Jessica F. Cox asked:




Three hundred million. That’s how many people live in the United States alone, and at least half of them – if not more – have some kind of access to the Internet. Getting five people to agree on something is difficult. Getting 150 million people to agree on something is, to put it mildly, impossible.

The point is: if you’re going to spend any time in social media marketing, with blogs, forums and other online communities, it’s not a question of if you’ll run into any controversy. It’s merely a question of when, and how bad it will be.

By the nature of community alone, a topic or blog post will surface that bitterly divides people on which side is in the right. Some people will only add more fuel to the fire, while others will try futilely to put out the flames.

If you want to remain a part of the social media community, you have to learn to weather the good times and the bad. Here are a few tips for handling controversy gracefully.

1) Don’t panic.

Douglas Adams wasn’t lying with that piece of advice. The upside of controversy is that it will get a lot of people talking, and they’ll all be talking about you. You’ll find the mantra “There’s no such thing as bad press” to be surprisingly true in this case.

People who would have otherwise never heard of you or your site will be showing up to see what the big deal is, which means you’ve just exponentially expanded your audience.
However, that’s not to say there aren’t downsides. If you don’t handle a controversy with professionalism and grace, online social media will eat you alive. While you’ll gain some respect if you handle yourself well, if you botch it too badly, the bad word will spread faster than wildfire in a forest that hasn’t seen rain in 20 years.

2) Don’t respond immediately.

It’s not a difficult scenario to imagine: you’ve made a blog post about something, and you knew when you made it that some people wouldn’t agree with what you have to say. What you didn’t expect was how viciously they would disagree. Not only are they attacking your argument, but they’re attacking you and your business.

You think what they’re saying is wrong, or you know how to disprove it, so you should jump on immediately and do so, right?

Well, probably not. The technology on the Internet makes it extremely easy to post responses in the heat of the moment, which can result in you saying something that you’ll regret later.

As much as it may pain you to do so, wait until you’ve cooled off and had a chance to get the feel of the other side’s point before you make an attempt to post. This lets you see what the other people are saying and consider it logically, not emotionally.

3) Attack the argument, not the person.

Argumentum ad hominem means “argument against the man,” and unfortunately it shows up in these situations more than it should. If somebody makes a comment you disagree with and you say something like, “Well, if you believe that, then you’re an idiot,” you’re attacking them personally, not what they’re saying.

That’s the quickest way to not only anger people, but drive the controversial discussion off-topic. Plus, you’ll come across as petty and inept at defending your own statements.

If you disagree with something somebody said, keep your comments restricted to just attacking what they said. For example: “You said X. I disagree with X because of Y and Z.” By not attacking them, you’ll gain a little more respect in how you’re handling the controversy.

4) Keep your responses simple and professional.

That’s not to say keep them so devoid of emotion that they read like corporate blather. People really hate corporate blather, and they’ll hate it even more if they’re looking for a straight answer in a controversy. But neither should you drive a point into the ground. Find the arguments to which you want to respond, quote exactly what that person said, and nicely point out what is right and what is incorrect.

When you’re pointing out something that’s incorrect, make sure that you’re only fixing facts, not opinions. For example, say somebody paraphrased something you put in your blog post, and paraphrased it wrongly. Quote their paraphrase and say why they’ve misunderstood you. Back it up with the exact quote from your original post, along with clarification of what you meant. Consider an apology if the original wording was unclear.

Remember: everything you say online, be it in a blog post or forum comment, will reflect on you and your business. Keeping your responses professional and to-the-point will let people know that even in the most controversial storm, you know better than to resort to emotional and petty attacks.

If you want to read a good article on dealing with social media controversy, check out this article at Search Engine Guide.

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R. Scott Hall asked:




You know how important social media optimization is but, admittedly, it can be a daunting task trying to keep up with it all. So I thought I’d give you seven simple social media marketing tips you can do regularly to help build your social media network.

1. Contacts. Add 5 new contacts on Facebook or LinkedIn each week. This should take you less than an hour. Fortunately, Facebook and LinkedIn make this easy for you by recommending friends with similar interests. Or you can simply visit the pages of your other Facebook friends and find new friends there to invite. When you send an invitation, include a personal message, such as, “Hi, we are both friends with Jim Miller and have some similar interests and hope you will accept my invitation.”
2. Forum posting. Concentrate on one active forum in your niche and build up your profile and make 3-5 posts per week. Use the PM (Private Message) feature to communicate with other members behind the scenes. But don’t sell to them!

