Twitter is a waste of time, right?

[ryan.leslie]

WOW! Huge Congrats to the folks at Newton Nissan...

There isn't much commentary required. Newton Nissan, this is BRILLIANT!

Twitter as a tool to win business away from your competitors in 3 simple steps:
1. Pay attention to what is going on in the Twittersphere in your Sphere of Influence. (You can't impact what you don't know about. I'd be willing to bet that the Honda store that lost this customer didn't even know they were there.)
2. Be a part of the conversation in a non-threatening, friendly way. (This sale will be made by NOT being "salesy")
3. Look for opportunities to give the consumer further evidence that you are the right choice for them. (In this case it was the employees online evidence manual.)

 

[CAORYAN]

nicely done! My question is do they do their own social media or outsource it?

 

[kcar]

LOL... At ONE car being sold from Twitter...

In reality..

"BOSS! It only took us 3,825 Tweets, and 10 Months of Work when we could have been doing other things, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER WE SOLD ONE!! Let's keep doing this, I'm sure the ROI will magically appear in the future! This is a VERY STRONG Indication that Twitter can sell us 100's of cars a month!!"

 

[ryan.leslie]

LOL... At ONE car being sold from Twitter...

One solid example is all some people need to rethink their present course, Kcar. Alternatively, some prefer to completely ignore the changing landscape and hope it is an anomaly...

 

[Kelly Wilson]

Dang it...I don't have any screen shots of my convo that pulled a customer 45 min from one store to mine and the donut that sealed the twitter deal...memorable jelly filled selling fun!

Just "ONE" how many times has that been used as justification for a billboard, direct mailer, e-Blast or posting of cars on CL...or any other pond we fish in?

Why don't I sell more cars off Twitter? Because I don't engage as much as I should. Do I sell cars from those interactions I do have? Yes, I'd think for the little effort it's paid off more than I'd expect out of other sources.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Kelly, you need to find that conversation and post the screen shots.

I hope others will contribute and share their screen shots of how they've leveraged twitter to gain a sales and service clients.

I'll ask one of my hometown Hyundai professionals, Rober Wiesman to jump in and offer some examples.

 

[anthonycapital]

Twitter, fb etc. = Zero Moment Management IMO

 

[skeetle]

I have quite a few examples - but here's one where a customer ASKED if any dealerships were out there "listening" we have built a brand within our area that I had 2 people reply


& here's one for service



Twitter works -- the hard part is figuring out the most opportune times to listen, and the most efficient ways to listen.

 

[Robert Wiesman]

Now I do not do this right nearly as much as I once did or as much as I probably should. I used to beat Twitter's Search feature to the early morning hours. I was just searching different keywords that were relevant of course and engaging in the conversations. I enjoy talking about cars and the car shipping process. I never mention I sell or try to sell them. I just talk to them. One instance that sticks out to me was this one conversation involving a Hyundai Accent. The young lady was weighing out the different trim levels. I chimed in and ending up building a conversation with her as well as a relationship. Never once did I mention I sold Hyundai or where I sold them at until after she purchased. (I did not earn her business.. THAT TIME) What I did was follow up with her, check on the car, answer her questions and pretty much follow up more than who sold her the vehicle. Not even two months later she shoots me a DM and tells me her friend is shopping so we scheduled a consultation and ended up helping her friend drive off in a brand new Hyundai Veloster. Oh and the young lady who purchased the Veloster came with her boyfriend who traded in his Altima on the spot and did his first lease of his life time in a fully loaded Hyundai Sonata Limited. Twitter is worth the time and effort for making sales and building brand equity.

 

[ryan.leslie]

Now I do not do this right nearly as much as I once did or as much as I probably should. I used to beat Twitter's Search feature to the early morning hours. I was just searching different keywords that were relevant of course and engaging in the conversations.

Great to see you here Robert! (If you don't know Robert or his work, Google him! He is doing a lot of very cool personal branding work.)

I wasn't at all shocked that you were engaging and finding opportunity through Twitter, but I was shocked that you are manually searching for those opportunities. That takes serious commitment!

There are tools in the marketplace that function like Google alerts but are exclusive to Twitter and geotargeted to a 25 mile radius of the dealership. I'm presenting at DD14 next week on ours, but I'm sure there are others available too.