FINALLY! For all you dealers fumbling around in the darkness that is Social Media integration, it seems like somebody may have found the light switch…or at least turned on a night light.
Yesterday bing announced they would integrate Twitter updates in their search results. And because search engine land is more competitive than the NFC East conference, Google announced the same day that they, too, would integrate Twitter into their search results.
All of this is in attempts for the search engines to move to more of a “real-time” display of search engine results. Meaning, instead of typing in “Malibu Surf Report” and getting a PDF from 2003, you’ll now get real-time results from Tweeters on the sand in Malibu putting on their rash guards (in theory). This is a huge movement in the Search world, which has been really floating by over the years tossing around ideas of local search, vertical search and real-time search. Finally.
So what does that mean for you as an automotive dealer? It means getting your inventory on Google and bing directly…and in real-time.
How does it work? The engines are going to crawl Twitter data no older than a week and display them in order. What order? AHHH, therein lies the question of all questions. How does any search engine rank results – relevance and popularity. So if your Tweet is relevant to the keyword search, and Tom’s Ford has more Twitter followers than Bob’s Ford, Tom is going to get the ranking for “2010 ford mustang”.
I am very happy to see things come together considering my last post, “YouTwitFace”, had the theme of a big thumbs down to dealership Social Media integration. So for now, what I would recommend is promoting Twitter on your websites. Offer incentives, coupons, car washes..whatever to people who sign up to follow you on Twitter and also facebook, who’s integration with the engines is just around the corner.
We’ll do our part by getting your inventory to Twitter.
Stay tuned.
Tweet ya later.
