20 June 2011

There’s been a lot of news this week about the use of social media to market cars with several new campaigns vying for attention.

On Tuesday, Suzuki announced it was going for the broad-brush approach and launched a presence on four different social media sites; Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

However, Suzuki was somewhat upstaged in social media terms by Volvo’s announcement (on the same day) that is was going to give away an S60 in a Facebook competition – claimed to be the biggest giveaway on the site in the UK so far.

The difference shows that if you want impact, then you need to be focused about what you do. And if you’re thinking that you need a big prize, that isn’t necessarily the case.

As a contrast Toyota has been running a competition across its network to promote its hybrid vehicles. The competition was simple; test drive an hybrid and see how high you can get the mpg reading. Prizes were decided by each retailer.

While this wasn’t specifically designed as a social media competition, the eco leaderboard at Toyota GB has had a lot of interest on Twitter after the above picture was posted online.

Although I did have to double-check that the person running second wasn’t also the same Jack Petchey that’s involved in a possible bid for Lookers.

But I digress. The point is that what works well to promote something in traditional media, will probably work well in social media. But it’s probably best concentrate your efforts in a single area online for maximum impact and control.

And if you want a bit more help improving your online sales Auto Retail Network is running a Web Workshop titled Beyond the basics of online retailing. There’s more info online here, but you’ll have to be quick as they are nearly full.

As ever, if you’ve got any views or stories you want to share then you can get in touch by emailing tristan@auto-retail.com.

Tristan Young

PS If you really want to know, the eco Jack Petchey works for Lexus and is somewhat younger than the one involved in the possible Lookers bid.
 

Tags: competition, marketing, online, promotion, social media