Gone are the days of only being able to buy vehicles from a dealer or the guy down the street.  Dealerships like Cincinnati Ford will typically use flashy newspaper ads to advertise the specials for the week.  Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.  When you open the newspaper and are bombarded by pages and pages of similar looking colorful spreads all advertising cutthroat deals, the print eventually begins to blur and you can’t tell whether you should visit Annapolis Mercedes-Benz or Toyota or Bob’s Used Machines.  In efforts to stay on top, dealerships will often advertise on several media platforms; print, radio, and television.  With the growing popularity of the internet, every car dealership should have some kind of webpage.  In actuality, the afore mentioned media platforms are equivalent to searching for a career with only a high school diploma; it will only get you so far.  The world of advertising is becoming increasingly dominated with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Myspace.

Experts are saying that promoting your stock of used-vehicles on social networking sites is going to continue to grow in popularity.  Also, these websites are free and your newspaper classifieds are not, and those flashy corporate media commercials that dominate prime-time television cost more than several pretty pennies.  Currently it is estimated to take 6.2 weeks for a vehicle to sell from social networking sites and less than 5 weeks for television commercial ad products to leave the lot.  That is only one week difference, plus social networking is still a growing field and it costs next to nothing! It has been said that over 2 million vehicles will be sold in 2010 via social networking media sites.  Statistics help the argument for anyone still doubting its effects: in 2008, 60.2% of social media offers resulted in actual selling of the product; in 2009 it was 68.8%; and so far in 2010 it is roughly 70%.

So next time you need to go car shopping, used or new, take a few moments to look around Facebook after writing on your friend’s wall or search your local dealership on You Tube after watching that funny cat stealing a straw upload your aunt forwarded to you.