In February Google announced a new Panda update that gives more importance to freshness of data. Other than inventory, most dealership websites are static and don’t have fresh content being added to provide Google and the other search engines what they are looking for. The right blog set up, with fresh and unique content added daily can provide the search engines what they want to help your dealership get better rankings. Great content can generate links and likes, but bad content will draw nothing but Panda penalties and no rankings.

Keep in mind that it’s important to promote your fresh content with social media. The right content can provide your customers and followers with a great social media experience.

Over the years dealerships have struggled when they try to focus on anything other than job one – selling cars. There is usually someone at the dealership that knows what it takes to be great on social, but those same people are faced with limited time and lack of resources.

The first step to providing a great social media experience is to select the right partner to assist with your campaigns. Make sure your partner can help you to start building a community and provide a process that will help you engage with your current customers and new prospects.

Next you need to make sure what social network is right for your dealership. Facebook and Twitter are great for engaging and interacting with fans, followers & customers, sharing multimedia content & information, providing customer service, offering contests & promotions, and driving traffic to your dealership website and/or blog.  Twitter generally requires more time for community management, as it’s important to respond to and interact with followers in a timely manner. LinkedIn is also a unique niche that you might consider because most dealerships are not leveraging the network and the right message can help you can stand out from the crowd.

Your partner needs to work with the dealership to establish a clear content direction and voice. It’s important to know what you’re trying to accomplish and create content that supports that goal. Once your followers see that you are consistently publishing fresh quality content, your page views and audience will begin to increase.  

With the new Panda update the phrase “Content is King” is even more relevant now. There is more emphasis on social media links, including Google+, Facebook and Twitter. There is more emphasis on the quality and relevance of content on a dealership website and how it matches up with the content on the page that’s linking to it. There is more emphasis on the quality and relevance of content of the page that is linking out.

The bottom line is that dealerships need to focus on delivering quality content that searches will “like” and Google will “link.” Dealerships need to push quality content and news that is relative, consistent and frequent.

Start Building Your Social Media Strategy

Some dealerships are reluctant to jump on the social media train. Why? The simple reason is they are unsure of the value of social media marketing. Today, if done properly, social media marketing is helping brands everywhere. Learn how Best Social Dealer by Automotive Internet Media can provide a social media strategy for your dealership that will help you build loyalty for the long-term.

For more information on how to leverage social media to help your dealership - click here.