Is Facebook the Top Spot for
Influencing Car Sales?
by
Patrick Sweeney
If you could erase images of your competitor from potential customer’s mind and at the same time steer them toward what you wanted them to buy, wouldn’t that be marketing nirvana? Well that’s exactly what can happen if you use Facebook optimally.
A study, by research agency ComScore, that was recently released at the 2014 Automotive News World Congress in Detroit shows that after seeing information on Facebook, consumers changed their behavior dramatically. In fact, the study shows that automotive shoppers who saw a particular brand ad on Facebook saw brand site visits increase almost 40%, brand search activity increases over 10%, and specific model site visit increases 50%. What is even more fascinating about this research is that when a brand and model were prominent on Facebook (especially in the newsfeed) people searching the competitive model decreased by almost 15%.
This is the first significant data-driven Facebook study that shows the huge influence that being in the newsfeed can have on consumer behavior purchasing automobiles.
If you combine the ComScore data with last year’s Nielsen findings, then it is logical to conclude if a prospect knows the person publishing the content in the newsfeed, and they are in a trusted social graph, that influence goes significantly higher. This would imply that brand site visits could more than double and purchasing intent should increase 20-50%.
The moral of the story is that if you want to sell more cars, get your specific brand in the newsfeed. The best way to do this is with a comprehensive social media marketing program that includes Facebook advertising and creating user-generated content to produce native ads in the newsfeed.
Automotive events are a great way to create native ads using our social media operating system for events. If you want to outsell your competitors and leverage the word-of-mouth power of social media, then drop us a note at dwinQ.
Patrick Sweeney has deep insight in social media marketing and has created a process called “Maneuver Marketing” based on special operations tactics. He started dwinQ to fill the void between social sharing and being fully engaged in a real world activity. He has started four successful technology companies, and he understands the future of technology and how it will impact business and life in a way that creates value and is truly “making a dent in the universe”. His vision has translated not only into successful start-ups but also more than half a dozen technology patents.
