Update – New Take on Automotive Social Networking Visit this Link- Update

Social Media Networks in the automotive industry are fledgling and the dynamics created inside of them is atypical of what you see in other niches. Some of what I have seen are complete aberrations and others I have a special kindred for, all have afforded some decent networking opportunities, even the one that is a laudable project. Social Networking also includes blogs but for now I will just concentrate on the networks that I visited recently.

Here is how I rate the networks that are out there:

• Car Dealers Social Network – (145 Members) Very diverse network but a tight group. Lots of effort put in lately to cut down on the spam post. Tends to cater more towards dealership employees and some fledgling vendors. It goes through spurts of activity.
• Automotive Digital Marketing (399 Members) – Seems to be a sounding board for its founder to show off. Not a lot of quality there. I have had some good networking opportunities, but refuse to visit very often due to the myspace feel and the Me Me Me hand waving. Maybe it will make it if they quit spamming other networks trying to take away members and change the layout and feel there. Seems to have the most activity but it is mostly billboards for an outdated wealth of knowledge.
• iMagic Lab Connect – (198 members) I have not spent a lot of time there but like the fact that joining is moderated and they have in their TOS that advertising implicit or overt my cause you to loose your account. They seem to be doing a good job as far as it being real networking but then again the activity level seems to be low as well. (Up Date 4/17/08 Membership has not grown since this post and I have deleted my account there.)

Social Networking is not about showing off it is about community. As in all communities you will have leaders that provide the most benefit to the members but when leaders try to develop a community around themselves it is doomed to fail. I have seen it happen to many times. From forums to social advertising networks (Yes there is such a thing) when people try to over promote themselves or product it becomes ineffective and takes away from value that can be garnered.

All three of the networks listed above are sponsored one way or another by vendors in the automotive arena and tend to alienate their bread and butter, the dealers and are open for consumers to browse. Granted the car business has a bad stigma in the eyes of it’s customers but allowing consumers to see marketing tactics and to hear the general groan taking place in the industry right now is not going to help dealers or vendors to be more profitable. The doors need to be closed (previous post about this) and membership bases need to be strengthened.

To sum it up. The network with the largest number of members is really doing the worst job and has the least likely chance of making it in my opinion. The other two networks actually have a better networking atmosphere and free flow of ideas. They all have a dismal showing for the number of dealership employees and vendors in the marketplace and none of them have real gate keepers to keep the content out of prying eyes. With a rough estimation of 100,000 automobile dealers in the US if only 50% participate in online marketing and only 50% of them looked to enhance or share their knowledge in an online community we are failing miserably based on member levels in these communities.

Update – New Take on Automotive Social Networking Visit this Link- Update

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