The SEMA session on social media offered some great advice for business owners both small and large.

An interesting session at SEMA during Industry Week focused on the quickly growing social media trend and the way in which it can impact your business. The session featured moderator BJ Birthwell of The Armory Automotive Group, who led the panel of company representatives who work with social media in their business. The panelists included: Dan Greenawalt: Microsoft, Turn 10 Studios; Alex Algard, CarDomain; Thomas West, Whitney Automotive Group; and Tyler Tanaka, Turbonetics, Inc.

It’s no surprise to anyone who’s paid any attention the media world lately that print media has been on the decline in recent years. Many argue that print will still have its niche in the marketplace, but the decline has created room for opportunity. As the panel noted, the opportunity that has presented itself to fill the void in the automotive market is social media, which the panel broke into four main groups: personal home/identity sites, forums, video sharing sites and blogs.

Personal home/identity sites have been around since MySpace, but Facebook has been a recent popular example of this field, and these are sites where people represent themselves and their cars. Forums have been a very popular platform for car enthusiasts to discuss anything from rides or trips they’ve taken, vehicles they own, and parts they use/have used in builds, often discussing what has and hasn’t worked well. Video sharing site have grown considerably with (You Tube is one example, but there are a number of sites doing this in the automotive market). Blogs are another example of ways in which readers and the author can have an open dialog about a topic. The panel even discussed the fact that Twitter can be considered a “micro blog” to a certain degree.

“All these sites that have basically displaced a lot of the traditional media in the last  few years have something in common in that they are all platforms that enable users, car enthusiasts, to share information, ideas and communicate with each other in an open way and an organized way,” CarDomain Network founder Alex Algard said. Algard also noted the growth the popularity of products such as the 3G iPhone and similar cell phones that now feature video-capturing ability.

One of the most important points the panel made is that every business owner should start using these platforms. Even if they don’t plan to market in these new media outlets just yet, participating in them will allow these business owners to experience them from a user standpoint to know what does and doesn’t work from a user’s perspective.

The panel addressed pre-written questions during the session, such as whether or not social media is simply a Gen-Y thing? While MySpace was one of the early largely used platforms in the social media realm and many of those younger users have shifted over to also use Facebook now, there’s also a recent trend of an older demographic using the site. A funny site that recently popped exemplifies this shift in the demographic called www.myparentsjoinedfacebook.com (it’s pretty funny and worth a look).   

PAGE 2

Here were some interesting statistics featured during the session regarding social media use on popular Web sites.

Some of the positives of social media is it enables businesses to share their information with a larger audience. As the panel noted, mobile phones, aside from offering the ability to capture photos and video, and now essentially portable computers. In a few years, mobile phone may overtake laptop computers in terms of Internet usage, and being involved in social media will allow that information to reach these more people faster and more frequently.

On the topic of how social media is effecting online purchase decisions, the panel argued there is no word of mouth anymore – word of mouth is all social media now. Forums were one of the original places where automotive enthusiasts would to gather information, and as Tyler Tanaka of Turbonetics noted, a forum thread can help a product succeed or sink it quickly. Forums have revolutionized how word of mouth about a business is spread. Whether it’s at a race, event or show, your products are being talked about in the social media whether you like it or not, and that’s why it’s that much more important that you are interacting in those arenas to do all you can to make it all succeed.

Tanaka went on to speak on his experience with his forums, and he stay’s active within them to monitor posts to “prevent disasters.” Although ne noted it’s not all bad, at times online people can be quick to criticize but not as quick to praise. He suggested setting up Google alerts to monitor discussion on your products.

“One of the most important things you can do is if you’re manufacturer or a seller of products, and you specialize in a certain product, you’ve got to set up Google alerts,” Tanaka said. “Set up Google alert key words for everything you sell. Everyone of your products, everything related to your brand or your trademark. You can do once a day, once a week, or as it happens. All it takes is a link and the headline and I can see what’s being said about my product.”

Tanaka also said to remain transparent and don’t try to hide who you are on forums, because people will almost always find out who you are and will expose. If you have an issue, you can try to contact the person through a private message to try and try to take care of the problem right away.

In terms of using social media for your business, the panel suggested a few sites that can help manage the sites, such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, both of which help manage Twitter accounts. If you’re a business, you can also set up your account to have co-tweets so that multiple people can sign in and monitor and update the account.

In the end, the panels stressed that participating in social media will provide your business with more opportunity to get your message out there. Monitoring action online related to your product will also benefit you by interacting with customer. Although sometimes unruly customers will post negative things, fans of your product will also stand behind you and your business if they believe in the company. Interacting with them through social media outlets is a good way to stay in regular contact with current customers and potential ones.