While social media and its effect on business is still in its infancy state, we do know that consumers read peer-to-peer reviews on social networking sites and consumer review sites — and what they read can affect their decision-making process.

If you feel like you like the social media world is spinning around behind your back and you’re missing opportunities to engage and influence shoppers, it may be time to add a social media manager. (First things first, though: Be sure to take our Social Networking Readiness Test.

Initially, the best-case scenario is to identify talent within your dealership and incentivize him for taking on this additional responsibility. You save on salary, but more importantly, an experienced employee should be able to leverage her institutional knowledge to become a credible voice and brand ambassador of your dealership in your store’s communications with consumers.

Characteristics You Should Look for in a Social Media Manager
Regardless of whether there is a likely candidate already on the payroll or you have to hire someone, there are some skills and characteristics you should look for in a social media manager:

• A passion for the automotive industry. A person who is going to be your brand advocate needs to really love the business so they’ll willingly immerse themselves in all aspects of the industry, especially understanding how your dealership operates.
• Organized, creative, analytical and highly communicative. A social media manager is in many ways a jack-of-all-trades who not only monitors what’s being said about you, but must also be to support, spark and engage in conversations in the online world.

Word to the wise: It may seem logical to make the most enthusiastic person on your team your social media manager, but an aggressive sales personality could drive consumers away. Social media is a casual conversation; it should not be dominated by your voice. Instead, look for someone who knows how to communicate in a fun and interesting way, who is highly diplomatic so he won’t get offended when people complain or criticize your dealership, who represents the culture of your operation well, and who is discerning enough to know when to engage and when to hold back.

• A good writer with good grammar skills. Someone who’s writing responses and blogs on your behalf needs to be able to provide intelligent, well-executed, error-free content.
• Independent, resourceful and entrepreneurial. Social networking is not a 9 to 5 job and unpredictability is the name of the game in social networking. A social media manager needs to be someone who will take the initiative to find answers, anticipate problems and work to establish himself as an expert and trusted resource for information about your brand. Someone who thrives on variety will do well in this position.
• Are they big fans of social networking? In other words, do they spend a lot of their free time using Twitter, talking to friends on Facebook, watching videos on YouTube. Do they have a LinkedIn page? If they understand how social networking works, they’ve minimized the learning curve and should be open to staying on top of the constantly evolving world of social media and networking.

Duties and Responsibilities of a Social Media Manager
If your social media manager has several roles at your dealership, plan on allocating at least 6 to 10 hours a week for her to do this job. Her primary responsibilities should be:

• Create and implement a social media strategy
• Manage presence on social networking sites, ensuring they are updated daily with relevant content
• Engage with existing and prospective customers 
• Monitor online conversations and be able to answer inquiries and provide customer service
• Write a blog, which could be anything from “How many miles between oil changes,” to “How to determine whether you need new tires,” and so on
• Monitor what the competition is doing
• Build a brand ambassador network
• Implement social media campaigns, such as awarding prizes for “Liking” your company on Facebook, e-coupons and promo codes
• Track social media campaigns
• Monitor trends in social media
• Scan news feeds for interesting articles, blog posts or videos to share with customers
• Review traffic volume, bounce rates and other relevant metrics on Google Analytics and TweetBeep.com
• Provide feedback to management

Your Job?
Work with your social media manager to establish a social media policy. A social media policy includes rules and guidelines of acceptable behavior on social sites for employees representing your dealership. Next month we’ll talk about how to develop a social media policy at your dealership and what it should include.

Never lose sight of the fact that the fastest way for your social networking efforts to backfire is to try to sell something through a social network channel. For everything that you put out through a social network channel, make sure that all of it is user-centric. In other words, you and your social media manager should ask yourselves, “How are we adding value to our consumers?”

Although a very necessary tool in your marketing toolkit, treat social media as another component of your marketing mix. It should not cannibalize your other marketing efforts. The social networking side lets you see what consumers and customers are saying about you, and understand what they’re interested in. With that knowledge, you can tailor your “conversation” with them, demonstrate your expertise and trustworthiness, and ultimately create an unshakeable loyalty to your operation that they’re happy to share with others, online and offline.

^{1 Source: Automotive Buyer Influence Study, AutoTrader.com/Polk, 2011}