Car Shopping and New Media – It’s a One Way Street

My car lease ended this month so I was shopping around for a new vehicle.  Before I started looking I thought about how marketing had evolved since I last went through this process three years ago.  Clearly a lot has changed in terms of how we communicate and interact as consumers.  The car industry has seen its share of changes as well.

Like many of you, I’ve read about Scott Monty, chief of community at Ford, and how he has significantly changed the way his company handles customer service on the Web.  The car business is extremely competitive, so I figured that all of the manufacturers, and even some dealers, were hip to this new approach.  Most of you disagreed with my hypothesis and it turns out you were right.

I received plenty of advice from friends and family through social networks, but I did not receive a single message from anyone representing a manufacturer or dealership outside of email.  The closest anyone came was a Honda dealership that started following me on Twitter when I mentioned the brand after a test drive.  Too bad that dealer was in Alabama.

I researched some of the local dealers on Twitter and noticed they all had accounts.  The problem was they were using the tool to simply broadcast messages.  A few were posting specials once a week, while others hadn’t touched their accounts in months.  I had obviously given the industry too much credit.

It’s one thing to miss a generic car-shopping Tweet in your area (although this obviously presents a huge opportunity), but when someone specifically mentions a dealership by name it’s a no-brainer to engage with that consumer.  To be clear, I mentioned a number of specific Twitter handles and still didn’t hear from anyone.

Twitter is a much more powerful tool when it’s used to facilitate a dialogue, rather than simply to broadcast messages in the form of a monologue.  When I finally decided to buy an Altima Coupe from Team Nissan, I told the salesman about my experience.  He didn’t know much about Twitter, but he shared a story about connecting with a buyer on Facebook.  He was eager to learn more about how he could take advantage of social media and I’m proud to say you will soon be able to follow him here @NissanNate.

Email seems to be the one tool that dealers have learned to take advantage of.   I’ll have a separate post on that shortly.

Have you been shopping for a car lately?  Did a manufacturer, dealer or salesperson engage you by leveraging any non-traditional channels during the process?