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Jan 31, 2013

I received some great comments and questions, and wanted to share some additional research I’ve come across. Some of the early testers for FBGS talked about the usefulness when traveling to a new city, checking for “friends who live in Atlanta” and gets connected when you arrive. A few folks felt the design style was heading toward a style like the old AskJeeves.com. My Facebook contacts said they are very much in test mode, and very little has been determined. For car dealers, Facebook is trying to determine how many categories they will allow dealers to index. One idea is to give retailers every subcategory in a top-level category. For instance, giving dealers all subcategories in the top-level Automotive category.

One conclusion is that Facebook’s future play will be around the Nearby function available on the Facebook mobile app. Facebook considers Nearby to be both the most useful and unknown function in Facebook mobile. Currently on Nearby, Automotive is not a category, but likely will be in the future. However, “car dealerships” or “automotive” pulls up businesses in that category. The search algorithm for the Nearby function seems to be based on location, likes, ratings, categories, and friend-network relevance. Since Facebook is clearly under the privacy microscope, they will likely stick to indexing only on public information. Facebook Graph Search and Nearby offer a unique way for people to search for businesses that friends care about. I’m extremely interested in how dealers can best prepare for the future of this new platform. Thanks again for your comments and question, keep them coming and I’ll try my best to track down the information.

Jan 29, 2013

Let's add "Car Wash & Detailing" to the list of subcategories.

Jan 29, 2013

Thanks for the insight George. I never understood why there are so many dealers that are on Facebook as a personal page. It will now come back and bite them where the sun don't shine, which is fine with me since there are several that are around me set up with their pages like that.

It looks like you can only have 6 sub-catagories? Is that what everyone else is seeing?

Jan 29, 2013

I agree Vicki, FB will need to focus on natural search mapping to these categories., since consumers search in many different ways. I tried a lot of car and dealer-related searches, most didn't map, but a few did. Searching for "where to buy a car" brought up the relevant categories of: "Car Dealerships", "Automotive Repair", and "Car Parts & Accessories".

Eric raises great points below, the value of connecting with consumers and building a Social base, becomes that much more valuable.

Jan 29, 2013

Thanks for the thorough writeup, George. Graph Search just went live with my personal FB account, and I'm looking forward to getting more familiar with this...

Jan 29, 2013

You had me at "natural language search"

With fixed categories, it seems to be taking on a "yellow pages" feel. One issue with YP (print and online) was/is the "search" capability (headings or categories) became un-natural once online search took off. From my early days marketing for a YP company, once people searched online using words that made sense to them, the requests to add print categories increased dramatically (making print search less valuable and meaningful). If Facebook is using fixed categories, they should also allow intuitive search. If nothing else, it would be a good test!

Jan 29, 2013

Kevin,

Great question, and my answer will be based on what dealerships have chosen so far. If you do a proper search for: Automotive Pages, FBGS will returns results for the many sub-categories that are in the automotive top level category. I scrolled through nearly a hundred, and here are the sub-categories I found:

Car dealership
Oil lube & filter service
Tire dealer
Repair Service
Car parts & accessories
Auto body shop
Automobile leasing
Automotive consultants
Shopping & retail

These were all under the category of Automotive. It did show a number of Motorcycle sub-categories under the Automotive top-level category, but I left those out for relevance.

Jan 29, 2013

Great article George. I would like to see the fixed categories that Facebook has defined for automotive businesses, but the link in your article is not working - could you please share that again?

Eric Miltsch · Jan 29, 2013

George, nice overview & examples of Graph Search.

I'm already a big fan of GS; I love the initial concept and acknowledge it's early quirkiness. I believe Facebook is scaling this out as smart as possible by positioning it as one of their primary elements. This is going to require a behavior shift from users as they begin to understand how these types of natural language searches differ from the standard Google search everyone is familiar with using.

As users begin to realize more of their activities are searchable, they'll put more thought, or weight, into the people, places and things they attach to their own identity to. I also hope this creates a new way of thinking for brands and marketers with regards to how they go about connecting with users - this will definitely create a divide between the creative marketers and those lazy enough to resort to "Like & Share" tactics.

And, I totally agree with your recommendations. If you're still operating your dealership's Facebook page as a personal profile, you need to take a step back and evaluate your social processes as well.

Everyone had the same opportunity to prepare for the changes happening with G+ last year & those who waited are quickly realizing they may be a little late to that party as well - don't let that happen to you with Graph Search.

