I heard this on Fox news. Greta Wire reported that Wall Street Journal said
that GM is stopping all Facebook ads as the ads did not convert well. Couple of questions came to my mind -How is GM measuring conversion? Just being me I guess, in social media sites conversion is a bit different than the regular offline media where every conversation is only one way. Here is the quote -
| General Motors Co. plans to stop advertising with Facebook Inc. after deciding that paid ads on the site have little impact on consumers’ car purchases, people with knowledge of the matter said. |
I read the article and to my understanding GM says that it has spent around 10million in advertising ads on Facebook but has not seen any results. I am not sure if I should feel sorry, or chuckle. Like most companies they too are missing what Social Media is about! GM is used to having flashy ads, and media buying but what they are missing is that you can’t buy people on Social media channels. Social media marketing is about the consumers and talking about the things they want to talk about. I am assuming that whomever is writing the checks at GM for Social Media advertising is wanting to see how many bought a car as a result of Facebook Advertising. You get people to like your page with advertising and after that you have to figure out what your fans or audience would like. Again when you plan a social media marketing campaign or Facebook marketing campaign one page does not fit the bill. What I mean is that you have different audiences who will buy or need a car. Have different persona’s and pages for them and different content for each persona. This is what I mean – Say for GM you could have a persona for a college graduate who is a male – his needs, taste, lifestyle, wants is different than a single mom with two kids who works two jobs. You can’t talk to them both the same way as you are sure to offend one of them. Yes this means cut down the advertising bills but hire more people to manage pages for each persona. Managing one Facebook page is a lot of work but for companies like GM it will be worth it. I have had clients who just want entertaining things on their Facebook page and they do not want any lead capture which is quite okay, while other clients want leads and engagement. Of course these are small companies with very limited budget. But what I have found is that customers ask questions, want resources on social media channels to compare as well learn about their options and when you direct them to the right person or the correct next step, they will convert to sales.
Now another question to ask is if a prospect has liked the page, saw your post via their friends news feed, went to your blog, called the dealership because of it- so did the lead come from a Social media site, or would you consider that as a walk in?
You cannot expect to make a profit as soon as you start a campaign either. Social media marketing is about building relationship and really making the best out of the relationship with your fans. To me, again I may be wrong as I don’t know all the details of GM’s marketing strategy, sounds like GM is throwing in the towel way too soon.
You hear stories like GM and then you hear stories of mom and pop wine shop went to sell millions in wine because of Social media, the difference is that communicating, engaging and most of all listening. Big companies have always done a one way communication and its a bit hard for them to actually stop and listen, listen and listen before they start selling. Don’t sell on social media sites jut reach out and help. Social media sites offer great opportunities for big companies to partner up and make a difference, but the sad truth is that the BIG companies offline are the small companies online and SMALL companies offline are the BIG companies online 
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Read the Full article about GM by Clicking here
You’re absolutely right, don’t sell on social media get on there to reach out to people and help in some way, you have to develop a relationship with them. If I was a large company like GM I’d use Social media to do my research on what people want. Post a question about a car and see what answers you get and that will tell you how to sell the car you want to sell.
Using social media for advertising is different then out right try to sell something. I see advertisements on there for football teams but the ad is just a blurp about something that is going on so that you go to another web page to read about it. GM could do the same thing and direct people that seriously want to look at buying a car to their web site.
Well if I was them I wouldn’t give up to soon. When did they put the ad out there and how long did they let it run before they gave up? You have to consider the resource, some people only get on facebook maybe once a week sometimes less and those might be the people that are looking to buy a car. Give it time, is it costing anything to have it out there?
Well I don’t know why they tried to sell anything on facebook anyway. People get on there to find out what other people are up to and to develop relationships not to look at ads trying to sell them something. They would go to the web site itself if they want to look at your cars. I’m sorry it didn’t work out for them but I am not surprised at all.
I think that social media is a good way to get your information out there but it should ultimately drive the traffic back to the web site shouldn’t it? That is where you are going to have the information to sell a car. You have to look at the big picture and why people are using social media, they want information and they want to ask questions and get answers. Use this for your PR.
Good I am glad to see them go, I wish that other companies would follow suit. I get on Facebook to visit with my friends and family not to see ads trying to sell me stuff. These fill up the updates page and you have to weed through everything to finally get to what you want and it gets very frustrating. Thank you GM for seeing the light.
I for one am glad that they finally saw the error of their ways. This is not what Facebook is for maybe one of the other social media networks but not Facebook. You have done a great job on your post and I am glad to hear it. Maybe more people will catch on and take the hint.
Well in the marketing world using social media is a great way to get the word out but it should all be short and sweet and linked back to their web site for those that are seriously looking to buy a car. We get enough ads through people trying to start an at home business or trying to sell Body by Vi or AVON. You can’t sell through Facebook so don’t have the ad there.
Well if you gave it the old college try and it just didn’t work out, chalk it up to a learning experience and move on down the road. Did they try Twitter or Pinterest, maybe even Linkedin? There are so many different sites these days it doesn’t have to stop with Facebook. Great job and don’t give up maybe this one just wasn’t the right one for this business.
Did they try hard enough to make it work? You can’t just put something out there and expect that the first day or two you are going to have an explosion of business. Things don’t work that way if they did we would all be rich. Don’t give up yet it isn’t hurting anything that it is out there so leave it and see what happens in a months time.
have you ever noticed that no one likes a lawyer and no one likes a used car salesman? I am thinking that goes for any car salesman. Maybe that is why this didn’t work the way you thought it would, everybody thought “great now the salesmen are on Facebook. In today’s economy people can’t afford new cars and things so they don’t want t be hassled by them.
I think if you give it time it will pay off. Not everyone that gets on Facebook is looking for a car but all it takes is them spreading the word that they saw the advertisement and the person that is seriously looking for a car will get on there and contact you or go to your web site to see about deals and things you have going. Don’t give up what are you losing?
Cary, is right no one likes high pressure sales pitches and when you get on Facebook the last thing you want to do is deal with a salesman who has put his ad out there on a social site. I know that when I see them on there I quickly delete them or move on by. I don’t want to see advertisements when I get on Facebook.
You can’t just put something out there and expect that the first day or two you are going to have an explosion of business. Don’t give up yet it isn’t hurting anything that it is out there so leave it and see what happens in a month’s time. You have done a great job putting it out there you just need to give it time to work, don’t expect to much to fast.
I was working for an company and we decided to advertise our salon on Facebook and we didn’t think that it was working either until we started asking new customers where they heard about us and 9 times out of 10 it was on Facebook. Don’t give up to soon it is working it just may not be working as fast as you would like it to.
If Facebook isn’t working the way you wanted it to then try some of the other social media networks out there. Some of them are even getting more traffic then Facebook does these days. Like pinterest, they seem to be really popular these days, I am hearing about them all the time anymore everywhere I turn there is a recipe or craft idea from there. Before you give up try them.
It is quite possible that their Ad campaign didn’t work and they just wanted to pull out, i don’t see why that would be a problem. Being that said i think that there’s something about the statement and more importantly the timing of it which smells like decomposed Denny’s chicken wings. I came across a very insightful article which i liked a lot, it talks about GM, the digital age and Facebook.