Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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By George Nenni DE ALERSHIP OPER ATIONS PINTEREST CONTINUES TO INTEREST Pinterest is proving to be business-friendly. It recently rolled out a new tool to help businesses measure the effectiveness of their activities on the social media site. Our digital marketing expert offers his thoughts. Since ear Since ea last year, I���ve been n early llin dealers they need to esi telling de tablish b h tablish a presence on Pinterest. Since the n then, Since the Pinterest has established itse h itself lished itse as the third most popular U.S. a ular U.S social networking site, behind Facebook and Twitter. h d behind Fa Launched in March 2010, the photo-based social media site attracted a million visitors in a little more than a year. As of January 2013, according to digital analytics frm comScore, the site had attracted 53.5 million visitors. Wall Street also is into ���pinning.��� Last month, Pinterest secured $200 million in funding from investors, raising the San Francisco startup���s valuation to $2.5 billion. To me, the site���s true value lies in how it attracts and maintains users, and the way those users convert to revenue. A couple of recent independent studies confrm Pinterest���s ability to convert users, as well as the incredibly long time users spend on the site. If you���re still sitting on the sidelines, it is time to take action. NOT JUST A PHOTO BOARD One of the biggest risks for dealers joining Pinterest comes from spammers who squat on key brand names. Tat can include your dealership. Spammers sell you your brand once you decide to join the site. Te good news is it only takes about 15 minutes to secure your brand on Pinterest, so register your dealer���s brand name right away. George Nenni is vice president of operations at Dominion Dealer Services. He began his automotive career in 1993 with Dealer Specialties, where he served as director of operations before Dominion acquired the business in 1999. In his current role, Nenni oversees overall operation for Dominion Dealer Solutions. C G.Nenni@AutoDealerMonthly.com 48 AUTO DE ALE R MONTHLY ��� APRIL 2013 Once you do, you���ll discover the site���s amazing ability to secure Page One of search engine results pages (SERP). And these search results show up not only for a dealership���s brand name, but also for key search terms. Te fact is that Pinterest is packed full of SEO opportunities. Tat���s because Pinterest is a site built upon links, and Google indexes the text from your boards and from your homepage. Tat means you need to be strategic with your homepage and board descriptions to ensure that you���re getting indexed for the same keywords your prospects are using in automotive searches. DEVELOPING A PINTEREST STYLE Establishing your dealership on Pinterest can help you dial into and share your dealership���s personality, appealing to both current and prospective customers. Fiat dealers, for example, feel their customers like things that are fun, quirky and creative, so their Pinterest pages echo that. Jeep deal- ers, by contrast, promote a personality of rugged and adventurous customers. Bottom line, the goal is to target your customers while promoting your dealership���s history, community involvement and personality. As you get started on Pinterest, make sure you avoid ���pin dumping.��� Each time you pin an image, it pops up on the feed of all of your followers. Pinning a few images or videos once in a while is a nice, digestible amount for your followers to observe. However, if you ���pin dump��� and post 100 images within an hour, you will dominate your followers��� feeds and very likely annoy them. Tis can lead to followers choosing to unfollow you, spoiling your eforts to build a strong following. Instead, spread your pins over time, pin several images, and then wait a few hours to pin more. GROUP PINNING Pinterest also ofers a Group Board function you can experiment with. It allows users to create an area where others can post