Jan 29, 2013

Great post, @GeorgeNenni! I did a preliminary post on the topic as well although you've got the inside access to show examples. Nice! I think Facebook Graph Search will definitely be a viable Google contender in "search engine" market share especially with local businesses. For car dealers, FGS will enhance the Facebook user experience resulting in more exposure and engagement with a relevant audience, IF they have their business profile updated. What will be interesting is what Facebook will require of business profiles in order to be "first", maintain placement in search results, seniority, engagements, etc. If there's demand for dedication beyond today's post standards (quality, type of, frequency), this may have a financial and/or resource impact that dealerships will need to consider.Also, take a look at these stats showing Google at 86.3% and Facebook at 1.4% search engine market share. June 2017-Updated Search Engine Market Share - Karma Snack I'm curious how much FGS will change these percentages...

George Nenni · Jan 28, 2013

On January 15th, Facebook announced a feature launch that dramatically changes the way consumers use the world’s most popular social networking site. Facebook Graph Search (FGS) is a natural-language search tool which, to date, has only been released in Beta. Currently, not all Facebook content is searchable, and only a small group of people have been allowed to try the new tool. Luckily, on Friday, I had the opportunity to be a part of this Beta group.

I began my experience with FGS by searching for some popular segments, “restaurants my friends like”, “friends who work at Dominion Enterprises”, and so on. Facebook was smart to release this in a limited Beta, because not all of the data is searchable. However, that did not deter me from helping the dealer community get a head start on preparations for this new search tool.

The good news is that FGS offers dealers a huge opportunity.

Right now, many dealers struggle to market themselves well on Facebook. Many dealers still use personal pages (friend profile) for branding purposes, instead of a business page. Unfortunately, personal pages are nearly invisible within FGS.

Why is that?

Individuals search for businesses using categories on FGS. These categories are created by Facebook just like the old-fashioned Yellow Pages. Select them well, and you can create far more visibility for your business.

Here’s an example of a dealer using a personal page, instead of a Business (Fan) page:

Daniels Chevrolet on Facebook

Unfortunately, due to the personal profile used in the example above, this particular dealership cannot be found in any searchable business categories. Facebook thinks this dealership is a person. It is only through business pages that dealers can choose categories to identify themselves. Additionally, many dealerships listed as businesses are only identifiable under a single category. This severely limits indexing opportunities.

A search on FGS for “car dealership” brought back some local results. These dealers have done a good job of setting up business pages which are listed in the proper category: “car dealership”.

Notice in this example that Bob Pulte Chevrolet is not only categorized under “car dealership” but also in a second category for “automotive repair”. This allows Bob Pulte Chevrolet to pull up in another search:

There’s a problem when searching for specifics such as oil changes or tires, as evidenced below:

In the same way that some dealers don’t properly index their websites for fixed ops, I struggled to find franchised dealers who had added categories for “oil lube & filter service” or “tire dealer”. Not surprisingly, the same problem exists when searching for “car parts & accessories” or “auto body shop”

All of these searches on Facebook Graph Search were within fixed categories that Facebook has defined for automotive businesses. Unfortunately, most franchised dealers were only listed under one or two categories. Below is a rare example where three categories were listed for a single dealership. Hudiburg Toyota has done this very well and is prepared for FGS.

Facebook Graph Search will only become more important as the technology is refined and additional users are brought on board. In order to take advantage of this new marketing opportunity, dealers need to follow three simple steps:

Check to see if your dealership is listed as a person or business.
If the dealership is under a personal “friend profile” page, convert it to a business page right away.
Once listed as a Facebook business page, select the relevant business categories. Identify your dealership in such a way that individuals can find both vehicle inventory and services.

Get it prepared today.

What do you think..will Facebook Graph Search soon become important to your dealers digital marketing investments?

Jan 29, 2013

Tough environment for IPOs for tech-related firms; and the additional debt AT added to pay bonuses and PE investors prior to filing didn't sit well with analysts or media. Also a bit of bad luck. Nobody could have predicted the fiasco that Facebook's IPO would turn out to be (in the short term at least) and AT's filing came very shortly after FB's IPO. We've been expecting this announcement for a while...a smart move for AutoTrader. Doesn't change anything for dealers and probably means Chip Perry gets to hang around for a while longer.

Jan 28, 2013

Is anyone shocked by this?

Jan 25, 2013

Great stuff Joe.

Jan 25, 2013

Thanks for sharing.

