With 79% and more of North Americans on Facebook and spending an average of 5.6 hours every day on social medias, can your dealership move more metal using social media marketing? The answer is a huge resounding YES, and in this blog, I want to show you how.
I don’t think a day goes by where we don’t get a dealer asking us if you can really sell more cars, trucks, crossovers, and SUVs by investing time and energy nurturing social media channels. I understand the question. You are already spending 12 hours a day at the dealership managing people, technology, problems, customers, incentives and financing, all that while trying to increase your sales.
Time is a luxury you don’t have. You need results!
Traditional medias are just not giving you the traction they used to. Search engine marketing is now costing an arm and a leg because every one of your competitors is bidding for the same automotive related keywords. Now to make matters worst, every time you try to have a conversation about tackling social media marketing there always seem to be a new platform rising in popularity or another one dying. Where should you put your efforts and resources to make sure you’re not missing the boat?
All you want to do is sell more vehicles. So what should you do?
Obviously, we’re not going to be able to discuss at length and depth all the countless possibilities of social media marketing for car dealers. But I do want to bring you on a quick journey that will hopefully provide you with a bird’s eye view of the plan you should thrive to have in place over the next 30 days. At the end of the blog, you should have a pretty clear vision of how everything connects and works together.
Let’s get started:
The first thing you will want to do is identify on which platforms you want to be active. The big ones for car dealers are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. YouTube is perfect for short and long form videos. Instagram is perfect for pictures, and short videos called stories. LinkedIn is ideal to reach professionals. Twitter is for whatever you can say with 140 characters or less, and Facebook is your community and where you should put most of your efforts.
Next thing you want to do is to create a schedule for each of your social media platforms. In other words, you need to define what you will be posting and how often.
The three keys are quality, consistency, and predictability.
Key #1: Quality:
The world we live in today is not one where there is a lack of information; it’s one where there is an overabundance of it! Initially, you shouldn’t worry too much about producing new content. You should first focus on curating quality existing articles and videos you find on the Web that can make the buying process of potential prospects more pleasant. Find articles that will educate your followers on safety on the roads, how to maintain a good credit score, tips to save money while maintaining a vehicle in tip top shape, financing versus leasing, how to get more for their trade, or favorable articles or videos you find featuring your models.
This strategy will position your dealership as the “go to” people for everything
automotive. Your goal is to find and post such valuable content that everybody who owns a vehicle in town wants to be one of your followers because the quality of your content makes their ownership experience more cost effective and enjoyable.
Now that you’re curating content every day, you can add to the mix life inspiring quotes, blog posts from your dealership, pictures and video testimonials of customers taking delivery of their vehicle, and sprinkle the whole thing with a few promotional items. The recipe you want to follow is the 9-1-1 rule which stands for 9 pieces of curated content, 1 piece of created content and 1 piece of promotional content. If you follow this recipe, your followers won’t mind the occasional sales pitch!
Key #2: Consistency:
When thinking about your social media channels, imagine yourself as a program director in a radio or tv station. You wouldn’t want listeners or viewers to tune in your station and hear nothing or see the color bars, right?
Unfortunately, many times when we visit dealers Facebook pages and look through their news feed, we see periods of activity where there are numerous posts in a week and other periods where there is no activity for multiple days in a row. That can’t happen.
Keep in mind that the life expectancy of a post in a prospect’s news feed is measured in minutes on Twitter and measured in a few short hours on Facebook, so a few days of inactivity on your channels is obviously a big no-no.
A good rule of thumb is to post at least once a day. Ideally twice. Remember that the more often you will curate educational content the more often you will have the privilege of posting promotional stuff.
Key #3: Predictability:
If you ever followed any TV series on the big networks or the new streaming sites like Netflix, you probably know exactly on which day and time the next episode will be playing. Imagine tuning in for the next America’s Got Talent or Game of Thrones to find out they’ve switched the schedule on you or simply decided to skip a week. How loyal would you be to the show if they did that to you on a regular basis?
Well, it’s the same thing with your fans and followers on social media. If you want to grow your audience and get people to tune in, you have to be predictable. If you start featuring a pre-owned model each Tuesday afternoon on YouTube or through Facebook live video, stick to it. If you record a podcast where you break down your manufacturer’s incentives for the month, make sure you always release it on the same date. If you review a new model every Saturday for your LinkedIn followers, make sure every Saturday morning your video or article is posted.
Predictability is the key to virality. It’s how you’re going to get your followers to tune in more often and share your content with their friends.
Every dealer tells us the same thing: “We have great vehicles and a strong sales team, if I could just talk to more people I would sell more cars!”
People are on social media. That’s where you’re going to talk to more people. Check any narcissistic tactics at the door and be informative and social. You are the automotive authority in town, so use your knowledge to educate people about everything relating to that space. Own it.
Once you have gone through the process of perfecting your voice on social media, simply share with the members of your team your experience so they can follow in your footsteps.
If you need help launching your dealership’s social media marketing strategy, don’t hesitate to ask the automotive marketing experts of Turbo Marketing Solutions. You can reach them every day at 1 800 262-0081.
Sean Cassy is the Digital Marketing Specialist and Co-Owner of Turbo Marketing Solutions. You can contact him by email here or reach him by phone every weekday at Turbo Marketing’s head office.