One of the biggest problems businesses run into when they try to use social media is that they use it as just another marketing channel to push sales & marketing messages through. This obviously misses the biggest opportunity with social media: to have conversations with people who are interested in your products, and to encourage conversations between other people about your products. Using social media as a local business can get even trickier with a more niche audience. However, it can be done, and it can be done well. Here’s a great example…
The Suburban Collection, who owns car dealerships in the Detroit area (for all sorts of brands), has been running a Social Test Drive campaign where they put local bloggers and social media influencers in the driver’s seats of cars for a few days, and ask them to use social media to talk about their experiences. Here’s what makes this campaign especially good:
- There are no requirements about how many tweets, pictures, posts, etc. each driver has to make or what types of social media to use. Zac, the Online Marketing Coordinator for Suburban, just asks that you talk about your experience and followup with at least one blog post or video or some type of content summarizing your experience.
- Equally important, there are no requirements that you only post good things about the car. Zac makes it clear that he just wants you to post what you think.
- Every test driver is recommended by a previous driver. As a test driver, you get to recommend others who you think might enjoy the experience, so it’s a nice perk to give to your network, and it’s equally nice to receive a recommendation.
- Most of the time when you go to test drive a car, you get it for about 15 minutes. The Social Test Drive lets you take the car for a weekend, giving you a better understanding of how the car handles under different conditions. Not only does this give you a better feeling for the car, it helps you give a more balanced opinion to your network.
- People trust what their friends and colleagues say more than what a company says. By putting cars into the hands of people with strong networks, The Suburban Collection, is providing the opportunity for people to have a conversation about the cars (and about the dealership brand).
Now, about the car. I drove an Acura RDX for a weekend:
The RDX is a sporty little SUV/Crossover that has nice luxury features and ride, but also handles pretty well with good pickup. It also has quite a bit of space inside considering how compact it looks on the outside:
You can fit full load of groceries in the trunk and both the backseats fold down for more cargo room:
The inside styling has a rich color palette and fairly user-friendly controls (very similar to my Mazda CX7):
Unfortunately, the RDX doesn’t get great gas mileage: 22-24 mpg highway depending on if you have an AWD or FWD model. I believe city is around 18ish. But the car does have a nice ride and good pickup for the size (turbo, which probably is also the issue with the gas mileage). I took it down a bumpy country dirt road and it was the smoothest ride I’ve ever had on that particular stretch of non-pavement.
I hadn’t really considered Acura before as a brand, but I would definitely look at their products when I’m ready. The gas mileage may be an issue when I’m ready to look for another car, but I definitely would put the RDX on my short list of contenders based on the ride, pickup and amount of interior room (we need to travel with stuff for a kid and 2 dogs, plus I like to kayak & bike).