iMagicLab announced a new social networking site this afternoon, community.imagiclab.com. The community is being billed as:
‘A new social networking site designed specifically for car dealers, auto sales people, internet sales managers and independent dealer employees’
I checked it out and it looks like they are using Ning.com for the site. I love the idea of creating forums for dealership employees and vendors to share information and ideas. It looks like they are also running the site without any ads (AdSense), which is cool, but their logo and company information is plastered throughout the site. It will be interesting to see how the site and community develop. I submitted my request to join and am waiting to see if I’m accepted into the club.
This is the second social networking site on Ning.com. The first is the Car Dealer Social Network, that has been around for awhile but whose activity has been low lately. The idea of forming these micro ’social networks’ around topics as niche as car dealerships is an interesting one. I searched Ning and found that a few dealerships have registered for a social network, but I couldn’t find any that were actually using the social network for anything other than an underdeveloped page with their dealership name. With all of these social networking sites offering ‘free’ access to anyone that has an idea, as I search around the WWW, I encounter more and more dealership names attached to ‘networks’ with no content.
If you are using any social networking service for your dealership that is producing results or whose community is active, let us know so we can explore ways to expand these services for other dealerships!!
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Hi Patrick,
Great blog! When I built the Auto dealer social network, the idea was to get enough dealers involved to where it could be self sustaining. After a month or so, there were enough active members that I wasn’t having to post 3 to 5 times per week because they were posting their own questions and answering them.
It’s dropped out lately, as you have noticed, and it’s my fault. I haven’t moderated well enough to remove the spam and keep it updated. It’s been on my agenda, but in our business, we both know that agendas get pushed aside sometimes.
Thank you for the mention. This is a very thoughtful and well-designed blog that you’ve built here. Keep it up!
Seems it was only a matter of time before these started sprouting up. Now ADP has one too. I suspect there will be more to come. Much like blogs however that are now sprouting up each day, some of these will go somewhere but most will not.
As JD can probably attest, moderating a social network is a commitment and considering the relatively low volume of users I question the viability of running one. They are certainly prospecting gold mines for the moderator, but as you will from using them it is touchy for vendors, unless of course prospecting is permitted.
What is the address for ADP’s social network so we can visit it? Thanks for the comment!
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