After many years as a senior manager, consultant, and co-owner on the retail side of the automotive industry I have a unique “view” as I watch the typical automobile dealership management team wrestle with the idea of implementing social media into their organization.
It seems the manufacturers have done a great job of educating the owners of their franchise on the importance of getting on-board the social media wave. However, most, with little or no understanding of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, etc., are struggling with how to get it done. It doesn’t seem that many years ago we were dealing with a similar issue. At that time the Internet was the “buzz word” and the majority of us were trying to get an understanding of how to best utilize this new “tool”. For most of us our new internet manager was someone we chose from our sales team who had an interest in the internet and enough knowledge to ensure us that we were making the right decision. With the internet manager in place and our limited understanding of the subject we went back to the day to day challenges of running our stores. In hindsight, by hiring from within, it caused us to under-utilize the potential the Internet provided.
Now the “buzz” is social media and I am hearing managers say they could hire teenagers, relatives, college kids etc. (saving money) to run their social media campaigns. How do you educate someone Read More »