3. Prune your RSS Feeds. Go through your feed reader (Google Reader, Bloglines, etc.) and ruthlessly prune. You’ll find that you don’t read all the blogs you have subscribed to and you should eliminate this clutter so that you aren’t as distracted from your work. Make a list of the top 5 blogs in your niche and read those posts every day and leave at least one comment per week on those five blogs.

4. Yahoo Answers. This isn’t effective for all niches because Yahoo Answers readers tend to be young, but answer 5 Yahoo Answers questions per day in your niche, if appropriate. You’ll quickly notice that most of the people who answer questions aren’t very articulate or don’t provide quality information, so it will be easy for your answers to stand out and get selected as the best answer.

5. Digg away. Spend 15 minutes on Digg each day and try to befriend some of the top Diggers there. Instant message is the best way to keep in touch with them and they usually post that info on their profiles.

6. Focus, focus, focus. Just because there’s a lot of hype about a particular social media site doesn’t mean you should devote time to it. Focus only one the sites that will help you grow your business and don’t get caught up in drama and hype.

7. Be on alert. Check your Google Alerts for your name once a day. If someone has mentioned you in a blog or other website, go and leave a comment or respond in some way.

By following this tips, you should be able to use social media more efficiently and see your business grow as a result.

Beer Crafting

Doug Firebaugh asked:




Social Media.

Social Media Marketing.

THOSE 2 things has been written and talked about the last 2 years a LOT. But believe it or not, not a lot of small businesses or home businesses are using this powerful business and marketing “Zone” yet. Many people, because it is on the internet, shy away for it as if it were the plague.

“I am not a geek” people tell me. Well, we have “ungeeked the geek” for many small and home business owners, and made social media make sense to them

But there are exceptions.

I was talking with a business owner the other day and she made the comment, “I don’t go to those kind of sites. I don’t have time to do that as my business is struggling and I need to go and find more customers.”

That says it all.

That shows a total lack of understanding of what social media/web 2.0 is really about, and what it can do for the average small business and home business -even on a local basis. If people really “got it” about social media marketing, they would be running to the social media zone and staying there.

There is a lot of talk that it is not “proven” as it is too new and the jury is still out on it being a viable marketing process.

I totally disagree. The social media marketer is paving a path for those to follow through a jungle that has never been explored, nor walked. People like proof. People like results. But it is the social media marketer that will create the way that will birth new millionaires with business folks who do “get” the Web 2.0 world. It is not that hard to understand either.

If you can send an email, you can “do” social media marketing. You can master twitter, facebook, myspace, blogs, wikis, podcasts, article marketing, and all the other parts of the new media, if you can send an email. Yes, there is a learning curve, and yes, it does take a little effort-but what doesn’t? We have expanded our business tremendously with social media tactics, and everyday, we wake up with dozens of new leads for our training and consulting business in our email box. How would you like to have that happen to you?

You can. You can tap into an endless pool of leads that will just keep increasing, if you decide to jump into the Social Media zone. And we will be glad to teach you how to maximize for maximum Success with your Social Media efforts.

All you need to do is make a decision that you will take the time and study and learn social media a little at a time, and learn the culture, and the processes of each website.

Here are 7 websites that you must register with to get started in social media if you have a small or home business. Each have “help” tutorials or videos about how to use them properly, and also there is a LOT of information on the web as well on “how to”:

1) facebook.com
2) twitter.com
3) stumbleupon.com
4) digg.com
5) youtube.com

And then do three things after learning how the site works:

1) CONNECT.
2) COMFORTABLE.
3) CONSTRUCT.

1) CONNECT.

The main thing you need to do is connect with people on these sites, and become a friend with them. Most of these sites have a process to befriend folks. Follow their process. Sound easy enough? But there is a type of friend that we teach that you must become. An “Addition Friend.” This is simply a friend that ADDS to people’s lives, not takes.

On the social media scene, most people are looking to Add, Enhance, Increase, and Enlarge a part of their life. YOU must help them do that with connecting with them and showing them new information about what you do, and how what you do can help them and change them for the better. It MUST not ever be a sales pitch, but simply information that will impact them enough that they may want to connect with you further about that in their life.

