Recently, one of our clients, who really does "get" the SEO/SEM game, asked about doing social media marketing. I had hooked him up with a copy of "wikinomics" and we were talking about some ideas. Long story short - this is really tough! 

Sites like YouTube and Digg can bring tons of traffic - but they aren't geographically targeted, and it's pretty unlikely they're 30 days from buying a car and just loved your funny dance video so much that they will buy from you. Digg, particularly, has a rep as a source of lots of traffic that NEVER converts. 

I'm not a big Digger, but I fit their demographic pretty well. Late 20s, work in the tech field, nerdy white male. I have money to spend, and I do a lot of research on the internet, but I'm fairly hesitant about pulling the trigger. 

Let's make one thing clear. You most likely don't want to spend one red cent on a PPC ad to get me, or someone like me to your site. Unless you've got a hot deal on an iPhone (right…) or some fancy new web dev script to sell, I'm your worst nightmare. Why?

• I'm a right-click>open-in-new-tabber. I have 20+ tabs open most of the time. I also have 2 widescreen monitors, so I regularly lose windows.  I might click your ad and not hit your site until 20 minutes later. Or never if you're far down the page.
• I'm incredibly skeptical. Work on the web long enough and you learn a few things: most things aren't all their cracked up to be, most prices are cheaper somewhere else, most websites don't work that well, and as soon as someone has a good idea, 20 also-ran's appear, usually not as good, but often a lot cheaper.
• I don't get halfway into something I'm going to buy. If I'm buying a pizza or shirt, it's no big deal, but once the price is over $100 or so, I probably know more about it than the salesguy.

My point is - paid search is a risky proposition for the nerdy/digger crowd. We'll eat up your budget and keep looking. Social marketing is a nice alternative: it's a branding process, and nerds love brands. People like me also love to share stuff. We like to be a the cutting edge. If you plant a good idea in our heads, we'll tell everyone we know.

But you can't fake it! The concept needs to be strong, it needs to have immediate appeal to our mindset, and when you put your sales hook in, you have to balance it just right. We know it's a glorified ad, don't try to hide it, but don't lead off with your pitch and don't cram your copy full of trademarks. 

Now, this example isn't selling any cars, but it's pretty solid. I noticed this on Digg the other day when it had about 600 or so votes. It honestly isn't very original (looks like it was inspired by a Forbes article).

But it has one subtle twist - it's title : "What Cars Do Famous Geeks Drive?"

Geeks! Geeks love reading about other geeks. Geeks also love cars. And money. So I knew what'd be #1 on the list- Bill Gate's semi-illegally acquired Porsche 959. It's a legendary car - and very fitting for Bill. You know, the whole "bending/breaking the rules to completely dominate" - that sort of thing.

The article also has a great comedic moment. Steve Ballmer drives a '98 Lincoln Continental. Here's one of the richest men in the world. Head of a behemoth. Drives a grandpamobile. I know MSFT is sitting on tens of billions in cash, maybe Ballmer's part of the reason why. Bill goes and buys a yacht, Steve rents a skidoo? 

My point is, this kind article is pretty strong Digg-bait. It's up to 1700 Diggs now, and I'm sure it's brought a ton of traffic. It's off a blog site, so that traffic is all potential subscribers or ad-clickers. Not too shabby!

Would it do any good for a dealer? Maybe a bit. There's no brand emphasis, and no geographic element, so it'd suffer a bit there. It might server well for a lead-generation program, but you'd need the infrastructure to sell off your out-of-area leads.

After thinking about that article for a bit, I came up with a related concept. I'm going to work on it a bit over the next week and post it. We'll see if we can't pull more Diggs. I think this idea would be a great illustration of the challenges of setting up a viral campaign for selling cars.