It’s hard to believe, but the end of October is here and the holiday season has begun. While you’re selecting a Halloween costume or planning the company Christmas Party, think of ways to show that you’re in the holiday spirit to your customers. Here are a few tips I found to get you started!

1. Imagery can be very powerful and can increase content relevance if used correctly. Use season specific imagery to entice customers to want to learn more about your events or specials. This can be applied to your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter or any other vehicle you use to communicate with customers.
2. Keep your website festive by using season specific content. Take advantage of the Holidays! Allow your customers to have more fun when they land on your homepage in November with a witty tagline for your Thanksgiving event.
3. Modify ‘tweets’ and posts to be more holiday specific. Utilize your social media to show how your office gets in the holiday spirit with a fun Halloween costume picture, or highlight an event by using holiday specific content.

To learn more about this, read the original article by clicking here. BEWARE! The author has used season specific imagery to get you into the spooky spirit of Halloween! Boo!

Both of these incidents, while unfortunate, are a “teaching opportunity” for social media management. Take the opportunity now to reflect on your own social brand and how it is being managed and monitored, and ask yourself this:

• Can the person or agency managing your digital social identity be trusted to preserve the integrity of your brand at all times?
• Are the social activities of your celebrity spokespeople being monitored to ensure that their online behavior does not negatively impact your own brand?

If the answers are not “yes” to both questions, then you place your entire brand at risk. Here are our suggestions:

• Do not “manage” your social presence by assigning it to an associate inexperienced in social media (i.e. an intern or salesperson).  Hint:  a person who tweets and posts on Facebook all day is not an expert!
• Be clear (in writing) with everyone who is publicly associated with your organization that they are your brand ambassadors, and that activities online should uphold your company values.
• Ensure you have full-spectrum monitoring of your online brand – not only the basics like review sites and social media site comments, but the social media activities of any public spokespeople, television/radio talent, and other personalities who would be publicly linked to your company.

Search Optics has a dedicated team that is passionate about Social Media Management and Reputation Monitoring. We care deeply about your success and we back that with professionals who are unparalleled in their commitment to your social identity. Talk to one of our Market Managers today, and learn about how your social presence can outshine the competition and remain true to the letter and spirit of your brand.

Hint:  they do matter, and in a big way.

On the go browsing – laptops falling, tablets/devices/eReaders rising
The first trend shows how on-the-go browsing is moving more and more to tablets, eReaders and gaming devices.  In six months, laptop usage while outside of the home and office network dropped from 89% to 63%, while tablet, MP3/Gaming and eReader devices all saw significant gains.  This is a dramatic change in six months, and it shows very clearly that laptops will continue to give up ground to tablets and other handheld mobile devices for on-the-go consumer browsing.

Mobile Shopping Behavior – browsing and purchasing,  online and in-store
The second interesting trend shows what kind of shopping behaviors are being done while on a mobile device.  While nearly thirty percent of mobile users researched a product on a mobile phone, a quarter of mobile shoppers researched and purchased within a store or online.

Both of these trends highlight the importance of having a solid mobile marketing campaign, and ensuring that your mobile experience offers the information consumers need and ways to engage and purchase. With a smaller footprint, tablets and eReaders do not deliver the same online experience that a full PC and large monitor offers.  As more and more people leave their laptops at home in favor of their smartphones, tablets and other devices, your strategic focus should be on giving these consumers a premium, informational experience that helps lead them down the path to purchasing your product or service and does so in a visually appealing way.

Search Optics has a comprehensive set of services for building mobile and tablet-friendly sites and engaging, high-return mobile ad campaigns. Please contact us to discuss your mobile strategy and see how we can help you succeed in capturing this rapidly growing consumer audience.

• For Google and Bing, over 90% of users glanced at paid search results at the top of the page.  
• 28% glanced at the right column paid search ads on Google.
• 21% glanced at the right column paid search ads on Bing.
• Users spent more time reading through Google’s “organic” search results (14.7 seconds versus 10.7 seconds on Bing results)
• Users spent more time glancing through Bing’s left side navigation (2.9 seconds versus 1.2 seconds for Google)

This “heat map” shows where the eyes were drawn on each search engine’s search results page.  We clearly see the “hotspots” continue to be top line paid ads and the first few entries in organic search results: 

This is all great stuff, BUT…what good are those “hot” eyeballs if they’re not attached to the head of the “right” customer? 

