Social Media Falls Flat for Auto Dealers

    • 993 posts
    August 26, 2014 1:34 PM PDT

    From Tom Taylor's NOW Newsletter this morning:

    Keeping the automotive dollars

    If radio’s afraid of auto dollars being diverted to social media – it shouldn’t be.

    To put it another way, Auto News says a new study for AutoTrader.com finds that “social media are ineffective for selling vehicles” - even for Millennials. They use Facebook and Twitter for fun and, well, social purposes. But not to shop for their next car. Some dealers are experimenting with marketing on Facebook, because they know there’s traffic there. But it’s all about context, and what people expect out of a particular site, and the study by IHS Automotive including more than 1,900 people who bought cars in the last year finds there’s plenty of online research going on. But it’s occurring on websites, not social media. (And yes, no doubt AutoTrader.com is happy to get that message out there - that digital is the place to be. Also no doubt, digital is a threat to radio’s traditional friendliness with car dealers.) But the preferences are startling. Auto News reports that “just 1% of car buyers use social sites for car shopping.” There are ways for automotive advertisers to build brand awareness and curiosity on Facebook – but it’s not a place for primary research. Auto News says the IHS study “mirrored findings more than a year ago from Dataium...[that] less than 1% of those people linked to the dealer site from a social media site.” If you think there’s an unstoppable shift of auto spending to social media, check the Auto News story here.

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