitter makes money.

The question all of us should be asking is how can MY BUSINESS make money with Twitter?

Dell seems to be answering this question very well. It’s being reported that Dell is crediting Twitter for $6.5 million in sales. Dell had reported earlier in the year that Twitter was responsible for only $3 million in sales but in the last 6 months as popularity for the social networking site has grown even more, they have made an additional $3.5 million in sales.

DellOutlet provides a combination of services. Dell employees will Twitter daily deals, customer service responses, and tech support.

Although $6.5 million is less than one percent of Dell’s yearly profits, it’s still a strong indication of Twitter’s potential for sales. Dell has committed 100 employees to their Twitter efforts. It will be interesting to see how they step up their game in light of these profits.

Check out Korenne Richardson’s post on how dealerships can effectively use Twitter.

In the words of Gary Vaynerchuk in his bestselling book Crush It!, “money follows eyeballs.” Twitter has taken over the world of popular culture and social media. From February 2008 to February 2009, Twitter’s membership grew 1382%. As you can see, the eyeballs are looking to Twitter and your dealership should too! It is a free and easy means to build brand equity and promote your dealership’s services. Essentially, if you have a thought, you have a tweet. Just format it into 140 characters and tweet away.

Dealers can use Twitter to extend the reach of their brand. Here’s how:

• Showcase your dealership culture and personality. Is your dealership involved in community service? All of your dealership tweets are an opportunity for conversation.

• Tweet inventory strategically. Release inventory tweets over the course of the day instead of all at once. This maximizes the impact of your tweets and increases your Twitter presence.

• Publicize a promotion, service offer, or factory incentive. The immediate broadcast of your tweet reaches an ever growing network of consumers. Increased visibility means more potential for sales.

• Interact with customers. Acting as a focus group and customer call center, Twitter allows direct communication with your customers. Tweet with them to understand how their feedback can build your brand.

• Stay up on your competition. Be a voyeur and see what they are up to. It could help make your dealership more competitive.

The key to tweeting is authenticity, frequency, and creativity. Be yourself. Tweet on a regular basis. Unique and interesting tweets get more attention.

Happy Tweeting!

GOSO President, Adam Boalt, is at Realtime CrunchUp asking poignant questions to key players in the social media industry.

Twitter COO Dick Costolo opened up the CrunchUp event. As we all know, Twitter is one of the hottest social networks and the site has fallen under a bit of controversy of late due to its $1 billion valuation.

Adam started the first Q&A session of the event by asking Dick Costolo about Twitter revenue. First he asked, is the current revenue $4 million? And, of equal importance, where does this revenue come from?

Costolo vaguely responded by stating, “It’s not $4 million, it’s higher. From a variety of sources.” He did not continue to list any specific areas as to where the money may come from.

The suggested users list that appears when a new account is created has been said to generate revenue for Twitter. But, when Adam asked if the suggested users feature generates dollars, Costolo explicitly said no. He said, “The suggested user list is totally non-financial. It’s a super-primitive mechanism.”

In another session, “Filtering The Stream Roundtable,” Adam was able to speak with key players such as, Facebook, VP of Product, Chris Cox, Microsoft, GM of FUSE Labs, Lili Cheng, Facebook, VP of Platform, Bret Taylor, Google, Google Fellow, Amit Singhal, Seesmic, CEO Loic Le Meur, and MySpace, Chief Product Officer, Jason Hirschhorn.

As GOSO works with the APIs of these networks, Adam’s interest was in how the networks will work together. So, he inquired about the terms of use. He asked, how do the networks plan on having a consolidated real-time data stream if all of the terms of use are different.

He went on to ask, “How do the social networks align in that respect? A standardization of rules? Like Facebook’s new rules. What if something on Twitter goes over to Facebook and it’s against terms of service?”

Bret Taylor spoke for Facebook by saying that over time, specifically the next year, that there will be a big effort in simplifying terms of use. He stated, “I expect simplification to be huge for all of us.” He went on to explain that the networks will not have the same terms, but they will be better. He contended that Facebook’s terms are in place to stop automated spam.

Other panelists did not seem to pose finite answers to the question. Simple shrugs and “I don’t knows” were vaguely offered.

A study was released in early October by MH Group Communications and Forum Strategies that focuses on the success of social media for the nine leading luxury auto brands.

They ranked them in the following in terms of their ability to engage the social media audience:

1. BMW
2. Porsche
3. Audi
4. Mercedes
5. Cadillac
6. Lexus
7. Acura
8. Infiniti
9. Lincoln

According to the study, BMW and Porsche are the clear leaders with some significant challenges coming from Audi and Mercedes while the last five are simply falling behind.

The study found that most engagement took place on Facebook, and YouTube with an impressive 90% of discussion and commentary being successful. This is a truly impressive number given social media’s high tendency to go negative in terms of product discussion.

Major Findings:
• German automakers Porsche and BMW outperform Japanese, Cadillac, Lincoln in social media
• No brand has successfully created a well-rounded social media plan
• Facebook and YouTube are the sites most used by the luxury brands
• Brand identity is being diluted by the overabundance of unofficial brand pages on social media networks

“Social media programs can no longer be considered a nice add-on to traditional marketing efforts, but rather should be viewed as a foundational element that drives interaction with luxury auto brand consumers,” from a blog post by Mark Hass of MH Group Communications

Study Advice:
• Lead the conversation about your brand with Twitter
• Link from Facebook to existing e-commerce infrastructure
• Turn YouTube into a brand TV network
• Don’t forget about Flickr
• Integrate all platforms to create a global brand