If you are a real estate agent, give them info on the 5 Biggest mistakes made while buying a home. If you are a CPA, give them some info on the 3 biggest mistakes made on tax returns. If you are in skin care, give them the 7 best ways to keep your skin healthy. You get the idea. You can find this type of information all over the web. Just send them the web address (url) to the article or blog post with a short note saying you thought of them when you ran across this.

We call it “Connection Marketing” and it WORKS when you allow it to.

CONNECT with the person –> CONNECT with their goals –> then CONNECT them to valuable information that will help them achieve them. Then most of the people Will then connect with your interests and be willing to help you with yours.

2) COMFORTABLE.

You must get the people on the social media sites COMFORTABLE with you.

How?

Talk about them, and how you can help them reach their goals and dreams- either with what you do, or with what you know. We call it “Comfortable Conversation(TM).” You must hold online “conversations” with people and get them comfortable with you, and comfortable with staying connected with you. You do this by talking about what THEY are interested in, and then you PROVE to them you are serious about adding value to their life.

It is ALL about Value in the social media arena. People expect Value in your messages and communication, and if you give them things that will help them in their endeavors, (blog posts on their industry, articles on doing what they do better, etc,) they will get very comfortable with you, and even helping you with YOUR endeavors. They will be moving towards you quickly if you practice that focus in your social media efforts.

3) CONSTRUCT.

Simply, in Social media Marketing, you must Construct a bridge between you and the person that eventually leads OFFLINE and onto the telephone.

THAT is the secret to Success in social media marketing. We call it the “TIO Factor.” Take It Offline and let the personalization begin.

You have connected with the person- in person-at least in voice.

You have gotten them comfortable with you by your interest in helping them achieve their goals.

Now you must construct a path that allows you to say, “What is your contact number? I would love to chat with you for real over the phone.” Then just do that. It may take a few days or a couple of weeks. But if you could pick up 10 new customers with this conversation would it be worth it?

Of course it would be. And how would you do that?

Ahhh–That is another article on Social Media Marketing Success.

blessings…doug

social media marketing

Ljudmila Powers asked:




Relationship marketing is the process of attracting, maintaining, and developing the best relationship with targeted people. Relationship marketing is in trend, the new, increasingly efficient ways that companies have of understanding and responding to customers’ needs and preferences seemingly allow them to build more meaningful connections with consumers than ever before.

These connections promise to benefit the bottom line by reducing costs and increasing revenue. Unfortunately, a close look suggests that the relationships between companies and customers are troubled ones, at best.

Successful relationship marketing requires relationship commitments and trusts.

Social Media Marketing is a place for establishing long term relationship marketing.

Social media marketing can bring tremendous value to those who know how to leverage it. Social media marketing is fast growing internet community collaboration, especially after Web 2.0 application revolution (Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin) where million of people make relationship-some for just communication reasons but the majority for marketing purposes.

Business owners are little bit skeptic about loosing privacy or misunderstanding that they have to be experts in order to use social media websites. On another hand, online marketers are growing their businesses pretty successfully.

You want to expand your business to the next level? You better start marketing and building relationship right now. If you don’t, your competition will. If you don’t have a time for business visibility and finding new clients, than what kind of business you are running?

Whispering about your business is not an option but loud talking and demonstrating, buzzing, branding. Before you become loud talker you have to be prepared to offer something valuable, real value even if it is a “little secret”. This “little secret” will build a trust and relationship.

Country Wine

Lauren McMullen asked:




Social Media Marketing is built on the foundation of first creating a relationship with people and then transitioning those people into clients after they learn to know like and trust you. If problems arise it is very important to remember that the relationship must always come first or the customer will feel duped.

When someone becomes upset about a product or service you provided and they call you to discuss the problem you have 2 choices. You can honor your refund policy with grace, dignity and respect and thus maintain the relationship between you and your customer or you can make the customer squirm and feel like they have done something wrong because they are dissatisfied and then honor the refund policy.

It is amazing to me that anyone would pick the second choice when they are only shooting themselves in the foot but after interviewing many people I have found out it happens all the time. Why would you try to make them feel like a failure? Everyone HATES to feel like a failure and once they do they NEVER want to put in that position again so that means they won’t ever be calling you again.

Now you might say good riddance if you feel like they were unreasonable but the fact of the matter is, you have a lot more to lose than one client. You have all their friends and family to lose as well and remember because of the Internet they have a lot more friends than they used to. Potentially thousands on Facebook and Twitter.

