Consumers rely heavily on the internet for many things. In regards to looking up information about an automobile, there’s a long laundry list of common searches, such as:
- Safety and reliability
- Looking up vehicle consumer surveys
- Insurance industry statistics
- Manufacturer websites
- Complaints filed with regulatory agencies.
In addition to being an excellent source for consumers’ safety and reliability information, automobile users are also producers of such information. They use traditional internet media such as emails and online forms. More and more automobile users are using social media tools such as bulletin boards, blogs, and Twitter too.
Researchers now say that these social media posts can help auto manufacturers find vehicle defects. These researchers have developed a computer-based information system that provides auto manufacturers an efficient way to discover and classify vehicle defects. Now that’s an interesting use of online social interactions!
Read more: http://phys.org/news/2012-10-social-media-auto-vehicle-defects.html
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- FACEBOOK: The basic findings show Facebook as the number one social platform, not surprising.
- SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS: Almost 60% of small businesses spend more than $26 a month for tools that help them publish social media updates: With a number of excellent free social tools available today – I was kind of shocked by this.
- BLOGGING: Small businesses have blogs! In fact, the survey showed that 55% of small businesses have one. What the survey doesn’t tell you is how often they are updated or what information is being shared — keys to making your blog work for you.
- TWITTER: The survey also indicated that 70% are on Twitter. Again, being “on Twitter” can mean many things, and the vast majority post once a day, at most, or several times a week. What this shows is that many are signing up and checking it out, but few are actually using it as a marketing channel.
The survey was conducted with small businesses under 100 employees (93% of respondents fell into this category) and 43% were the owners/CEOs/sole proprietors as well.
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Google + is now in direct competition with Facebook, the social media giant. Google Plus is claiming to have a database of 90 million users while Facebook is claiming to have 800 million users.
Because I live, breathe and sleep internet marketing, I’m predicting that Google Plus could be more popular than Facebook in the near future. To me, it combines Twitter and Facebook in a unique way. First time users report that it feels less complicated than the ever changing Facebook. Also, g+ offers more immediately visible content than Twitter where you’d need to click links to see images and read more of an article than the first 140 characters. Although Twitter’s #Discover feature and new profile header option tells me not to count Twitter out of the running. These two rich media features say changes are coming for Twitter too — more on this in a future blog!
Bottom line –the social media war is on as far as I’m concerned. Will it be Google+ or Facebook that takes the lead? Maybe Twitter will pull the rabbit out of the hat? No matter which outcome, now is the best time to start increasing your presence on Google Plus — adding content, circles, friends and followers. As if you didn’t have enough to do, be sure not to neglect your Facebook and Twitter accounts in the process!
Need social media marking help? I’m just an email away…
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