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Home » The Famous Blog » How the Automotive Sector Can Improve Through the use of Social Media

How the Automotive Sector Can Improve Through the use of Social Media

October 31, 2012 - Last Modified: October 31, 2012 by Tim Aldiss

Crowdsourced Car

Why is it that car dealerships – particularly used car dealers – have the reputation they do, of being untrustworthy, deceptive and dishonest? As sales people, they are not unlike sales people in clothes shops, the Mac store or the ice cream parlour: they attempt to up-sell by being charming and persuasive. But car sales people have a particular reputation for being pushy, or for over-pricing their products and for being opaque, even underhanded, in their dealings.

The reason for this is that the auto industry has always been a bastion of brand-controlled products – perhaps the final frontier for consumers. While cars have long been fetishised in our consumer culture, an increasingly small number of us understand what goes on under the bonnet of a vehicle, so it’s very easy for a sales person in a car yard to target consumers who aren’t knowledgeable about the product. For something that most of us will purchase in a lifetime, researching vehicles is a relatively obscure process, and in pre-internet days it was remarkable how much trust had to be placed in car salespeople.

Social Media and the Automobile Industry

But naturally with the advent of social media, and more importantly social sharing and recommendations, the auto industry must pick up its game. No longer are consumers isolated units who can’t communicate en masse with each other. They compare and complain; they demand explanations and consistency.

According to a recent report by social media monitoring company Brandwatch, forums are the most popular platforms for conversations about cars. They provide an opportunity for enthusiasts of a particular brand to gather in one spot and discuss, analyse, and converse on topics related to that brand.

Social media platforms facilitate direct interaction between brands and car enthusiasts. This gives marketers valuable insights into their potential customers – and vice versa. The report found that Twitter is the second most popular platform for conversations about cars after forums. In 2009, Local Motors primarily used Twitter to launch an innovative concept: the crowdsourced car. Motorheads voted for their favourite design elements. You can see the result at the top of this post.

Buyers seldom rush into making a purchase decision about a car without extensive consultations of various web-based channels harvesting the wisdom of the crowds on online forums. It has been found that tweets from high profile Twitter members may add to the credibility of a brand.

Favourable reviews on forums, blogs and other social media avenues may also swing a decision in favour of a particular brand.

It has also been found that high initial cost is often the barrier to people consuming a particular brand. In fact, 16% of all automotive conversations revolve around purchasing. Ford and BMW were the two most mentioned brands in all automotive purchasing conversations.

BMW Twitter

Besides forums and Twitter, blogs and Q&A sites are other important avenues for automotive conversations. Would-be buyers and brand enthusiasts often throng to these platforms to gather information, view pictures, read reviews, and ask questions before buying a car. Price and ‘perceived value’ are two major issues raised on social media channels that car brands join in. If brands are monitoring these forums and taking part where the conversation is happening, they can help steer public opinion and mitigate any negative action by being transparent and up-front, answering questions.

Social media has potential to revolutionise the industry by giving automobile makers precise data on how to price, market, and produce their products, helping it achieve the transparency demanded by customers. Data which could only be estimated once is now available in hard numbers for them to modify and market their offerings, and public opinion is surely going to be a key factor in shaping choices made by car manufacturers from now, and the democratic nature of social media means that the negative perception attached to car sales can start to be changed.

Image : rallyfighter.com, cargocollective.com

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Filed Under: Social Media

About Tim Aldiss

Follow @thinksearch

15 years working in digital, an SEO & Social Media geek with an evident passion for the web, running my consultancy ThinkSearch, I'm loving life, technology, sharing, and particularly my 8 yr son old Archie and 2 year old daughter Lola. Living in Hove, UK.

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{ 7 Responses }

  1. Ivin says:
    Hello Tim. I clicked right through because this article is right up my alley. I'm working on a pitch with brand customers where we add newsletter delivering coupons as well as lifestyle vlogs a-la-top gear giving reviews on cars to sell cars. Your research is going to add value to my pitch and I thank you for that.
    • Tim Aldiss says:
      That's great Ivin, thanks so much for saying so... and don't forget that Brandwatch are behind this data and insight. Tim
  2. Jakes says:
    Social media have invaded every sector. Nowadays, every company makes use of Social Media Analytics. But, I should say that, there are also times when social media can mislead a buyer. But, often, social media are more reliable than some review sites.
    • Tim Aldiss says:
      Hi Jakes You've hit the nail on the head there - reliability is one of the biggest issues with social media. When used for user research, sentiment analysis, etc - in fact anything on scale - there are issues like for example bots or fake accounts that can skew data. However (as we've been reading about a lot lately in the UK) data has always had some form of manipulation or subjectivity, so I for one am a big believer in how leveraging big data can prove to be a good thing across the enterprise... in automotive and beyond. Tim
      • Jakes says:
        Yup. That is too crucial. But, often for analytics or sentiment analysis, we rely on big data. So, I guess in the present scenario. the bots and other fake accounts can be ignored as they are small in number. And, one can also employ some tools to identify genuine data when it comes to analytics

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