These are my recommendations for handling these sticky situations with grace and integrity. Maybe when it happens to you, you will be able to turn this potentially difficult situation into a positive one for your company.

Respond as quickly as humanly possible to any complaints. Sometimes that’s all that it takes to prevent the need for a refund. Even if you feel like you have provided the best possibly service maybe your systems failed for this client. Always assume they are right.
Do what you say you will do – If you promise to be available for a call BE AVAILABLE, if you make an appointment to talk KEEP THE APPOINTMENT. In other words treat the client with the same respect that you would like to receive.
Apologize for the problems and accept complete responsibility. Trust me your client will be able to tell when you are faking the concern so you must truly believe what you are saying.
Offer to make it right. Do what is necessary to alleviate the problem and ask the all important question, what can I do to make you feel good about this? Can I fix the problem?
If the answer is no, accept the fact that trust has been irreparably damaged and don’t blame the client for their feelings. Accept their decision with gracefully and quickly offer the promised refund.
If appropriate, you might ask the client to tell you what they might have done differently so that this problem would not be an issue for future clients. Again your attitude is so important here. They will feel your intention so if you can’t do this without tying to transfer blame to the client skip this step because you will do more harm than good.
Follow through immediately and process the refund ASAP If you follow all the steps outlined above there is a very good chance that the client will continue to feel good about you and your products or services and they still might refer others to you in the future. Later they might actually acknowledge that the reason this did not work out was really no one’s fault but only because the timing was off for both of you.

Social Media has given everyone an equal voice in the market and it has made our huge world small again. Word does get around at the speed of light so how you respond to complaints is more important than ever.

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Bill Rice asked:




Anyone involved in social media understands that it is a fast, emotional, morphing organism. Hundreds of sites and “social” variations are emerging daily. How do you consume, understand, and actually leverage this apparent anarchy. Let me shed a little light…

Start with an Objective

The key to any confusing problem is to frame the ultimate objective. What am I trying to achieve?

Do not, during this exercise, consider any of the features or functions of any of the social media sites available. Only consider what you want to achieve. Do you want:

Create, enhance brand Enhance customer service perception Build trust Demonstrate skill and credibility

These are fundamental questions and answers that will shape your social media strategy.

Inventory Your Skills

Play to your strengths. Inventory your skills and enter the media space using your power tools.

If you are a good technical or analytical writer this may mean “heady” blog trimmed with white papers and ebooks. If you are a more conversational writer, full of character and stories, maybe Twitter fits you well. Are you a video or audio personality–maybe YouTube or podcasting serves you best.

There are lots of formats and more emerging each day. The key is finding a format that fits your personality and strengths. Profitable conversations can happen in a lot of ways. Start with the most natural.

Survey and Listen

Once you chose a good format, or two start by listening. Find out what others are doing. Listen in on competitors. Watch the current masters.

Listening always helps you tune your approach to the market. It also allows you to enter first as a consumer before you are a producer–another great edge.

Determine your unique or improved angle on the social media you are going to participate in. Be ready to do a lot of testing and adjusting. Most likely your first plan will fail.

Build a Foundation

No one trust an outsider. In social media this is just as true. Users are always circumspect of new followers of connections–”what do they want from me?” As a part of your listening step make sure you are building a foundation. Follow, promote, and converse with friends first and then people like you or your target market.

The Cluetrain Manifesto first captured the paradigm of social marketing–they characterized markets as conversations. Conversations are polite, respectful, give and take interactions.

No sales, at first. Build value first.

Beer Brewing 101

Ingrid Cliff asked:
Move to Trash

Where does social media – networking sites, forums, blogs, wikis and the like, fit with your overall marketing strategy? Social media does not replace all of your other marketing – it just changes the mix.
When I look at a company’s marketing I categorise it into two main areas – Online and Offline. I then break these down into further categories.

Online:

o Website & Search engine strategies

o Customer strategies

o List building strategies

o Sales strategies

o Social Media

Offline:

o Hands-off strategies (where you communicate with your customers indirectly) such as advertising, marketing collateral, direct mail, sponsorship, press releases

o Hands-on strategies (where you communicate face to face with customers) such as trade shows, seminars, events, client nurturing

o Shared strategies (where you work with others to jointly grow your businesses) such as networking, alliances, joint ventures, referrals

When a business is looking at marketing, they need to look at the right blend of these strategies to meet their specific goals.

