The weather was perfect with sunny skies, low humidity and 70 plus degrees for this year’s NADA in San Francisco. Well another NADA convention is over with manufacturers, dealers and vendors traveling home with new visions of the coming year along with a new perspective on how alive and important the digital market place is to bringing in more business and increasing profits.

Vendors covered the entire spectrum of variable operations and fixed ops and while many of the leading social media companies passed on this year’s NADA convention and exposition the talk of social media continued to be one of the areas of greatest interest.  Many of the web site companies have focused in on social media,  and you could hear presentations regarding social media from just about every booth in the convention center.

Social networking continued with many attendees finding themselves at one of the many evening events on Saturday and Sunday.  This year, for the first time, eBay rolled out the red carpet for over 725 dealers at its Saturday event and its Super Bowl party, and yes, the talk was about social media.  Smaller vehicle manufacturers and vendors spent some time mingling with potential partners as well as visiting with their competition.  Even the big three US manufactures had a large presence providing an upbeat message for all.

After listening to dozens of presentations providing interesting comments about this emerging phenomenon I couldn’t help but identify a very important missing component that makes the media function so well for consumers, vendors and vehicle manufacturers - SME.

SME, or social media etiquette, is really no different than saying good morning, pointing out an opportunity or thanking someone for responding to your request.  Facebook wall postings, tweets on twitter or even a YouTube video can have the greatest impact if done with SME.  I know you are saying to yourself, “not another acronym”, but using this one properly can simplify and improve your reputation management, increase engagement and ROI.

Here’s how it works:

If a retail customer makes a vehicle purchase or services their vehicle and has a problem, most social media savvy consumers will immediately post something on their social media, your social media, Google or maybe all three.  The ball is now in you court and what SME dictates is that you, or your social media management provider, respond as quickly as possible and move them to a private conversation prepared to move heaven and earth to resolve the issue.  Once you have resolved the issue and you have gained consensus from the customer, broadcast the resolution by posting on all your monitored social media sites.  You will find that most savvy social media consumers will appreciate your practicing proper SME and will also post a positive comment.

Now in the rare case that a positive resolution evades all your attempts, do not be afraid to let the world know you are not perfect.  Web sites that list reviews that do not have any negative comments are less likely to have a high believability.  Make sure you let the world know by posting on social media sites that you will make every effort to have a 100% customer satisfaction.

Practicing, promoting and preaching social media etiquette (“SME”) is the easiest, fastest and most cost effective way to increase engagement and ROI with Facebook, twitter, YouTube, etc…