In the age of Social Media - a dealership's online reputation is extremely important. In fact it is more important than the TV commercials or full page Sunday newspaper ads. Consumers will always Google the dealer and the sales executive/manager prior to making the buying decision.

Unhappy customers can easily leave a negative mention about the dealership and/or sales executive on the many general or auto review websites like below. These negative mentions on Social Media could sabotage future sales. Google gives a lot of weight to UGC(User Generated Content) and these negative mentions about a auto dealership could rank on Google page 1.

List of some general consumer review sites:

• http://www.complaintsboard.com/

Helpful information for consumers regarding allegedly unethical companies, bad business practices. Complain and submit your complaints or research previous complaints.

• http://www.buzzillions.com/

Buzzillions is a product reviews site that helps shoppers avoid costly mistakes. Buzzillions offers product reviews and tools for you to research purchases before you buy.

• http://www.consumersearch.com/

ConsumerSearch.com reviews hundreds of product reviews, analyzes them, distills the information shoppers need and recommends which products are the best.

• http://consumerist.com/

The Consumerist highlights the latest scams, rip-offs, hot deals, freebies and suggests ways for them to fight back.

• http://www.mouthshut.com/

Consumer reviews on Movies, Cars, Bikes, Mobile Phones, Music, Books, Airlines, Restaurants, Hotels & more.

List of some auto specific review sites:

• http://www.dealerrater.com/

DealerRater is committed to providing a central collection point for informative reviews, through a four step process to identify fraudulent and incomplete submissions.

• http://www.edmunds.com/

Edmunds.com provides True Market Value® pricing, car reviews, ratings, and advice to help you get a fair deal. True Cost To Own® will help you find out how much your car will cost over time.

• http://autos.aol.com/

AOL Autos provides you the information you need to make smart decisions, whether you're buying a new or used car, selling your car, repairing or maintaining your current car.

• http://www.cardealerreviews.org/

Car Dealer Reviews provides car ratings, reviews, and complaints. It also gives buying tips for used and new car.

• http://mydealerreport.com/

MyDealerReport.com is a place to view car dealer reports, find car dealer ratings, search for car dealer reviews, rate a car dealer and much more!!!

Damaged online reputation for Auto Dealers

Negative online reputation could have disastrous consequences for the dealership like below

a) Destroyed brand equity.

b) Drop in sales.

c) Negative online publicity which could make one bad customer remark online get amplified on Social Media.

d) Long term effects like drop in market share.

Automotive SEO and Reputation Management

Protecting and safeguarding your online reputation is as important as your credit score. Auto dealers

need to take ownership of their brand names. They must continuously produce relevant and useful content on an array of social channels like Twitter, Facebook, Slideshare, Scrib, Press Release, Delicious, Blogs, YouTube, FlickR, etc. Auto dealers need to claim the first page of search results for their brand and names of senior executives. For ex a customer wanting to spend upward of $50,000 for a Infiniti will surely Google the name of the sales executive he is interfacing with at the dealer ship.

Social Media Monitoring

Wikimotive advices dealersips to monitor the web and track everything - dealer name, services, products, executive names.

They can use some free social media monitoring tools like Google Alerts, Social Mention, Addict-o-matic, Technorati, Twitter search,wikiAlarm, HowSociable, Commentful, etc.

Bigger dealerships might want to go for paid social media monitoring tools - which offer some distinct advantages like aggregating multiple social streams, realtime alerts, colorful custom dashboards, predictive analysis and more. Radian6,ScoutLabs, BuzzLogic, Visible Measures, Buzzgain, Jive, etc are some of the high end social monitoring tools.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/seo-articles/social-media-monitoring-for-auto-dealers-3909298.html

Wikimotive is dedicated to providing the latest Social Media Marketing, Reputation Management, Facebook Marketing, and Automotive SEO services to businesses and persons looking to enhance their online marketing presence.