This is especially important when you’re making an investment in paid search.  While Search Engine Optimization helps you position your company at the top of organic search results, effective Search Engine Marketing makes sure the eyes that are drawn to those top links are the customers you want.

Search Optics offers managed paid search that not only places ads according to your budget and target, but fine-tunes your campaign in near real-time to ensure you get the highest quality traffic and lead volume.  We back it up with intelligent reports that show each campaign’s performance so you can ensure you are making the best use of your campaign budget.  Coupled with industry leading services in organic search optimization, we ensure that you get the “right” search engine views that drive leads and sales.

Want to learn more?  Click here…

At the most basic level, this means that when a person tweets, shares or “likes” one of your web pages, that activity may be considered when ranking page results. 

What does “may be considered” mean?  A “social signal” enhancement to page ranking can be based on multiple criteria:

-          The authority of the person sharing (for instance, if someone has a lot of Twitter followers, their authority is given higher rank).  For Facebook, they evaluate the number of shares without ranking the people sharing them.

-          The number of times the page or article is shared/re-tweeted (more times a page is shared = higher ranking)

-          Whether the link shared is flagged as “nofollow” (meaning that the person sharing the link does not want it given credit for page ranking)

So how can you make the most of social signals in your search strategy? 

-          On Twitter, have something to say, and say it often.  Use your Twitter and Facebook accounts to share information that would be of interest to your audience.  This helps gain followers.  It doesn’t always have to be a link to your web site, but should position you as a great resource for information that helps people want to listen to you and (ultimately) do business with you.  The more you do this, the more followers you get, and the more your activity is given higher ranking.

-          Keep your web content fresh, interesting and shareable.  By offering content that is of interest to people at all stages of the ownership cycle, you have more opportunity to have your content shared and potentially reach people who are primed to engage you in sales.

-          Make every single page on your web site shareable via Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites.  As more people share the great information you have to offer, the higher your site and your pages will rank in results.

Regardless of the “social signals” used by Google and Bing to rank results, doing all of this will still build your audience and improve your social media presence.

Search Optics offers a full complement of services to help you build a solid online reputation and capitalize on social signals in search results, including managing your social media activity on Twitter and Facebook.  Contact Search Optics today to find out how we can help you increase your reputation and presence with social media and reputation management!

…UGH!! They are awful. Most people search at times when a talking head is VERY inconvenient. Either at work between 11 and 2 or in the middle of the night when their toddler has just fallen asleep after 114 bedtime stories. In either case your walking, talking, suited salesperson is going to make them mad and cause them to bounce off your site. When they get to a dealer site they know what they are looking for. They don’t need instructions (unless you have 65 places for them to click on the page, in that case you might want a big yellow arrow pointing toward the specials tab).

A funny story. The other day I am out doing an analysis of a dealers site. When I click on the site, out of nowhere comes this loud voice in the middle of a teenage dialogue (it was a radio ad that they had playing on the website as you entered the site). Even though it is my job to check out sites and my boss would be happy to hear the voice because it is a definite opportunity for us to redo the site, I instinctively closed the browser window to stop her from talking. I went back in, of course, and listened to the whole ad because there was no way to turn her off. There was no button, no mini-window, no X close to shut her up. Even if your daughter wants to be a radio announcer at least give the customers a choice of whether they want a voice to talk to them . After a month of choosing you will probably be able to save yourself some money by taking the voice off the site.

Lastly, answer your reviews wherever they are. I know after talking to hundreds of dealers how frustrating it is when someone posts something negative about your dealership. It hurts, because most of the time you do a GREAT job but not many people go out and say anything about that experience, you just get the complaints. When you do, make sure you answer them politely. Tell them you are very sorry they had that experience, tell them you would like to speak to them personally and ask them to send over contact info so you can call immediately and straighten it out. The same reaction you would have if someone walked into the dealership with a complaint. You wouldn’t fire back that it was their fault,would you? You would probably ask the person to come into your office (so the rest of the customers don’t have to listen to the issue) and quietly resolve it. Do that on the internet too. I have a customer that posted the nicest response to a negative review. He said that the feedback was very important to the dealership and he appreciated the customer sharing it with him (as if no one else saw it but him). He said it was a family business and that they prided themselves on customer satisfaction. He asked if the person would please send their contact information and that he would call personally to do what they could to make sure that the customer was happy. When I read the review and the response, all I remembered was the response. I don’t even remember the complaint. People just want to be heard and to know that you care about what they had to say. That’s it.
Good Luck, I’ll try to think of another funny story for next month.