Social media is just one part of the blend – but there are many reasons I love the Social Media for small business.

For starters the big one – it’s almost totally free! The only cost with much of the social media strategies is time if you do it yourself.

You can target your social media strategy so it also achieves the side targets of all of your other online strategies – more loyal customers, bigger list, better sales, and increased search engine presence.
The downside is it can be tricky to learn what to do; many of your peers and colleagues look at you as if you have suddenly grown two heads when you talk about it (so peer support can be quite low); and if not done correctly it can suck up hours of time without much result.

Off-line strategies are more traditional and have been proven to work over the years. The downside is they are often quite costly and in many cases you don’t get the results you were hoping for.

I know of people who have paid $3000+ for a tradeshow booth plus fit-out and printing costs, as well as wages and time and ended up with very little result.

With all marketing strategies – both online and off line, you need to calculate return on investment. You want to see how much the strategy costs to acquire a new customer.

So in the case of the tradeshow – let’s assume they spent all up $5000 on the show and acquired 10 new customers – the cost to acquire each new customer was $500. You need each customer to spend more than $500 with you over the life of their history with you in order to generate a return on investment.
I recommend businesses run the stats ruler over their networking activities in particular. Add in the membership fees, annual fees, meal fees, lost earning time (if appropriate) and then calculate how much new business you have generated from that process.

This is very confronting for many people – they may enjoy their networking but when they run the financial ruler over it they find they are paying out much more than they are getting back in financial return.

Of course not everything is about money – if you are getting your personal needs for connection and being part of something bigger met, then your investment in networking is a worthwhile one for you personally. Just be clear it is not really a business strategy but a personal strategy and you will go into your next session with a slightly different outlook and will gain more from it as a result.

So back to where social media fits with your marketing strategy. Well it all depends on what you want to achieve, the demographics of your market, the amount you have to spend and the time you have available. In my experience it is something worth adding to your marketing blend.

Williger.com

Willy Lim asked:

“Social media marketing…what’s that? Never heard of it in Asia.”

I can almost hear you say that.

That was MY response when I first researched it on Google. I have been using parts of this form of marketing but have never knew the collective term for it.

So What is Social Media Marketing?

I found this rather formal definition on the internet…

“Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a form of internet marketing which seeks to achieve branding and marketing communication goals through the participation in various social media networks.”

After reading it, I’m still confused as to what it is! So I have decided to put it in layman terms for you.

Basically, social media marketing covers all the activities that center around:-

Creating content (articles, videos and audios) on websites or blogs Social interaction within social networking sites like Facebook Sharing videos on You Tube Bookmarking and sharing interesting articles on Digg…. …just to name a few.

Why Do InterNetwork Marketers Need Social Media Marketing?

A lot of people get online onto the internet and become all excited and hyped up about new technologies and forgot all about the “Why?”.

Remember the Dot-Com days? Without a clear focus on bottomlineMany have become Dot-Gone!

In business, network marketing or otherwise, we should never get into anything just because it is the in-thing that everyone else is doing. It would be wise to first evaluate the business implications before investing a huge amount of time and effort into anything.

So how exactly does this social media marketing help us build our network marketing business?

Well, in the offline world, a nicely renovated shop on a busy street will attract lots of customers.

In the online world, however, having a nice flashy website does not attract customers to you…You will need to write lots of relevant content on your website, and leave lots of content footprints everywhere, only then will you attract lots of targeted prospects to your website and opting into your mailing list.

Content creates Traffic. After you have Traffic, you can deepen the relationship and PREsell through emails. You can utilize social interactions within social networking sites to allow people to know you better as a real person. Done correctly, this will position yourself as a solutions provider. It moves your prospects through the process of Knowing You, Liking You and Trusting You. And when your prospects reach the stage of trusting you, Monetization is simply asking for the order

The Anatomy of Social Media Marketing & Where Should You Start?

With so many choices and options and upcoming variants, it’s hard to stay focused and get something productive done!I have recommended below a few areas of social media marketing that I have personally used to build my internetwork marketing business.

1) Website

My website is the centerpiece of my social media marketing strategy and is powered by Site Build It!. This is where I write majority of my content and where majority of my content gets found by Google. If you are wondering why did I choose a Site Build It! website over a Blog, you can find out more by subscribing to my InterNETwork Marketing Newsletter below.

2) Content Sharing Sites

These are sites where you can write articles on a variety of topics. The reason you want to post articles here is because search engines love them and they get found quickly.

