Digital Air Strike Highlights Winners of Social Media and Reputation Awards

A total of 13 dealerships and six different automakers received honors through Digital Air Strike’s second annual Social Media and Reputation Awards.
The Social Media and Reputation Awards are geared to showcase dealers and manufacturers for their 2013 social media performance and recognize the best-in-class marketers on the Web.
Data for the awards was compiled from Digital Air Strike dealership clients’ Facebook Insights, the top 5 review sites (as ranked by vehicle buyers in the 2013 Automotive Social Media and Online Reputation Trends Study: Cars.com, Edmunds, Google+ Local, Yelp and Yahoo Local), and monitoring social Web mentions/YouTube views.
“It is exciting to see the growth in social media marketing and review site activity over the past 12 months,” Digital Air Strike co-founder and chief executive officer Alexi Venneri said. “This is the second year that we have accumulated the data for the Automotive Social Media and Reputation Awards and we are extremely impressed at how many of the nation’s dealerships and OEMs are leveraging the benefits of using sites such as Facebook, Yelp and YouTube in their marketing mix.
“Our team at Digital Air Strike work personally with every one of our individual dealerships and OEM groups to ensure that they maximum their on-line exposure by staying engaged with their consumers, managing their social reputation, and ultimately selling more automobiles,” Vennari continued.
The 2013 individual dealer winners include:
Best Facebook Contest & Ads Campaign
This award recognizes an individual dealer with the best Facebook advertising performance, and who has created the most engaging dialogue with its fans. Contestants were ranked in five categories: click through rate, cost per click, cost per impression, cost per like, cost per action.
—Platinum Award Winner: Bob Stall Chevrolet
—Gold Award Winner: Anchorage Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram
Best Reputation
This award demonstrates superior reputation management performance across the top 5 online review sites and measured effectiveness at driving web traffic from these review sites to the dealership website. We collected the total number of ratings and scores posted in 2013 to create an aggregate score and dealers needed at least 100 reviews to qualify, must have more than 10 reviews from each key review site (Cars.com, Edmunds, Google+ Local, Yahoo Local, Yelp), and must have more than 100 customer surveys completed.
—Platinum Award Winner: Paradise Chevrolet Cadillac
—Gold Award Winner: Norm Reeves Honda Superstore
Customer Sales Satisfaction
This award goes to the dealer that has customers who have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding their car buying experience — what Digital Air Strike said is a clear indicator of the dealership‘s devotion to their customers. To qualify, a dealer must have more than 100 customer surveys completed, and 90 percent of all submitted sales surveys are four- or five-star ratings.
—Platinum Award Winner: Karl Chevrolet
—Gold Award Winner: Al Serra Chevrolet
Customer Service Satisfaction
This award goes to the dealer that has customers who have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding their car servicing experience — again what Digital Air Strike said is a clear indicator of the dealership‘s devotion to their customers. To qualify, a dealer must have more than 100 customer surveys completed, and 90 percent of all submitted service surveys are four- or five-star ratings.
—Platinum Award Winner: Bob Brown Chevrolet
—Gold Award Winner: Milton Ruben Toyota
Greatest Local Facebook Reach
This award recognizes the dealer with the greatest local reach and largest in-market fan base within a 50-mile radius.
—Platinum Award Winner: Paragon Honda
—Gold Award Winners: Sutton Ford Lincoln Mercury & Peters Auto Mall
Increase in Facebook Likes and Engagement
This award showcases the best single auto dealer performance using Facebook as an effective marketing tool. Qualifications included at least 1,000 fans by the end of 2013, and liker growth exceeding 5,000 likers.
—Winner: Merced Toyota
Most Improved Social Media Reputation
This award demonstrates superior reputation management performance across the top 5 online review sites and measured effectiveness at driving web traffic from these review sites to the dealership website. The winner must have reviews posted to 4 out of 5 review sites, and must have shown an increase in ratings on 4 out of 5 review sites.
—Winner: Tim Lally
Most Positive Yelp Page Actions
This award recognizes the dealer that has leveraged the popularity of Yelp to drive dealership interest and traffic. To qualify the dealers must have at least a four-star rating, at least 500 customer leads, and at least 2,000 page views.
—Winner: Hyundai Serramonte
The 2013 Auto Manufacturer winners included
Highest Average Star Rating
This award recognizes the auto manufacturer that has the highest positive reviews in 2013.
—Winner: General Motors
Highest Average Yelp Rating
This award recognizes the automaker that has leveraged the popularity of Yelp to drive dealership interest and traffic. To qualify the OEM must have at least 50 stores available to review, and at least 3,000 reviews in 2013.
—Winner: Hyundai
Most Positive Reviews per Store
This award goes to the auto manufacturer with the highest positive reviews per store, and who has at least 1,500 positive reviews in 2013.
—Winner: Honda
Best Sales Survey Rating
This award goes to the auto Manufacturer that has at least 8,000 customer sales surveys complete, and has customers who have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding their car buying experience.
—Winner: General Motors
Best Service Survey Rating
This award goes to the OEM that has at least 8,000 customer service surveys complete, and has customers who have provided overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding their vehicle-buying experience.
—Winner: Hyundai
Biggest Increase in Engaged Likers
This award showcases the automaker with the best performance using Facebook as an effective marketing tool. To qualify for this award, OEM must have at least 50 stores available to review, and Likers must be engaged – at least 500 “people talking about this” per dealer.
—Winner: Ford
Most Popular Automotive Viral Ad
This award goes to the automaker that created an ad that generated the greatest traffic on YouTube in 2013.
—Winner: Volvo
Most Popular Automotive Viral Ad Series
This award goes to the OEM that created an ad series that generated the greatest traffic on YouTube in 2013.
—Winner: Dodge
Dealer Air Strike is hosting a free webinar to learn social media and reputation strategies from these top award-winning dealerships.
“Find out how and why social media and reputation management are an integral part of their everyday operations,” officials said of the sessions that are set to take place three different times. Participants can register for a session either this Friday or on Feb. 13 or Feb. 19.
The registration process can be completed here.