By Cristina Foster (email her)
// Midwest Regional Director

Cristina Foster, Midwest Regional Director, brings over 20 years of automotive experience to Search Optics. She began her sales and marketing career at IBM, working on re-engineering at General Motors. Working at Sun Microsystems in sales and marketing, she specialized in CRM strategies and moving Midwest clients to the internet during the dotcom expansion.

Cristina was then recruited into event marketing and public relations helping technology and automotive clients leverage their experience in customer reference programs. Most recently Cristina comes to Search Optics from R.L. Polk & Co. where she was responsible for OEM initiatives. She helped her clients measure ROI resulting from effective marketing campaigns and closed sales in the dealerships. Cristina attended Michigan State University and resides in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Think about it this way, Google’s whole job is to make your search results relevant for you. They take great pride in the meticulous ways that they try to out-fox themselves. There was a great article written in the first quarter of this year about the Google algorithm. It talks about how important it is to them that you get what makes the most sense when you search with Google. If someone is looking for Jeep, Google wants to show them the dealership that is closest to them (unless it’s an AWFUL site with a low quality score and bad reviews and no inventory or specials, then they might send you somewhere else.). Think of your own search patterns. If you want to buy an iPod, you don’t want Google to send you to the Apple store 70 miles from your house. You want the closest store. If you ask for a Catholic Church in the vacation town that you are visiting, do you want Google to send you results for Episcopalian churches 45 mins from the hotel? Nope. You want something that makes sense, and is convenient after all that is the point of the internet to make life easier, quicker, right? Posted Dec 7th, 2010

Second, look at the condition of your website and ask yourself what you would think of a website that looks like your,s representing the most important and expensive purchase that someone will make that year. If you are going to spend between $12,000 and $120,000 on a purchase what do you expect the website to look like? How about a Chanel purse, that might cost $1400. Maybe a new Joseph A. Banks suit, $400. What do their sites look like? How about an iPod $50, or a ticket on Southwest Airlines, $200. Look at other professional websites that represent companies where you will spend a small fraction of what they will spend with your business. Does Nordstrom have their brother-in-law’s neighbor do their website? It amazes me every day as my team and I scour the net how awful some of these sites look. Now you might say, that’s ridiculous, those are multi-billion dollar companies. That’s right, and that is what we are used to seeing when we go to the internet. Clean, efficient sites that easily navigate us through the PURCHASE process. Imagine how annoyed we would get if the Macy’s site kept routing us off their site to get another credit card. UGH! We would hate it. Most shoppers have a couple of minutes and all they want to see is that you have the car they want and directions to the dealership.

Third, what is the purpose of your site? What I tell my customers is; my goal is to have them pick up the phone and call you. That’s it. I don’t want them to build a car that you don’t have on your lot because then they might want to order it and it will take longer for you to get paid. They might change their mind and cancel the order. Nope, I want them to fall in love with the car you have available for them to drive off in today. I don’t want them to go off to a credit approval site that might not approve them. They might be embarrassed and not want to buy a car that day. I figure an ambitious sales guy will find a place where they can get approved. I don’t want them to get another price on their trade-in either. It will probably bum them out when my customer says the car is worth half that because of the crushed in quarter panel that they failed to mention to Kelly Blue Book. A dealer website is simple. Get the customer to call the dealership. Fourth and I am tempted to make this one first, get the talking girl/guy/anonymous voice off the website.

To be continued…

By Cristina Foster (email her)
// Midwest Regional Director

Cristina Foster, Midwest Regional Director, brings over 20 years of automotive experience to Search Optics. She began her sales and marketing career at IBM, working on re-engineering at General Motors. Working at Sun Microsystems in sales and marketing, she specialized in CRM strategies and moving Midwest clients to the internet during the dotcom expansion.

Cristina was then recruited into event marketing and public relations helping technology and automotive clients leverage their experience in customer reference programs. Most recently Cristina comes to Search Optics from R.L. Polk & Co. where she was responsible for OEM initiatives. She helped her clients measure ROI resulting from effective marketing campaigns and closed sales in the dealerships. Cristina attended Michigan State University and resides in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

After 8 months in the field in my nifty new job I thought I might have some insight for our regional dealers. I am the director for the Central Region at Search Optics. We are a digital marketing agency that hyper-focuses on automotive, both tier 2 and tier 3. We develop great marketing messages and use the web as the channel to get them out to our customers. Technically we are very, very good at getting relevant traffic to our sites and converting them to phone calls into the dealerships. We measure everything we do and report out face to face to our customers at least once a month so everybody knows what’s going on with the money they spend with us.

