Using Facebook fans to improve automotive marketing

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Comment by Ralph Paglia on February 4, 2010 at 7:37pm

@Nathan - We have been able to estimate that less than 10% of the Fans in the CardinaleWay Mazda Community Fan page are previous customers. But, our sample size is 75 out of 1,051.

Comment by Nathan Scripps on February 4, 2010 at 4:20pm

Hi folks... thanks for reading my blog (and a big thanks to Mary for posting it here). Let me tackle each of your comments...

Ralph... For the Mazda fans you have gathered in the dealer's immediate area, I would first ask fi they are existing customers or new prospects. If existing, then you have a great customer service channel to spread positive word of mouth (because if they had a bad experience, its unlikely they would fan the dealership). If these are prospects, try to push out reasons to stop by or testimonials... And I notice this is Cardinale Way Mazda, which has a normal FB account with 291 friends... I would suggest trying to push all the friends to become fans (if they aren't) and focus on the one communication stream, one voice of the dealer.

VJ... Interesting take, but I woudl put out another possibility... german luxury sport brands are very aspirational vehicles. When you look at the fan demographic of 26 for BMW and 285 for Audi, that seems far younger than an actual owner demographic. I would have loved to compare actual owner data, but that is something other OEM's can do with Rapleaf (disclaimer... I am no longer at Rapleaf). I think the other point to pull out here is sales volume vs. fan volume... how many BMWs sold last year vs. Audis? Their fan counts are almost even... so with a mismatch in sales volume to fan volume, can this point to more, younger aspiring owners for one brand vs. the other?

Harold... Glad to hear you are continuing the conversation! Let me know if you have any other social media/ auto marketing questions at nathanscripps (at) gmail (dot) com.

Comment by Ralph Paglia on February 3, 2010 at 10:57pm

@Mary - Thanks for such a thought provoking article... Your timing is perfect for me because of several meetings this week where "The Value" of each "Fan" connected to a dealer's Facebook Fan Page has been the source of a lot of wrinkled foreheads. If you could humor me for just a few moments, please take a look at this dealer's Facebook Fan page which I was able to attract and "Fan" over 1,000 people in less than 60 days. The metrics show that 98% of these Fans are within 20 miles of the dealership, which corresponds to the Google and Facebook advertising I targeted as such. When you look at it, my question is this; What would YOU recommend or do with these fans?
http://Facebook.com/MazdaCommunity

Comment by VJ on February 1, 2010 at 5:31pm

Good article Mary. You are dead on with the German Car Makers. During my latest session at DD07 in Nashville I was able to point out, too that in particular Porsche and BMW, followed by Audi and Mercedes Benz fans/followers are more likely to hit the “Follow” tab. This explains the huge community and fan base like bimmerfest.org and babbler.com (Porsche) and the steady rising numbers in their fellowships. I think it could have to do, when spending an average of $50k+ the new driver buys into “her/his new “loyalty of the brand due to the investment she/he did. During my sales career I heard quite often from new customers that they first followed a community to see and hear what the members had to say and write about their Bimmers, RS’s or 911’s. When it was good, then their decision was “easy” enough to make a call and get into the new luxurious vehicle.
I love the work you do at Rapleaf and decided to follow you just now on Twitter. Hope to see you one day during an event like NADA or the DD08.