I recommend Squidoo and Hubpages, and that you start by learning how to post articles there.

3) Video Sharing

If you have done some searches on Google, you will find that some of the results are videos! Videos are also content (most people miss this one)! People can find your video if they searching for the keyword that you have put into your video’s description.

I recommend You Tube (for short videos) and Google Video (for long videos).

4) Social Networking Sites

These are like those clubs and societies that you have in the real world. People socialize, play games, flirt…whatever in these social networking sites, pretty much like what happens in the real world too! But the best part of these social networking sites is the ability to connect to your friends’ friends’ friends’ friends’ friends (you get the idea?), and keep track of those relationships. This is impossible in the real world.

There is also this function of updating your profile status to let people know what are you doing at the moment. This allows people to “follow” you and know you as a real person. Also, after you have written a new article, you can update your status in your profile with the url and people may actually click to read what you have just written.

I recommend that you start with Facebook, play around with it and make some new friends online! You may also what to check out Twitter, which basically lets you know what other people are doing and tell other what you are doing (it’s fun, just don’t get addicted to it).

5) Social Bookmarking

After you have created so much content, you can share it at social bookmarking sites, so that even more people will find your content and come to your website. I personally used Digg and StumbleUpon.

I hope my recommendations gives you some direction as to where to start in this vast, complex, but yet exciting area of Social Media Marketing.

Beer Crafting

Philip Zelinger asked:




Consumers own the dealership of tomorrow, today… so get to know your new boss! Monetizing social networking is the challenge of the day and automotive advertising agencies that hope to serve their auto dealer clients need to apply new technologies and consumer-centric solutions to put their customers to work for them.

One constant in the auto industry is change, and since human nature is also a constant, most productive change is driven by technology. New technology driven solutions are able to integrate proven real-world selling systems with efficient and scalable online platforms to sell more vehicles and service with less staff. Auto dealers know they need to leverage social media and the viral marketing messages that it generates, but they don’t have the resources or skill sets to do it; yet! Salespeople and brick and mortar dealerships will always have a role in the sales process, however tomorrow’s virtual dealerships are already being built. Automotive advertising vendors have developed a variety of customer-centric online applications that blur the line between the real and the virtual world allowing dealers to use C2C comments to market to social networks from the inside out vs. B2C that does it from the outside in.

The explosive growth of Internet based digital marketing by auto dealers has been fueled by dealer’s needs vs. their wants as advertising budgets have been reduced in synch with reduced sales volume and profit margins. The initial investment for many dealers was limited to building their online virtual showrooms as consumers replaced their local car row with the Internet Super Highway as the place to shop for a vehicle. The consolidation of brick and mortar facilities may have been accelerated by a shrinking economy and government dictates however, the writing has been on the virtual wall for some time. Technology has always served as the catalyst for change and the Internet has proven to be the platform to introduce the next evolution of the auto industry.

From the auto dealer’s perspective, Internet based social networking was initially perceived as the virtual version of a Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, Community Event, Fraternity, etc., etc. linked by technology that serves as a central communication and distribution tool. This limited understanding and application of social media was based on the presumption that B2C marketing messages were the objective as dealers attempted to replicate proven real world selling processes translated onto the World Wide Web as an extension of their virtual showrooms.

Relationship based selling processes in the real world were presumed to be transferable onto the World Wide Web, but based on experience; not so much! Dealer-centric messages relying on the fact that people like to do business with people that they like are diluted when filtered by the glass wall that isolates the customer from the dealer. The logic to — Sell yourself, sell the dealership, sell the vehicle and then justify the price — is an accepted wisdom based on the one constant that has survived in both the real and the virtual world — Human Nature! Unfortunately, human nature also drives the need for consumers to seek the path of least resistance when looking for information to satisfy a need — like purchasing or servicing a vehicle — and the next generation of consumer-centric social networking and C2C marketing satisfies that need better than an auto dealer can; or ever will.

Internet based social networks represent an online community of likeminded consumers who have a strong influence on their online friends. Auto dealers recognize that they must invest and involve in these online communities as people, not as an auto dealer. However, they will always be perceived as an outsider with self serving interests no matter how much they try to join in on the conversations. Their best intentioned efforts to prioritize the interests of their online friends to earn their trust and consideration when they need a new vehicle — or service for their present one — will always be suspect.

Beer Brewing 101