I have a sense of humor and can sometimes be a wee bit sarcastic so please don’t take the advice below too personally. It is meant to help you, perhaps, see the potential and potentially disastrous in your web presence but also to make you laugh a little.

1. The first piece of advice is stop searching for your own name in the middle of your dealership and then resting assured that your internet presence is perfect. For somebody standing in the middle of your dealership asking for you by name or your make/model, there is nothing else for Google to serve up that is more relevant than you.

Imagine them back at Google headquarters scratching their heads wondering why someone would be asking for a dealership by name while standing in the middle of the showroom. They would wonder why there isn’t a sales person greeting them and interrupting them from their searching to ask what they can do to help them out. If you don’t come up in the middle of your dealership you might want to check and see if your phone and internet lines are down or whether you paid your web service provider this month. Otherwise you should be filling up the page without any effort at all.

Do a search from the parking lot of your kids’ school or your mother-in-law’s house (as long as she doesn’t live over the dealership, then you have bigger problems than your internet presence) go to a coffee shop ten miles away and look from there. Then see what you look like.

If you’re a Jeep dealer look for Wrangler in the town 10 miles away from your dealership. Ask for Jeep in the biggest town near you like; Detroit, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis etc. Are you in the top three listings? Are you in the map? How many times are you listed on the first Google page? That is what I look for when I analyze a dealer presence. I am never surprised. There is opportunity everywhere and in the Central Region, a significant first mover advantage.

To be continued…

By Cristina Foster (email her)
// Midwest Regional Director

Cristina Foster, Midwest Regional Director, brings over 20 years of automotive experience to Search Optics. She began her sales and marketing career at IBM, working on re-engineering at General Motors. Working at Sun Microsystems in sales and marketing, she specialized in CRM strategies and moving Midwest clients to the internet during the dotcom expansion.

Cristina was then recruited into event marketing and public relations helping technology and automotive clients leverage their experience in customer reference programs. Most recently Cristina comes to Search Optics from R.L. Polk & Co. where she was responsible for OEM initiatives. She helped her clients measure ROI resulting from effective marketing campaigns and closed sales in the dealerships. Cristina attended Michigan State University and resides in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

The U.S. has a mobile population exceeding 300 million, and a mobile internet user base close to surpassing 100 million. Mobile advertising budgets are high with the average mobile advertising campaign in the US between $75,000-100,000. However, the research reveals that 53% of US mobile users claimed not to have seen an advertisement on their mobile.

US Mobile Ad Spend (% of Total)
Ad Spending For: % of Total Budget

• Opt-in messaging 20%
• Mobile games/music/TV 3%
• Apps 2%
• Search 46%
• Banner ads 29%

Source: mobileSquared, October 2010

A survey of U.S. mobile phone users conducted by Lightspeed Research for mobileSQUARED, revealed that 49 million of U.S. mobile users have engaged with an advertisement of some description on their mobile phone.
• 12.3 million mobile users “have clicked on the advertisement and went on to purchase an item”
• 28.86 million users have “clicked on the advertisement and looked at the item advertised but did not buy it”
• 7.82 million mobile users have “clicked on the advertisement and looked at the item advertised on their mobile phone and ended up buying it online”

Paid search management platform Marin Software found that impressions and clicks increased in the two weeks after Instant’s launch compared with the two weeks before, while cost-per-click and clickthrough rates dropped. Overall costs increased slightly in the same period.

Google Instant serves interim search results as a user is typing a query. While Google has indicated that not all ads shown during that interim period will count as “impressions,” they are following a 3-second rule: If the user pauses for 3 seconds or longer to review or interact with interim search results, the impression is counted. comScore research confirms that interim search impressions were significant in the overall 9.3% increase in impressions served.

That increase, along with the rise in clicks and drops in cost per click and clickthroughs, were dependent on the length of the search query, according to Marin. The report said the difference “seems to suggest that a post-Instant world will see more short searches than before. Google Instant appears to have changed user behavior and biased it toward shorter search phrases.”

For more information about Google Instant and how Search Optics can help your dealership with Paid Search, visit www.searchoptics.com