I read two very interesting articles today that deal with the rise and eventual fall of social networking and social media style sites. One implies hope for sites such as myspace and facebook and the other show the direction in the eventual decline of these mediums for true networking opportunities.

What Can fix Myspace (www.socialnewswatch.com) has an interesting article about how the 800 lb gorillas may need to rethink their marketing strategies to attract businesses to market their products through their platforms. I do believe that may be the near term saving grace and help businesses become more aware of these valuable resources as social networks start to shut their door.

Auto Dealers have been penny wise and pound foolish when taking a practical approach to using these resources as marketing tools and now that doors will soon start closing on social networks it may be time for dealers to actually get in front of a trend instead of trailing it by several years.

The other informative article Social Networking with the Elite (www.business week.com) describes the coming phenomenon in using the internet to really network. This could be a very practical application for auto dealers to embrace to retain customers. Imagine a closed door social network for your dealership where entry is only accessed by your customers and staff. This would allow dealers to to build a huge internal marketing platform and retain customers at a fraction of the cost of attracting new ones.

Not only could you create an online VIP membership that would provide current customers with special service and sales promotions but also a viral cost effective way to stay in constant contact with their best source of business, current customers, and help drive more referrals to the showroom.

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