25 minutes is more than enough time to target their interest and get them browsing your entire inventory right?With the use of Auto RV World’s facebook inventory application, Automotive, RV, Boat, Bike and Equipment dealers may now seamlessly integrate their entire inventory list with their facebook fan page without any unwanted effort. Putting facebook to work for your automotive dealership will prove to be one of your least pricey advertising tactics and will give your online visitors a real purpose for visiting and “liking” your auto dealer facebook fan page.Think about it. How many times have you visited a business’ facebook fan page having followed a link that said, “Like us on facebook” only to find out that the only content on their fan page is a few random wall posts and their contact information. One can’t help but ask, “Why am I here?” or “Why didn’t I just go to their website in the first place?”. Of course we should be flattered by the fact that someone took the time to go to our facebook fan page, but how much more effective would it be if clearly there was a purpose for them to be there?Imagine supplying your potential shoppers the ability to search your entire new and pre-owned vehicle inventory while they are logged in to facebook!

Here are some other cool features offered in this application:

• Show up to 36 images of each vehicle• View videos• Inquire more information• Share vehicles on personal wall posts• Search filters that allow buyers to find a specific vehicleFor any Automotive, RV, Boat, Bike or Equipment dealer out there looking for a cost effective way to have their whole inventory on their facebook fan page, I would strongly encourage contacting Auto RV World and getting a free online demonstration on how it works.Whether you are in the Automotive or RV Business, small dealer or large, the message remains the same: Save time. Save money. It’s that easy. Put Auto RV World’s facebook inventory application to work for your dealership today and start selling more vehicles!

Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp. and Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, announced their alliance Monday to launch “Toyota Friend,” a private social network for Toyota owners.

In a demonstration at a Tokyo showroom, an owner of a plug-in Prius hybrid found out through a cell phone message from his Prius called “Pre-boy” that he should remember to recharge his car overnight.

When the owner plugged in his car to recharge it, the car replied, “The charge will be completed by 2:15 a.m. Is that OK? See you tomorrow.”

Since many next-generation cars need to be recharged, drivers may need real-time information, such as the battery level of their cars and locations of charging stations, more than regular gas-engine cars.

The exchanges can be kept private or be shared with other “Toyota Friend” users, as well as made public on Facebook, Twitter and other services, the company said.

The companies did not give details of how the technology, such as the content of the talking car’s dialogues, will be managed. But officials said the answers will be automated through sensors in the car.

If your car is up for an inspection, for example, the owner will be notified through “Toyota Friend,” which will in turn automatically link to a dealer to set up an appointment.

Toyota is investing 442 million yen ($5.5 million), Microsoft Corp. is investing 335 million yen ($4.1 million) and Salesforce.com 223 million yen ($2.8 million) in the project.

Many cars are already equipped with navigation and other network-linking capabilities that make them almost like mobile devices.

Toyota’s service, built on open-source cloud platforms that are the specialty of Salesforce.com, as well…

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photo credit: martinvarsavsky

Social media and social media marketing seem to be the buzzwords since the past couple of years. We hear a lot about ways that companies can use to tap social media communities and the strategies involve in building a following on social media platforms. In this article, I will try my best to help you as a small business owner on why you should adopt social media marketing.

Reason #1 Huge Audience on Social Media Platforms

If you don’t know about it yet, Facebook, the largest social networking site on the Internet, is growing by 600,000 users per day, yes, per DAY! Twitter, the microblogging platform turned social interaction site, grew by 600% in just 2008 alone and currently house 6 million registered members. Imagine just 1% of the users of these platforms talking about your small business.

Also, these sites allow you to choose your target audience as they compartmentalize their users using interest groups and conversation topics so that you can narrow down your marketing efforts. Users of a social networking site are very participative and if integrated properly, your message can spread from users to users rapidly and the results might even outshine the effect of an expensive TV advertising campaign which is now being seen as an interruption for most.

Reason #2 Low Cost Marketing and PR for Your Small Business

TV ads and full page ads are not as effective for big corporations as they used to but still, marketing executives are paying for it. As for small business owners, people nowadays skip newspaper classifieds and don’t pay attention to Yellow Pages anymore so stop spending thousands in advertising budget on these mediums. Today, people are so busy and bored with advertising as well as marketing messages that they develop a ‘disease’ called advertisement blind.

Instead, you should get onto social media communities and start interacting with your target market. Apart from doing so, you should spend time brainstorming for content ideas that are potentially viral in order to get people talking about you. Give away free helpful content on the Internet to position yourself as an expert. Trust will slowly build up as you become an active participant on social media platforms. All these do not require a huge amount of money.

Reason #3 Crowdsourcing and Understanding the Market

Unlike Fortune 500 companies, small business owners always face difficulties in carrying out an effective market research due to the limitations in their budget. With social media, small business owners can learn about reactions of the market towards new product announcements by companies within the same industry. All they need to do is to browse through conversations on social media platforms!

Apart from that, they can also utilize the platforms to gather ideas and suggestions on how they should improve their current line of products and services. Often times, people don’t tell companies what they are expecting via a contact form or an email because it is troublesome to get to the company site, find out where the contact form is and fill out a form with multiple fields. A tweet with 140 characters of less via Twitter will be much easier.

Fellow small business owners, jumping onto the social media bandwagon now is the right choice to make but before that, make sure that you have completely understood social media marketing. Click on social media marketing now to learn more about the 7 Errors in Social Media Marketing that Businesses Should Avoid.

Avoid these errors as your business might become a victim of bad publicity on social media platforms. Click on http://www.wayneliew.com/10-social-media-marketing-errors/ now to get the article on social media marketing error for free!