Jan 23, 2013

Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/dealerrefresh/status/294692700022796288

Feb 6, 2013

I'm one of the internet department managers at my Chevrolet dealership and we already did everything that these reputation managers are offering to do. Most of what they do is automated responses to reviews, updating of social media, and then reporting all of it back to us. Now GM has made us choose between three reputation managers that are suppose to be doing our job. How is it that they're suppose to respond to bad reviews when the have absolutely nothing to do with the dealership's relationship with that customer? I just don't see the benefit in being forced to choose a company that has no relationship with our customer base. Now with that being said, the dealerships with no internet department or that don't really look over the online reviews of their customers do need something like this to help better how they do business and to grow as a dealership. Customer satisfaction should always be #1 in providing helpful information and dealing with the customers wants and needs.

Jan 25, 2013

Just one more thing for the OEMs to get involved with which is so wrong. If they are doing it right, why would they have to pay someone to help them with it. I just don't get it. I hate it when OEMs get involved when they shouldn't be.

Jan 25, 2013

Genius!

bpulseadmin · Jan 22, 2013

Visit your local Glamorshots studio and pose for the camera like it's 1981 and you're in a Duran Duran video.
Grow a Goatee and sport it with peeeewwwwaaaahhh confidence. "F%&K YOU Just for Men - I'm distinguished!"
Post your photo shoooot going straight up Gangnam style on Facebook for all to weep.
Promote this post on Facebook to attract likes - pushing the real boundaries of social. "Double rainbows ain't gots nothing on dis!"

Ralph Paglia Glamour Shot Promotion on Facebook - beotches

Mar 5, 2013

It's funny because not 3 days ago our Auto Trader rep stopped in and told me dealers are wasting their money on SERP results (SEM & SEO) which I thought was odd. Apparently AT has a new study conducted which shows dealers are still doing things all wrong - again. His reasoning was because as an Auto Trader dealer, most of the exposure you get online invariably will be via their partnerships with various websites. My argument was with SERP, you can capture the customer before they get to Auto Trader or a partner site, and I've been tracking my sources quite accurately over the past 6 months: Everyone almost goes through Google, and not one shopper/buyer mentioned Auto Trader - okay ONE. The hardest thing for Auto Trader to prove is who bought a car from us because of Auto Traders existence. They show impressions, and other impressive stats, but the one that still eludes Auto Trader is proving spending $50-$80,000 per year is really working with no tangible evidence other than saying "look at how many people saw your ads". Like SEO, SEM and the SERP can't do that too.

Jan 23, 2013

This images and explanations above had given me so much knowledge about how SERP works.

Jan 22, 2013

@briceenglert Great stuff. Thanks for the answers!

Jan 22, 2013

@dealerrefresh Great points Jeff - I amy have answered your question on the email black-hole with my reply to Aaron. Most proactive reputation programs center around consumer followup, in short, follow the value-chain from email send to review being left and question if that process can be completed by all customers on all devices. An example value chain is:

Service RO Closed
Email Sent
Email Delivered
Email Opened
Email Click-through (say to a plus.google.com/o3873487234982309 address)
Customer Login (may already be done, can't be done on iOS Safari)
Customer Review Submitted

Good side notes too... the algorithm is certainly complex but my best advice to dealers is engage their customers as a community and get them talking on whatever site, network, or device they prefer... just get them talking and listen, improve, engage, and promote.

@AARON · Jan 22, 2013

@AARON Wirtz It is dramatic and as mobile carries on will only grow. Good question and I completely understand your lack of specific clarity. As you can see in the Jelly Bean SERP, the results are not based on distance but rather Google's algorithm. I did this search from Western Mass and as you can see gave away local intent with a locational term "Boston". The results are neither "by distance" from my office in West Springfield, Ma, nor are they "by distance" from the center of Boston.

So, to your question with how to optimize, the answer we have heard directly from Google and what we can surmise from SEO and Rep Mgt experience is simple, everything! Factored into the current algorithm are:
- Local citation content = this is the content that is seeded "around the web" that Google uses to build your Google+ Local page. Be sure to claim and optimize that page with pictures, hours, value props, videos, and fresh fresh reviews (not just all great reviews)
- Website SEO
- Location
- and other no doubt
- In the future = "Co-citation" - look for more information on that as the year goes on

So on your last point, 2 things happened...

1) the Google Cliff (where dealers saw massive loss of reviews in 2012) which I actually documented with a study and you can find by Googling, "The Google Cliff" (Sorry Jeff) and

2) I was making the point that many folks didn't realize which is if you try to find a dealership on your iOS Safari browser, I challenge you to "Leave a Review". That button does not exist, it cannot be done. Except on Jelly Bean! For many dealers who try email followup with calls to action to "leave a review on Google" 30% of their clicks are likely on mobile devices and 50% of those devices are likely iPhones which will send the consumer to a mobile broswer page where they cannot complete that action.

Great questions, thank you!

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