Saturday, May 16, 2009

Googles Competition - Search 2.0


Im not talking about Yahoo or even MSN. (They still exist ya know...)

What I am talking about are the new batch of search engines cropping up which might just offer something better. Thats right. Something BETTER than the all mighty Google...

From the attached CNN article:

"Some sites, like Twine and hakia, will try to personalize searches, separating out results you would find interesting, based on your Web use. Others, like Searchme, offer iTunes-like interfaces that let users shuffle through photos and images instead of the standard list of hyperlinks. Kosmix bundles information by type -- from Twitter, from Facebook, from blogs, from the government -- to make it easier to consume.

And Lets not forget Twitter itself... who is trying to capitalize on the warp-speed pace of online news today by offering real-time searches of online chatter -- something Google's computers have yet to replicate.

Facebook and FriendFeed also are experimenting with real-time searches, according to news reports. But each of these searches operates only within its own social network. Scoopler is another real-time site that's trying to aggregate info from all of these sites.

And all of these are seeing more competition, as two new sites -- TweetMeme and OneRiot -- launched new or updated real-time searches recently."

If you care, or have ever used a search engine... check out this CNN article... New search engines aspire to supplement Google

Just when you start to figure it out........ Read more!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Twitter for Dealerships


Ahh Twitter…

Getting past all the excitement I really think the best use of Twitter is real time interaction with existing customers.

Sure you can “market” with relevant tweets about your industry but “selling” will probably do more harm than good.

Think of Twitter as a real time search engine. Find out what people are saying about:

1. Your Store and their experience. Reach out to those people and thank them or assist them with their concerns. Not only does the customer appreciate the attempt but others may see your proactive approach to issues.

2. Your brand. Point people to correct information, relevant topics, news and the like about your brand. Never assume people just know the 3g Prius is available. Never assume people know the benefits of one product over another. If you can point people to an unbiased review or the like, that goes a long way.

As a rule, Twitter and the like are but one small piece of the puzzle. Dealers must grasp the concept and seize the opportunity to capitlize on all social networking platforms.

In reality, dealers have missed a HUGE part of the puzzle to make this work for them. The foundation. The process of handling this customer and prospect should be prioirty one. Until that is in place and running on all cylinders, then using Twitter and the like will do more harm than good. Read more!