Why Social Media Business Strategies Fail

A lot of companies try to run their Social Media strategy identical to how automotive dealerships run their sales departments which is to treat anyone who happens to tread upon the property of their dealership the same way that a piranha would treat a human that fell into its waters. Social Media is not a platform to sell your products. It is a place to make potential customers aware of your company and what it has to offer them when they need it.


I once worked as Social Media Manager at a local dealership and they were selling about 10 cars per month when I took the job. The goal then was to increase the sales to 30 cars per month, cut down the marketing budget, and develop a social media marketing plan for the company. So on June 3rd, 2013, I began my job building a social media presence for this company and monitoring ROI on marketing campaigns that were already in the process when I got hired.


Fast forward to July 15th, cars sales for the past 30 days were at 29 cars sold, I cut the marketing budget in half by getting rid of 3 or the 4 channels we were using to advertise our cars since only one of those was worth keeping. One of the channels was Auto Trader magazine who sent this pretty blonde who gave me lots of gifts and flirtations in hopes of keeping our business. Unfortunately for her, when it comes to business, no amount of good looks, compliments, or flirting will makes me think twice about throwing good money after bad. Sadly for her and not without a fight, I dump her and her expensive invoices which we weren't getting any good leads from.


So in less than two months, we went from selling 10 cars a month to selling 30 cars a month and our marketing budget went from $1700 per month to $500 per month and I utilize social media to make people aware that we existed whenever they were ready to purchase a car, truck, or motorcycle and not before. At the same time, I kept them up to date on all the local events and trends and never tried to sell any of our product or services to them using social media because that is not how you manage social media for business.