Digital Air Strike™ Announces Winners of Automotive Social Media and Reputation Awards at NADA Convention in Orlando

Awards Celebrate Auto Dealerships and Manufacturers Who Are Best in Class Social Marketers

Orlando, FL - (February 11, 2013) Digital Air Strike™, the nation’s leading automotive social media, online reputation and lead-response company, today announced the winners of the first Social Media and Reputation Awards at the 2013 National Automobile Dealers Association convention in Orlando, Florida.The awards showcase auto dealers and manufacturers calendar year 2012 social media performance and recognize the best-in-class marketers on the social web. Data for the awards was compiled from Digital Air Strike™ dealership clients’ Facebook Insights, the top 5 review sites (as ranked by car buyers in the 2012 Automotive Social Media and Online Reputation Trends Study: Cars.com, Edmunds, Google+ Local, Yelp and Yahoo! Local) and monitoring social web mentions/YouTube views. The winners for 2013 are…Best Dealer Facebook Ad Campaign, Individual DealerTempe Chrysler Jeep

• This award recognizes an individual dealer with the best Facebook advertising performance and 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.

Best Dealer Facebook Ad Campaign, Dealer GroupVillage Automotive Group

• This award recognizes the dealer group with the best Facebook advertising performance and 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.

Most Creative Facebook Ad CampaignRich Ford

• This award recognizes the Facebook campaign that most creatively drove virality and sharing with other users.

Greatest Local Facebook ReachPlatinum – Liberty Toyota Gold – Halleen Kia

• This award recognizes the dealers with the greatest local reach and largest in-market fan base within 50 miles of their physical location.

Biggest Social Media Impact on WebsitePlatinum – Holz MotorsGold – Executive Kia

• This award goes to the dealer who drove the most traffic from their social media websites to the dealership website in 2012. Contestants were ranked in five categories: number of referrals, number of unique visitors, webpages viewed per visit, visit duration and bounce rate.

Biggest Facebook Increase in Engaged FollowersPlatinum – Adamson FordGold – Charles Gabus Ford

• This award showcases the best single auto dealer performance using Facebook as an effective marketing tool. Qualifications included at least a 100 percent increase in “Likes” in 2012 and at least one engagement opportunity per liker in the form of ‘people talking about this”

Best Reputation for an Individual DealerNon-Luxury Brand – Norm Reeves HondaLuxury Brand – Walter’s Mercedes Benz

• 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 2012 to create an aggregate score and dealers needed at least 100 reviews to qualify.

Special Recognition – Best Social Media InnovatorVan Griffith Kia

• This award recognizes overall outstanding use of social media in a dealer’s respective market measured by increased sales and social media followers.

Special Recognition – Best Social Media Thought LeadershipParagon Auto Group

• Paragon Auto Group’s General Manager Brian Benstock has consistently demonstrated innovation and best practices in social media and online reputation management. He was recently featured in an Information Week thought leadership piece about using social media to sell automobiles.

Greatest Facebook Reach for a Manufacturer/OEM – Honda

• This award recognizes the best auto manufacturer performance using Facebook as an effective marketing tool. Qualifications included having at least 50 dealers and at least 500 ‘people talking about this’ per dealer.

Most Positive Reviews per Store for a Manufacturer/OEM – Chrysler

• This award goes to the auto manufacturer with the highest positive reviews per store who has at least 500 positive reviews in 2012 and an average of 4 stars across review sites.

Best Reputation for a Manufacturer/OEM – General Motors

• This award highlights the auto manufacturer with the highest aggregate review rating above 4/5 and manufacturers needed to have at least 500 reviews to qualify.

Biggest Facebook Increase in Followers for a Manufacturer/OEM – Ford

• This award showcases the auto manufacturer with the best performance using Facebook as an effective marketing tool. Qualifications included at least a 100 percent increase in “Likes” and at least one engagement opportunity per liker in the form of ‘people talking about this”

Most Social Media Mentions for Super Bowl Ad for a Manufacturer/OEM– Dodge Ram "Farmer"

• This award was tracked the number of overall social media mentions and YouTube views for all automotive Super Bowl ads.

Most Creative Use of Crowdsourcing for a Manufacturer/OEM – Kia "The Ride"

• This award highlights the best use of crowdsourcing to highlight customer creativity.

Supporting Quote“We are thrilled to recognize these best-in-class social marketers as they continue to innovate on both social media and review sites," said Alexi Venneri, co-founder, CMO and COO-Social media at Digital Air Strike™. “New digital marketing trends like Facebook Graph make it even more important to have a strong online presence. The Digital Air Strike™ team works to ensure that our dealer and manufacturing partners have the latest social media and reputation management marketing tools to help them engage with consumers.”

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About Digital Air Strike™Digital Air Strike™ provides the industry’s most complete automotive social media and digital marketing solution. The company developed a turnkey program that includes fully managing social media sites, online reputation, and digital lead responses for dealerships nationwide. The company offers multiple tiers of service, ranging from targeted social media and review site management to comprehensive multi-vehicle quoting with behavioral targeting capabilities. Digital Air Strike's expertise spans all manufacturer brands and has a proven track record of helping automotive dealers, dealership groups, and manufacturers engage with more consumers while delivering increased website traffic. Additional information is available at www.digitalairstrike.com and www.facebook.com/digitalairstrike.